simple Hi-Tek coating

[Thompsoncustom]

Alright melted all my boolits down and mixed them(close to pure) with 2/3 WW and water dropped them. Did 3 coats and water dropped on the last coat. Went and shot 50 of them and the first 5 were prefect accuracy wise but it seem to start drifting off.

Got home and pulled the barrel and its leading starting at half and to the end of the barrel. So I did the acetone test and I'm getting a little color on 1 out of 5 bullets. Do you guys think the coating is what's giving me problems or do I need to let me 1/3 pure to 2/3 WW age hardened for 2 weeks?

Also found a company is California that sells n-methyl pyrrollidone so I ordered some and I'm gonna run some patches through my barrel and see if any of the coating is sticking to the inside when it comes in.

[HI-TEK]

Thanks for your posting.
I dont know, but it seems to me, that you may be slightly under cooking the coatings.
Which coloured coating are you using?
Would you be able to post some pictures of the finished coated projectiles?

With NMP, please do not mix with any water or water containing materials or with any other materials, as it will not work. It must be used neat or undiluted.
Easy to use, it is best paint stripper if used neat, a bit slow but works well.

(Dont spill onto any surfaces that may be affected as it will damage most painted or synthetic materials)

When cleaning baked on coatings, simply wet area affected with NMP neat, and allow to soak.
Warming metal with hair dryer will speed up removal.
When it looks as if it is done the job, simply wipe off excess, and rinse off well with water and dry.

If you find that the coating is sticking inside barrel, then it is a sign that coating is under cooked.
If that is the case, then simply try cooking coated projectiles a little longer, (experiment a little) the coating then should harden further and will not fuse.
Please let me know how you go.

[swheeler]

When I got home this evening Fed Ex had left my Red Copper on the steps, now to find the time

[gunoil]

TC, what firearm you shooting? Do u need gas checks? What ratio of mix are you using? Dont be scared 5-1-10. But you must know how to shake. Are you shaking with lid off? I shake a lil' then take lid off then watch with my eyes dead on and you will see boolits starting to stick and dry really quick. THATS WHY YOU NEED IT THIN. Then cook/cool/repeat. Iam getting it finally. Last few sentences are the key.

[gunoil]

Swheeler, since i am a novice, iam stepping down to green color next away from metallics. I bought redcopper first. Its plain to see miculek website in green boolits. My learning curve will improve then later back to metallics.

LMAO, i just spent 775$ for star sizer w/blue stick lube and dont even wanta use the wonderful magma blue lube. Iam lazy chicken or something. Na, the HTS is just so nice for my range ammo.

[swheeler]

When I get time we'll see how it works, one never knows I bought a B&D convection oven set it at 375 with a taylor oven therm on the center rack, held 375 for 1/2 hour, turned up to 400, showed 425 on taylor therm, looks like I got a good one. My interest is rifle GC bullets, will start out at proven mediocore velocity, check accuracy and move on up if able. Who knows what HiTek might offer but intend to find out.

[Love Life]

The red/copper is challenging for sure to get a nice purty coat. I am also switching to green. I have the red copper working gangbuster's, but I want a better looking coating.

[Ausglock]

I find the red/copper more forgiving when mixed 5-1-10.
The rose red is great with a nice shiny bullet when mixed with Extreme Catalyst 5-1-10.
I have to wear sunglasses when loading my 45 TC bullets

[Thompsoncustom]

HI-Tek I Will try to get some pictures up today. I put the bullets back in the oven and I haven't found any now that I can rub any color off of. My color is Gold.

Gunoil.
All I cast for is 9mm. The load I'm using is 4.5grs bullets with a lee 124gr TL bullets OAL 1.125 should be going about 1150fps so nothing to crazy and there shouldn't be anything in 9mm that would need a gas check that I can think of.

Mix goes as follows: first coat was 1.75ml color 2.75ml acetone and 35 units catalyst. The 2nd and 3rd coats were 2ml color, 2.5ml acetone, and 40 units catalyst. I might even move the first coat to a little less color and more acetone trying to get the first coat to spread very evenly. This is used for 250ish 125gr bullets.

But you must know how to shake. Are you shaking with lid off?

Well I shake the **** out of the color before I pull 2mls from it and have 2 bullets in the bottom, Also I'm using a glass container and after the coating has been added I add the bullets and shake like crazy with the lid on I have never taking the lid off and it probably wouldn't work in this container but if it's key to have the lid off I'll find a another. I've never had the bullets start to dry while shaking only after I put them on the drying rack so there could be a problem here.

[HI-TEK]

Hi,
First I think from what you advised, that the mix ratio needs checking.
You need 5 parts of coating well mixed, one part catalyst and 10 parts solvent (Acetone).
If you are doing a small batch, take 5 mls coating, 1 mls of catalyst and 10 mls of Acetone.
This will make you about 16 mls of coating mixture.
If you wish to use US measures, you can use 5 ounce coating, add 1 ounce Catalyst, and add 10 Ounce Acetone.
Simply adjust volumes to what you wish to make in these ratios.

(You can double these amounts by taking 10 mls coating, 2 mls Catalyst and 20 mls of Acetone.
This will make you 32 mls of coating mixture.)

Important.
After barely coating with first coat, shake in mixer container until you can hear that projectiles are becoming sticky by change to a dull sound whilst shake/coating.

Adding more acetone, uses no more coating, but allows better and thinner coverage on alloy without excess.

After coating, and sound gets duller, simply dump the lot onto drying mesh. Do not disturb and allow to dry well.
(In hot conditions about 10-15 minutes should be OK. In cold wet conditions may be longer, and you can help with warm air drying so that before you place coated projectiles into the oven, they are all very dry. Most important with first coat))

After drying, place projectiles in warm oven and cook at 190C for about 10 minutes.

After about 5 minutes in the oven, you can check it by taking out tray (with gloves) shake to mix around the projectiles and place them back again for 5 more minutes.
This way, you will get better and more even baking and colours will all be the same.

Generally, what is found that small ovens do not have very good temperature regulations and dial temperature is not always what happens inside oven.
That is why some have problems with cooking cycle and time.

My suggestion is that you take about 15-20 dry coated projectiles, place them into oven, cook for 10 minutes. Take them out. Then repeat this with another 15-20 again, and this time, leave them in for 11 minutes.
And so forth.
You will see colour changes with every extra heating time taking place.

If you then do your Acetone test and smash test, you will get better idea of what you need to achieve.

Thereafter, you can simply reproduce most successful results using your cooking methods and equipment.

With lid on or lid off is not that important. If your mixture dries too quickly whilst coating, simply add a little Acetone ( a few mls) to mix bucket, ( no more coating mixture) and continue coating/shaking.

I hope this all helps.
HI-TEK

[Ausglock]

Thompsoncustom.
Personally... I think you are mixing too small of a volume for coating.
Mix a larger amount and don't be scared to use it.
I coat in a 1 gallon plastic bucket with 200 to 300 9mm bullets at one time. I use about 7 to 10 mls each time to coat with the 5-1-10 mix.

[Stephen Cohen]

Ausglock as a matter of interest what size and brand of oven do you use, you certainly seem to have it down pat.

[Ausglock]

Ausglock as a matter of interest what size and brand of oven do you use, you certainly seem to have it down pat.

G'day.
It is a Sunbeam BT7000. retravision have them for $145AUD.
I only cook on the middle tray.

[Stephen Cohen]

Yes I looked at one yesterday it was one of two that had the fan, thanks for the info.

[gunoil]

get a large cool-whip plastic container. Works great! I shake while then take lid off and shake and look.

See the white fan on floor, the rack is cheap with staple gun and stucco mesh from H depot. I even dry my brass and kool lead boolits too. Fan is good/5$@estate sale.


I do nines, KEEP it simple,just a few techniques. I will do some gas check boolits in the future. You saw utubes in first page?

[hawaii five-0]

When checking accuracy of oven temperature, it seems that the stick style of thermometer is faster/ more accurate than the dial type. I tried both. The stick style says "Five Star" and "Professional" on the package. Maybe they should change label to say "The one that works"

[gunoil]

get a large cool-whip plastic container. Works great! I shake while then take lid off and shake and look.

See the white fan on floor, the rack is cheap with staple gun and stucco mesh from H depot. I even dry my brass and kool lead boolits too. Fan is good/5$@estate sale.


I do nines, KEEP it simple,just a few techniques. I will do some gas check boolits in the future. You saw utubes in first page?

Just read ausglocks stuff, one or two sentences, no big deal, no rocket engineers/nasa stuff.

[Love Life]

I coat about 100 38 specials and bout 75 45 acps at a time. I have a glass measuring cup and mix 5 tsp of coating/1 tsp catalyst/10 tsp of acetone. I apply my first coat kind of heavy. You can see it on the boolits. The second coat is the same as the 1st and gives anywhere from 90%-100% coating.

In all reality I care less if the nose of the bollits are coated. I want the driving bands well coated. I need to call Donnie for some green. Then I can have Christmas themed magazines with green and red boolits!!

[gunoil]

I do same. thin on first/second. LL you shake with lid off? Iam thinking over 10 accetone sometimes in my learn curve.

[Love Life]

I shake with the lid off. What I do is I tilt the coffee can so all the boolits are in a little pile. I then shake the bejesus out of my juice bottle full of 5-1-10. As soon as I'm done shaking I pull the top and squirt some directly onto the little pile of boolits. I rotate the coffee can so the boolits swirl through the coating and alternate back and forth shaking to allow them to tumble some as well. I tumble for about 20 seconds or until I see the swirl start to slow. Dump in one fluid motion so they spread out and arn't touching. I usually let them dry overnight, or a couple days. I'll coat through the week and then start baking Saturday morning. As the boolits cool from the 1st bake I'll coat them again and leave them alone until Sunday after church. Once I get home I bake them the second time.

I usually bake for 8 minutes but have left them in the oven up to 11 minutes. They had some color change, but passed the swipe and smash test. After that I size them through Lee sizers and toss them in a coffee can to be loaded at a later date. I love the stuff. It just plain works. I still need to get some green though...