It's been 9 days without a word from down under. I'm getting a little worried. Did Oz sink?
hahahahahaha...
No.. We are still here..lol
Joe has sent 24 new coatings to test.
I have made 8000 135gn RN to use for the testing.
The old Rose Red liquid coating has been made into a powder and is still one of my favourite reds.
There is a new Caramel (Carmel to you northerners) colour.
Have tried a few violets, but no luck with them.
The pinks are still elusive, but getting closer.
Joe sent some new mixes to try for a brighter Blue, so I have a lot of tests still to do.
Hooroo.
Regards, Trevor.
Australia
We are all still here, didn't sink, but may have dried out with the lack of rain in these parts.
Interesting news Trevor, hope they work out well. Haven't heard from Joe recently, so good to hear he is still churning out his powders. Seems you haven't managed to offend him enough to cut you off from his supplies
One interesting thing to come from testing for a Blue, is that I dropped my bake temp from 200Deg C for 7min:30sec to 195deg C for 7min 30 sec. this 5 deg drop has made a fair difference to the final colour.
I was surprised how much lighter in colour some of the coatings have baked. Even the Kryptonite Green that I use all the time is a lighter green. The wipe and smash tests still pass with flying colours..
Hooroo.
Regards, Trevor.
Australia
Very nice, it really shows temperature does make a difference. Joe was saying it needed 180c for 8 minutes to cure wasn't it? so lower temperatures but for longer to ensure they reach the 180c should still cure and retain a lighter colour.
the Alloy has to remain at or above 180Deg C for a minimum of 3 minutes....The Alloy Temp.... not the oven temp.
Hooroo.
Regards, Trevor.
Australia
That's 356 Deg F for you guys who don't speak metric so you will not have to look it up. I preheat my oven to the temp and then put the bullets in. Normally I bake mine around 400 F bullet temperature for 12 minutes. And they are a little darker. When I want it to be closer in color I drop the temp and time. I've had cured bullets as low as 360 F and 10 minutes. Never tried anything lower than that temp. and 8 minutes. Of course everybody's oven is a little different, air circulation, ability to recover etc.
Waiting on the new Auburn Orange and Blue.
Been dry and hot here, too. Good news is the humidity has finally let up. Was running in the 80% range for a while. Coating drys real good a 30% humidity.
Was doing some reading on high seasonal temperatures and it looks like it was hotter here back in the 1920s and 30s than now by about 10 F. Humidity was high then, too. I can remember a summer in 1977 when it was 108 in the shade where I was in Tennessee. Humidity was awful. We didn't have an air conditioner and my aunt took pity and bought a window unit for us. To top it off my wife was pregnant with our first child. She really was suffering.
While I work at it, it is by God's grace that it happens. So it is best I ask him what, how and when before I start..
Tested 1st coat of a new Blue mix last night... Must say that it looks like the Old boy has hit the jackpot.
Will see how the second coat bakes tonight.
Over winter, we had humidity down to 8% but temp was still 15Deg C. Bloody dry spell is killing everything.
Hooroo.
Regards, Trevor.
Australia
Good to hear the new blue looks good, i'll have to pre-order some off him
Never checked the humidity further north of you, but was pretty dry up here, still no bloody rain here either, nothing serious due till early 2020, or so they say. Everything that used to be green is now brown.
We went from winter to summer up here, no spring was in sight, not looking forward to summer this ear, not at all.
I loaded and shot 50 cast 130gr 9mm. The leading in my barrel cleaned up significantly after washing the bullets in hcl before coating and baking. Definitely a massive improvement since my last test session. There is still a tiny bit of lead in the rifling grooves, and some slight residue right at the start of the rifling. Though I'm not sure if it was lead or not. It wiped out with a wet patch.
As an aside, do properly hitek coated/sized/loaded bullets smoke much when fired? In comparison to jacketed?
The amount of smoke will depend on your powder. Fast powder like AP-50 will give a bit of smoke. A slow powder like AP-100 will give a lot. Barrel length, comp ports etc etc all have a bearing on smoke. If the coating has failed during transition down the barrel, there will be more smoke as well.
Give you an idea....My Trubor Open Gun fired around 320 rounds at the Grafton IPSC match a few weeks ago. 1 patch wet with Hoppes was pushed down the barrel. followed by a dry patch. Only thing on the wet patch was powder fouling. Internal of the barrel is mirror bright. Even the Comp ports are clean. That was running a 125gn SWC with 2 coats of Kryptonite green sized .3565" in a .355" bore.
Velocity was around 1350 fps. in 38 Supercomp.
Hooroo.
Regards, Trevor.
Australia
Glad your getting good results now, was the acid bath on the lead from norhtern smelters? as it should have been good to go without.
Honestly, i don't notice a whole lot of smoke, nothing like people that are shooting lubed lead. I feel that most of the smoke we get is the powder, not the coatings. I use AP70, it's not a really clean burning powder, yet my loads are not sedate, so it will burn most of it up.
I used 4.1gr of hodgdon universal. I was using ap70 before that. I only asked because some seemed to smoke more than others.
Yes this was foundry lead I tried. I'm yet to try foundry without acid washing, or scrap lead with the acid wash. I'm in the process if purchasing a new house (where I will have my own shed/workshop!) so haven't had a lot of time to shoot. It'll be all go once we've moved.
Good luck on the move, i'm still in the process of doing up my old house to put on the market, so i know what it's like to have zero free time to play.
Hopefully you can get your scrap lead to work well with hi-tek, that's what i use, and have no bonding issues, so it can be done
https://pilgaardelements.com/Niobium/Reactions.htm
Don't know what you got in your alloys down there, About all HCL will do is remove oxidation.
Whatever!
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |