New wrinckle to my easy pc.

[popper]

prickett - ESPC with HF red, did the dry powder with HF white on 308 boolits. Red comes out looking like post 53. White looks almost as good. I've left them cooking as long as an hour @400F & below, then WD (even checked) works fine. I don't get the dark color you did. I'm doing the HF specified cook then drop the temp 25-50F for the rest of the time. When I recook (got interrupted on a batch and they AC before I got to them) I drop down to 375F. Seems like recooking above 425-450 gets them a little sticky. I'm doing HiTek for pistol now but may use the dry HF Red for my daughter - so the SIL won't shoot all her ammo.

[prickett]

Great looking Boolits! This is the How to thread, but where is the What to use thread?

Where ever you start it

I do agree it'd me most useful, and should also be made a sticky.

[prickett]

I don't get the dark color you did.

The color may have to do with my tumbler. I did try HF black in it previously. Maybe the darkness is resulting from residual black. That is kind of hard to believe though, as I've done at least 20 tumbles since then, and the color isn't lightening. It may just have to remain a mystery - but with a fortuitous result - as I like the brown color better than red. My first attempt was a small batch done in tupperware, rather than my tumbler, and they came out red.

When I recook (got interrupted on a batch and they AC before I got to them)

I ran into that problem yesterday, where my cook ended and I didn't realize it until 5 or 10 minutes later. Any idea on how long you can wait between the oven turning off and water dropping, before the WD process is no effective?

I'm doing HiTek for pistol now but may use the dry HF Red for my daughter

I did your re-cook heat treatment on a set of HiTek as well, to see if accuracy improves/decreases. As the cook finished, I remembered that over cooking is supposed to make the coating brittle. I did a smash test and was pleased to see complete adhesion, so maybe not, with regards to brittleness. I'll be testing HF dry coat (w/heat treatment), HiTek (w/heat treatment), and Klass Kote (both with and without heat treatment) to see how accurate they are. Klass Kote is only cooked at 200F, so I'm testing it to see if the 200F reduced hardness or not.

I didn't realize accuracy was suffering until I shot last weekend and compared HF vs. traditional lead. HF was too soft, resulting in about a 5" spread, compared to a 2" spread with traditional lead. HF was too soft because the baking of the paint undid the WD hardening that the traditional lead still had.

[w0fms]

Do you guys think that placing a tupperware-type container on top of a vibratory tumbler (duct taped down or some other way.. ty-wrapped, etc.) would work for an experimentation? I find THIS interesting as I like to coat all sides. To do this with ESPC you need to do 2-3 coats.

I'm thinking this for the first coat, and then ESPCing on a flat plate for a second could result in perfection for my perfectionist tendencies. I also wonder if spraying/tumbiling the boolits in something "sticky" first could help. I am at a loss as what that would be those as it'd have to be something that baked off... Yet another thing to try...

[prickett]

Do you guys think that placing a tupperware-type container on top of a vibratory tumbler (duct taped down or some other way.. ty-wrapped, etc.) would work for an experimentation? I find THIS interesting as I like to coat all sides. To do this with ESPC you need to do 2-3 coats.

I'm thinking this for the first coat, and then ESPCing on a flat plate for a second could result in perfection for my perfectionist tendencies. I also wonder if spraying/tumbiling the boolits in something "sticky" first could help. I am at a loss as what that would be those as it'd have to be something that baked off... Yet another thing to try...

For experimentation purposes, just tumble by hand in the tupperware. I did on my first batch. Doesn't take long - maybe 4 minutes.

I don't think you need to worry about spraying with something sticky (though it has been done successfully in another thread). With the right "kind" of paint, you'll get plenty of adhesion. Finding the right kind of paint will require trial and error - though most find HF Red to work. I believe HF White (see Poppers post #82 above) and Yellow also have been used successfully.

[w0fms]

Ok thanks.. I need to cast and coat a few hundred 9mm 125gr.. and also water drop them.. so it'll be an "everything project".. probably Christmas to New Years... I wonder if charging them up with the ES machine first is advantageous.. will have to see...

[prickett]

I just completed a test. First I determined the hardness of my water dropped boolit. Then I cooked a boolit for 25 minutes at 400F (simulating HF dry coat). It had gotten softer. I then cooked for 60 minutes at 400F then water dropped. It got softer still!

NOT what I had hoped for.

I did a second test to simulate Klass Kote. I first determined the hardness of my water dropped boolit. Then I cooked the boolit for 30 minutes at 150F (simulating the heating up to speed up the setting of the Klass Kote). It retained its original hardness.

That is good news

Finally, I determined the hardness of my water dropped boolit. Then I cooked the boolit for 10 minutes at 400F (simulating cooking HiTek). It had gotten softer. I then cooked for 60 minutes at 400F then water dropped. It too got softer.

Popper says cooking for an hour, then water dropping works, but I'm not seeing it in my experiments. Did I miss a step that you can see Popper? I want for the ability to re-harden my boolits!

[popper]

No arsenic in your melt? - add shot. I use Cu in mine (no Sn), they harden in a day (HT), without it, may take a few days to get to hardness when HT'd. Yours should harden, just takes a month or so. I'm assuming that you WD when casting and they set for a while before coating? I heated some to 200F for a short period & AC. Made them totally soft, just as Felix said. Same results as you with HiTek for me, I drop the temp to 350 for the HT. Worked in the 9 fine. I don't have a BHN tester, just a scale to measure #s need to indent. I don't see any BHN increase due to any coating material. I recovered some PCd 40s, >90% wt. retention, couldn't find any HiTek coated 9s. Maybe SIL was aiming at a different place. Anyway, he shot all the ammo I gave him (~200 rnds) and no problems, no leading, accurate.

[prickett]

I used COWW's. I was reading up on Cu for a while, but abandoned it when it appeared I needed a PHD in chemistry to understand how to do it, and then I discovered these new coatings - thinking hardening wouldn't be an issue any more. I found that hardness matters for two things, only one of which the coatings address. Coatings prevent leading, but too soft lead still results in poor accuracy.

My test above allowed no time to harden. Hardness tests were taken immediately after I pulled the quenched boolits from the water. Additionally, as I've been testing these coatings, I run small tests, usually within a week of coating them. It sounds like my problem is shooting them too soon after coating them. Giving them a few weeks to harden might be the solution.

[Freightman]

they get harder with time to a certain point.

[DRNurse1]

Where ever you start it

I do agree it'd me most useful, and should also be made a sticky.

Maybe a sub forum for now then a sticky when the process matures. As far as starting a What to use thread, well that would be like a politician trying to tell you how to provide your health care....(that was too damn serious to be as funny as I intended!).

[crawfobj]

Great work guys. I've been on the fence on this, but now it looks like it's time to get some powder and an oven. This looks like just the ticket for running cast through a suppressor.

[Freightman]

I just reuse my powder and have got some interesting colors silver, fushia, pink, purple, wine color ect. darn this is fun

[Mike Hughes]

Freightman, weren't you the first to do the dry tumble method which is becoming more popular. I have been using your technique and getting good results. I ordered these 3 colors from allpowderpaints.com. The coating is really slick and looks almost as good as using the gun, but much easier, no mess, and use way less powder. these are all 1 coat

[doctorggg]

Very nice looking boolits.

[doctorggg]

Mike,

I just went to allpowderpaints.com. There are multiple categories to order from. Which category are you ordering from?
Thanks doctorggg

[Freightman]

Freightman, weren't you the first to do the dry tumble method which is becoming more popular. I have been using your technique and getting good results. I ordered these 3 colors from allpowderpaints.com. The coating is really slick and looks almost as good as using the gun, but much easier, no mess, and use way less powder. these are all 1 coat

I don't know Mike I started it because I hate the smell of acetone and solvent and I am lazy also. I never put more than one coat on I don't see the need

[Mike Hughes]

on the main page, click color selector, then select solid colors. My colors are Arctic Cat green, mirror blue and RAL 4006 (pink)

[doctorggg]

Thank you very much Mike. I love your colors.

[flyingrhino]

I've tried the dry tumble method with HF Red and don't care for the results. I didn't get good coverage, even after 2 coats and I had blemishes from the wire mesh and heavy spots from excess powder. If i shook the tray too much to remove the excess I got more blemishes. The first coat looked better but had too many voids. Adding the second coat just made things worse. I get much better results with the acetone method.

I still think this method is VERY promising. The wet method works well but if I can get away from the nasty solvent fumes I'd like to. I ordered some powder from allpowderpaints.com and will try those with the dry tumble method. I think it's just getting a powder and process that go together well.

Back when I shot high power competition I used a vibratory tumbler with bb's and moly powder to coat my jacketed bullets. Has anyone tried this method with the powder paint?