dry tumble powder coating?

[Maximumbob54]

I find it odd that all the dry tumble in HF red that I did never would get the smooth gloss coating that they should and yet so far every single one of my ES coated with HR red look like shiny candy. I didn't change a thing to the oven and still cook them for the same amount of time. But I had to coat mine at least twice to not fail and three times if I wanted to be sure they wouldn't fail and also look good. And yet I can ES coat and bake once and they are good. I don't get it.

[freebullet]

First attempt

Attachment 92831

[freebullet]

I sprayed the boolits with homemade case lube because they required to much force to go through the push through prior to coating. The case lube is one bottle of alcohol with a teaspoon of melted lanolin and 3-4 drops of olive oil mixed and shaken well. The boolits were coated once baked once. Very bright light shows the coating isn't as even as it appears under normal lighting. I'm excited to load and shoot some of these. Its an easy process.

Attachment 92833

I tumbled them by hand in an ice cream bucket for about 5 min. With a tablespoon of hf red. I did two batches of 100+ for repeatability testing. Baked at 400 for 20-30 min. Seems they loose a hint of shine if they bake longer than 25 min.

They were sized .356 before coating and measure .358-.359 after. I did find one at .360

[res45]

Made my first attempt at PC coating bullet a few weeks ago using the TL method. I preheated about 25 bullets warm to the touch but not hot before placing them in a small container and adding about 1/2 tsp. of OD green powder a friend pick up from a friend that runs a PC coating shop he deals with at work.

Tumbled the bullets for a few minutes until they were coated to my satisfaction and using tweezers picked them up by the nose and placed them on a cooking sheet covered in foil and sprayed with a light coat of silicone. Baked the bullets at 400 degrees for 15 Min. and let cool then sized them to .359"

Bullet passed the hammer smash test with no problems. Last weekend I load up the lot with 12.5 grs. of 2400 and shot them in my Ruger BH and Taurus 357 mag. Both bores were nice and clean after shooting the loads with only a few kernels of powder residue present and at 7 to 10 yds. 2" groups or smaller were fairly easy. A friend who normally has leading issues with that load and bullet also shot the same loads and had no leading issues at all.

[Cane_man]

^^^ those look fantastic!!!

i will take 2" groups free hand at 10 yards any day

but you forgot to buy your compressor and ES gun!?! j/k

[res45]

^^^ those look fantastic!!!

i will take 2" groups free hand at 10 yards any day

but you forgot to buy your compressor and ES gun!?! j/k

Got the gun last weekend when HF had a 25% off coupon already had the compressor. It's just to cold and nasty out to use the equipment,but it will eventually happen.

[Maximumbob54]

That's the same mold that is giving me good accuracy results. Nothing else is close so far. Both PC and epoxy coating.

[prickett]

Got the gun last weekend when HF had a 25% off coupon already had the compressor. It's just to cold and nasty out to use the equipment,but it will eventually happen.

Let us know your impressions of the ES technique vs. the dry tumble method. I'd be curious to hear from someone who has tried both successfully which is least time intensive.

You might also want to experiment with just dumping the coated boolits onto a mesh rack for cooking rather than spending the time to pick them up with tweezers. It doesn't seem to make any difference to my eye, but does save a bunch of time.

[crawfobj]

I dump mine into a mesh strainer, then carefully pour them onto my pan for baking. I'm amazed at how well the tumbled powder stays on the boolits before baking. Tweezers would drive me insane.

Not the smoothest finish, but it is very fast to hand tumble in a 1lb plastic folgers can and bake. I have the ES gun but haven't had a chance to try it yet. These were all poured and baked in an afternoon:

[casca]

I have been tinkering with this since before June, THE DRY COAT OR AS I LIKE to also call it SHAKE N BAKEis by far the best method as far as time is involved. SPRAY is by far prettier .. BUT I wanna shoot em not pass em out to the lady friends.

shot some through the HANDI RIFLE 308 Winchester had some leading at the crown. anyone local to KANKAKEE, IL need 3 pounds of HF powder coating to start with and experiment. giving up on the HF coating sticking with PBTP coating Gold is great

[crawfobj]

Allpowderpaints.com has a Teflon impregnated black that sounds promising to me. Anyone tried it yet?

[bangerjim]

Let us know your impressions of the ES technique vs. the dry tumble method. I'd be curious to hear from someone who has tried both successfully which is least time intensive.

You might also want to experiment with just dumping the coated boolits onto a mesh rack for cooking rather than spending the time to pick them up with tweezers. It doesn't seem to make any difference to my eye, but does save a bunch of time.

I have posted previously SEVERAL TIMES that I have tried liquid, dry, and ES methods extensively.

The ES method is by far, the fastest, most repeatable, and best looking of them. I can spray (ONE TIME) and bake (ONE TIME) about 3-450 boolits a hour, depending on cal. With mutiple racks, I can be baking one batch while setting another batch up and spaying those. Pretty much a production line. 10 minutes @ 400F is all that is needed for a perfect bake using the HF powders.

Each and every boolit is perfectly coated with a uniform smooth coat....unlike the other methods that leave clumps, lay marks, globs, and a general VERY messy looking finish.

NOTE: the PC finish is just not cosmetic. Uneven sloppy lumpy coats lead to unbalanced wobbling loads which lead to inaccurate disappointing performing shots at the range! Coater beware!!!!!!!! This is definitely more than "lipstick on a pig", or paint, so to speak. It is part of an engineered system to allow the boolit to pass easily down the barrel leaving no lead and fly straight down the range and hit the target where you want it.

And if you have to do 2-3 coat/bake cycles for each boolit as many say they do, that is just a big waste of valuable time to arrive at an inferior product.

Do what you want. The monetary investment for ES is not that great, seeing the excellent and accurate results it yields. After all, that is the method the stuff was designed for! Pretty much everybody already has some kind of air compressor. If they don't, they REALLY need one for all kinds of other stuff around the home and place. Can you say "pneumatic tools"???????? I have over 18 different ones. And 5 compressors.

You wanted to know........there you have it. Just the bare facts.

bangerjim

[crawfobj]

I hear ya Jim. That's next on the list when I have time. What you see above is my first foray into PC. I need to get some trays made up for ES and get my gun rigged up. I can totally see how it can be done efficiently.

I will likely continue using the tumbling method for handgun plinking boolits.

Someone out there could make some $ with a conveyor oven and a little tinkering to mass produce coated boolits.

[Beagle333]

No matter how I coat em, the oven is definitely my limiting factor. This weekend, we went out for pizza and while we were sitting there eating, I noticed they had four ( f o u r ) big, beautiful, convection pizza ovens mounted in the wall and several times my wife noticed and finally asked why I kept staring at those ovens during the entire meal.

[prickett]

I have posted previously SEVERAL TIMES that I have tried liquid, dry, and ES methods extensively.

The ES method is by far, the fastest, most repeatable, and best looking of them. I can spray (ONE TIME) and bake (ONE TIME) about 3-450 boolits a hour, depending on cal. With mutiple racks, I can be baking one batch while setting another batch up and spaying those. Pretty much a production line. 10 minutes @ 400F is all that is needed for a perfect bake using the HF powders.

Each and every boolit is perfectly coated with a uniform smooth coat....unlike the other methods that leave clumps, lay marks, globs, and a general VERY messy looking finish.

I know you have. And you've repeatedly said you've gotten very poor results with dry tumble and/or its too time consuming. My results (and those of almost everyone else who has tried it) are the exact opposite. The amount of time I actually am doing work is almost nill. My tumbler does the coating, not me. This is why I asked for res45's results - to get another's results. With regards to the coat, mine are not clumped or globbed - it is quite smooth (not perfect like ES, but much better than is required). I'm not entering them into a beauty pageant (where they'd still finish second or third) - I'm shooting them in LARGE volumes. Any inaccuracy from my dry coating was not evident when compared with Klass Kote, my traditional cast lead + lube, commercial cast lead + lube, Piglet coated, or HI-TEK coated boolits. In fact, it tied with Klass Kote as the most accurate.

ES is the one coating technique I've not tried yet. I'm all about finding the quickest/easiest coating technique, so if ES is it, I'd be happy to switch. But, I don't see how hand spraying 100 boolits meticulously set upright on a metallic grid is faster/easier than dumping a handful of boolits into a tumbler, adding 2 tsp of paint and turning it on.

[Boogieman]

I know you have. And you've repeatedly said you've gotten very poor results with dry tumble and/or its too time consuming. My results (and those of almost everyone else who has tried it) are the exact opposite. The amount of time I actually am doing work is almost nill. My tumbler does the coating, not me. This is why I asked for res45's results - to get another's results. With regards to the coat, mine are not clumped or globbed - it is quite smooth (not perfect like ES, but much better than is required). I'm not entering them into a beauty pageant (where they'd still finish second or third) - I'm shooting them in LARGE volumes. Any inaccuracy from my dry coating was not evident when compared with Klass Kote, my traditional cast lead + lube, commercial cast lead + lube, or HI-TEK coated boolits. In fact, it tied with Klass Kote as the most accurate.

ES is the one coating technique I've not tried yet. I'm all about finding the quickest/easiest coating technique, so if ES is it, I'd be happy to switch. But, I don't see how hand spraying 100 boolits meticulously set upright on a metallic grid is faster/easier than dumping a handful of boolits into a tumbler, adding 2 tsp of paint and turning it on.

just shot some tumbled 45's Lee 200gr. SWC . 1 coat HF red 6shot group 50ft standing 11/2" center to center out of a 1991A1 Colt. equals the best this gun has ever done .I don't think ES will do any better.

[Solus]

wow thanks for the posts I think Ill try this again

[Mike Hughes]

I have tried all of the different methods and I prefer Freightmans dry tumble method. Freightman was the pioneer to the dry tumble. He started with the basic hand tumbling in a plastic container, then later started using a vibratory tumbler (which is the method I use) These are HF red and HF mix colors with red and yellow

[Cane_man]

^^^ that looks good, how many coats did you use?

and you actually did this without a compressor and ES gun?!?!

[popper]

Dry tumble in a plastic tub worked well for the 30/30, no leading @ 1400, sans GC. Now that cabin fever time is over and I can load in the garage, going to try for faster with 2400. I'll stick to the ESPC for 308.