a trick for tumble powder coating

[rondog]

I also bought the HF spray gun thing, I plan to powdercoat Jeep and Harley parts too, so I'll likely try spraying some bullets too. See which method I like best.

I did learn about fumes though. Couldn't really smell anything but my breathing wasn't right the rest of the night. Def gonna have the garage door open and a fan on next time!

[guncheese]

did some .40


and some 45

[MacFan]

I am fighting the 45 ACP problem right on a new 1911. Factory ammo feed perfectly, my PC cast loads not at all. The cases jam in the barrel. I am going to sizing 451 and possible factory crimp to remove the bulges in the brass case that are causing the problems. I have a match grade barrel and tolerances must be very tight.

That is why I prefer revolvers over seimi's. A revolver will shoot just about anything! You have to have the length just right, the load just right, the boolit sized just right, and hold your mouth just right to get a semi to feed and function 100%. 9mm is the absolute worst!

banger

Banger, My Colt Gold Cup 45acp is picky about reloads. I size to .451 and factory crimp for no problems.

[bangerjim]

Banger, My Colt Gold Cup 45acp is picky about reloads. I size to .451 and factory crimp for no problems.

That's my plan! Order for each is in my "cart" to order on Tuesday. Glad to hear it works for you.

banger

[sparky45]

Did a little "shake and bake" today while setting up a couple of my reloaders. Started with a gloss black for the first coat. Baked em and let em cool. Second coat of PC was a mix of HF red/white and I only tumbled/shook for about 30 seconds to see what they would turn out like. Almost coated and looked a little like Beagle333's Terra Cotta bullets, at least it's as close as I'll ever get.
Beagle333 is the Master.

[Beagle333]

I like em a lot! I gotta try those! I also wanna try to create some of Doc Holliday's orange/yellow boolits. The mixed colors make some really impressive looking boolits.

[rondog]

I have to ask, how do you guys do this with rifle bullets? Seems like they'd be a real challenge to stand upright on a tray, and get them into the oven without falling over like dominos.

[Rangefinder]

Well, I tried this new "shake-a-shake" method today, and took it a little off the deep end. I'll add, I didn't have the preferred "BLACK" magic bb's laying around, just for competition white, but they seemed to do the job. I'm on the look out for the black though.

I had a little time to kill, and cut a crude, smooth-side cavity with the intent of running it through my CVA Kodiak Mag inline .50 cal. Why? For giggles... I was curious if it could be done. Then I decided to give the airsoft method of PC'ing them a try,

Well, here is a couple cooled. Not exactly pretty, but considering I went from beginning to cut the cavity to cooling the PC'd bullets in about an hour and a half, I wasn't expecting runway performances. Truth be told, it was cut in a piece of random scrap block I had laying around because I wasn't going to waste good stock and a ton of time on something that I had no idea would even work. They're .503 on the drive band and come in at 275gr. with dead-soft.



Well, then I had to shoot 'em... After all, that WAS the whole idea.
Getting them started took a little bit of a 'pop' with the starter and I slicked the outside with an ultra-thin swirl of bore butter. But once the lands bit, they slid down the bore really smooth and seated over 60gr Pyrodex RS. I wasn't really so much interested in accuracy as I was how they would ride the bore being PC'd with no patch or wad, and only enough bore butter to start them in the muzzle. Two shots from the shoulder at 50 yards hit 1 3/4" apart and 2" low of dead-center with nice round holes. Bonus--the goofy things appear to be accurate, too! But now I'm gonna have to spend some time cutting a real mold instead of winging it with a piece of scrap!

Next came the real quest---how's the bore look? Well, I went in the house, pulled the breech plug, and shoved three dry patches through--no water, no solvent, no nothing. They were crudded just like I would expect with any muzzle-stuffer. Then I glanced down the bore to see how bad it was leaded or smeared...


Granted, my phone isn't much of a camera, and wasn't agreeing with me when I told it to focus down the bore of my inline. But I think it shows clearly enough that there is no leading--bright, shiny bore and nice, crisp lands.

I did a so-so effort at trying to dig the bullets out of my berm and haven't located them yet. On the next run I'll put some effort into recovering a couple. I'm really curious how they look now.

SO, after violating a few smoke-pole rules, I seem to think PC'ing is viable for muzzle loaders under certain applications with great potential!

[Beagle333]

It works with round balls too. Here's some Speer swaged .530's, tumbled in some green from Smoke4320

Now this has no real purpose other than novelty, since they are going to be sliding down a .56 Smoothie Renegade inside a patch..... but I think they look cool.

[sparky45]

I've got some smaller RB's that are going to get a coat of Green prior to stuffing them into a .410 shell without a shot column, they should ride nicely and cause no leading at all. Can't be to safe with all the Zombies (officials) lurking about.

[rsrocket1]

Thank you clocker, I tried the Ziplock gallon bag to massage my boolits in red HF powder and white Crossman BB's and the coverage was excellent with a minute or two of gentle massaging. No violent shaking necessary!

I used a latex glove and dipped my finger/thumb into the powder like dusting a rolling table with flour before rolling dough.

I used idz's suggestion of a glove to pick the boolits up. The glove actually improves coverage. As you pick up the bullet from the nose, gently roll it between your finger and thumb and all bare spots disappear! You can touch the sides where there are any bare spots and they also get covered with powder. Here's a picture of the top of the bullet before and after touching it with my gloved finger.


15 minutes at 375F and the boolits are ready.


Coverage looks excellent with smooth sides and no bare spots


I can't believe how easy this is. Now to load 'em and shoot 'em.

Thank you to all who've contributed to this thread. I read through all 15 pages over the last few weeks and it's been great reading.

[Beagle333]

That's really nice coverage. I didn't get that with gloves, but I didn't use a bag. I'll have to give that a whirl (or massage) next time out.
Thanks for your contribution as well!

[jmort]

Shake 'N Bake method - registered trademark of Kraft - so I guess it's SNB PC. I like that over "Gentle Massage" method. There is some shaking involved.

[popper]

Dang Rsroclet - thought I had this figured out. More things to try. Thanks.

[rsrocket1]

Well, I just made another batch by simply dropping another couple of handsfull of cast boolits into the bag, no additional powder since the BB's were all completely coated. After this massage session, the BB's are mostly white and the boolits have quite a bit of silver showing in a mottled pattern. So I simply took each boolit, stood it up on the parchment paper and consciously rolled each one between my finger and thumb 360 degrees with about 4-6 turns each. I now see 100% coverage again and just the action of rotating on the parchment paper spreads whatever powder is on the base for 100% coverage there too. Next time, I'll just add a little more powder coat powder before dumping the in the boolits, no need to skimp. I think I'll also try the HF nitrile gloves just to make sure latex isn't the magic formula.

2nd batch fresh out of the oven:

Attachment 106190

[Beagle333]

Ahhhh, latex. I didn't catch in the first post. I was using nitrile. I'll be watching to see if mebbe that's why mine didn't work so well? (I wasn't using a Ziplock bag though, just a CoolWhip tub)

[jakec]

i also tried nitrile gloves and they didnt work good. ill find some latex today to try.

[popper]

Same here withe the nitril, but they were really old & probably oily. Latex are powder coated I think (talc?).

[clocker]

Had a chance last night to test out some of the new SNB PC loads. 38 Special loaded in 4 steps (light to +P) of Bullseye. I'm pleased as punch! The center of the target is a good 16 rounds at the lighter end. It looks like there was a touch of leading at the +P range so I'll stick with the lighter loads. Boolit was a Lee TL358-158-SWC

[Beagle333]

Okay... tried it. Got some latex gloves. Dumped powder and ASBBs in ziplocks and massaged well. Boolits only took on lightly colored sheen of red or green. (I tried both colors) A lot of silver was still showing. And the gloves only rubbed more off of them, even though I dipped fingers in powder first.

So I dumped all into the CoolWhip bowls and shook good. Then tried lifting out carefully with gloves and smoothing out the boolits while they were standing on the foil. I spun them gently and tried to get a good coat. It just made it spotty. It worked exactly the way my earlier test with nitrile gloves did.

So I dumped em back and tumbled good again and picked out of CoolWhip bowl with sharpened pliers and sat on foil gently. Got good coat again.

Apparently, here with my humidity, in my static level of my work area, the pliers and CoolWhip bowl are still the best/fastest way to get a good shootable coat.

Kinda powdery, ready to bake. Maybe a little too powdery, but at least fully coated. I coulda tapped em once and it wouldn't have hurt anything.


Fresh as cookies outta the oven. Now off to the sizer...