ES coating takes too long and is too much of a mess

[kryogen]

ES coating takes too long and is too much of a mess

I find it really inconvenient, and I always get flashes at the base.

One option would be to buy plates, and then glue nuts, etc etc, but I don't know, all that powder spraying is a mess, and I just find that it takes way too much time to handle every boolit, place it on the nut one by one, plus the base is not covered. Not convenient for bulk pistol bullets.

As for dry tumble, it gives a really unfinished look, and it takes 2 cookings, which I am not willing to do. Plus you again mess with powder.

Maybe I should try the powder+acetone tumble method, drop on a screen and then cook. I don't know.

Or trash that 3 pound of powdercoat + ES gun and just buy hi tek coating?

Those methods give nice results, but it just takes too much of my time... I want to find something fast.

[hickfu]

I may do 2 coats but they definitely dont have an unfinished look.... I have not tried ESPC yet and I may never since DT is just so easy.
I have 2 little ovens so I can do 1 coat in one and the second in the other while the first gets fed more.....



Doc

[flyingmonkey35]

the only thing i find tedious standing the little guys up, i found that if i use a old plastic ammo tray from a 45 acp i can load them up pretty fast upside down on one tray flip it over to my NSfoil tray. move pull the trays off and coat them with ESPC with relative ease.

i tend to over-spray a bit but that's ok, HF read is cheap.

and my boolits look pretty and shoot fantastic.

Who wants a Decent You Tube video of these being done?

[xacex]

Do these look unfinished? 1 minute tumble, put them on foil and bake for 20min at 400F. Super easy, fast, and darn near as good as spraying them. I agree, the gun makes a mess.

[flyingmonkey35]

I spray them in a cardboard box. hardly any mess. to clean up.

[kryogen]

how do you manage the excess powder? just add what is required, then drop on foil and bake? do you stand the bullets to bake? what are those balls in there?

I am trying to find a process that is fast and easy. shake, drop, bake, done.
ESPC is nicer, but doesnt coat the base, takes too long, and is quite messy.

handling them after coating makes the finish look bad, and using pliers is too long.

[xacex]

You cant have it all.

Read through this thread. It shows what I just did here.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...powder-coating

[flyingmonkey35]

check out the below thread for how that is done.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...powder-coating

[dilly]

I think what you want is dry tumbling. You may have to try a few things to tweak your process, but I really think it can get you what you want.

The right powder, the right tub, the right air soft BB's, and it should work pretty well.

Standing them up is tedious but necessary, but you shouldn't need to get two coats.

[hanleyfan]

I rather enjoy doing all this, sure beats the old traditional lubing methods, setting the boolits up to bake is not all that frustrating, in fact I find it rather soothing, just relax and take your time doing it and you will be amazed how many you can put out in no time. In fact I just ran out of boolits to cover and am casting so I can powder coat some more, I think it is rather addicting.

[bangerjim]

how do you manage the excess powder? just add what is required, then drop on foil and bake? do you stand the bullets to bake? what are those balls in there?

I am trying to find a process that is fast and easy. shake, drop, bake, done.
ESPC is nicer, but doesnt coat the base, takes too long, and is quite messy.

handling them after coating makes the finish look bad, and using pliers is too long.

You do NOT need to coat the base with ESPC! Serves no purpose....does not replace GC's. Don't worry about it.

The ESPC flash comes off when you size them with you Lee sizing die. You DO size, right? I do after casting and PC'ing.

I have VERY little excess powder when I do ESPC. If your gun and pressure are adjusted properly, you get a light gentle flow out of the nozzle and MOST of the powder is attracted to the boolits and foil as it is designed to do with the high tension charge. I would review your operating procedures of the gun. You are probably using way too much powder.

If you want simple drop and bake (or dry), you might as well go back to the antiquated 45/45/10 and live with smoke and leading. PC does take a little more time but it is well worth it. After all, how may boolits do you need to coat at a time?????????? I do several hundred at a time and never have time to shoot all those. Just stock pile them for later.

I now use the dry powder method a lot after playing around with the original ideas by hanleyfan and refining the process by using the black Airsoft bb's and swirling AND shaking hard. If the directions are followed as I listed in the "trick" thread, you can get almost a 99% ESPC quality. You do have to pick them up with hemostats or similar and set them on NS foil. If you have a problem with picking them, I am truly sorry. You are missing out on an excellent cheeeeeeep process to coat.

Nothing is perfect, but PC is darn near there! There are now probably thousands of people on here that agree and are moving away from old grease lubes and grease machines.

Have fun with what ever method you decide on. PC may not be for you.

bangerjim

[Rottweiler]

You do NOT need to coat the base with ESPC! Serves no purpose....does not replace GC's

Glad to see I'm not the only one who says this

[Beagle333]

I've said this from the start as well. I'm open to any test results, but I have trouble accepting from speculation that a film of polyester, 1/1000 of an inch thick, will serve in any way as a gas check. I also read this forum from time to time , and I do not recall seeing one statement claiming that it does.

I see a lot of folks who wanna see the base coated, but I think that's just for the "complete appearance."

[mdi]

After reading the original post, I'd say just stick with jacketed bullets...

I've only done a thousand or so PCed bullets and have none of the complaints mentioned. I've tumbled, tumbled with acetone, and ES sprayed. I find these methods to give much better results, and is much cleaner than tumble lubing and/or pan lubing. I can handle the PCed bullets as many times as necessary and not get any wax or alox lube everywhere.

[Rottweiler]

Not only is it not is not going to serve as a gas check. but think on this for a minute......The melting temperature of powder coat paint is about 300-400 degrees. What's the temperature of burning powder? I'd say the PC on the base of the boolit is going to be molten not long after it passes out of the case mouth.

[xacex]

Not only is it not is not going to serve as a gas check. but think on this for a minute......The melting temperature of powder coat paint is about 300-400 degrees. What's the temperature of burning powder? I'd say the PC on the base of the boolit is going to be molten not long after it passes out of the case mouth.

You can run a hand through a cutting torch used for steel without getting burned, why couldn't you shoot a boolit without the powder coat melting? You are talking about milliseconds of high heat contact under pressure. I have shot overall about 5k of these things, and recovered many. The PC is not charred, and is still intact on the base. I can tell you that because there is a slight odor when shooting them that they do heat up to about the baking temperature, but since there is no smoke the powder is not remelting. I have also re baked pc boolit over the cure temperature to do heat treating, and the surface did not remelt.
The problem with the idea of replacing a gas check with p/c is not the melting of the paint, but the hardness of the material, and the lead underneath it. P/C basses will deform under high pressure unlike a gas check.

[Artful]

Not only is it not is not going to serve as a gas check. but think on this for a minute......The melting temperature of powder coat paint is about 300-400 degrees. What's the temperature of burning powder? I'd say the PC on the base of the boolit is going to be molten not long after it passes out of the case mouth.

The burning point of paper is 451 deg F - examine any paper patched bullets?
What's the melting point of the polycarbonate plastic or nylon sabot used in the Remington Accelerator rounds at 4000 fps?

[flyingmonkey35]

Powder coating can also be removed by a burning off process, in which parts are put into a large high-temperature oven with temperatures typically reaching an air temp of 1100 to 1500 degrees with a burner temperature of 900. The process takes about four hours and requires the parts to be cleaned completely and repowdered.*

No bullet in a barrel gets hot fast enough or long enough to melt the coating off.

Source

[URL][/ http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_coating ]

[flyingmonkey35]

This should put this issue to rest.


How hot is a bullet when fired?

Answer

That varies depending on the cartridge, and how far the bullet is fr


om the firearm in flight. Bullets are heated both from the explosion of gunpowder, and friction as they are forced up the barrel, but begin to cool very quickly. A physics group made a study of measuring the temperature of a bullet in flight using high speed cameras that could measure temperatures from the infrared light emitted by a hot object. Using a 5.56mm firearm (similar to the M16) they found that the bullet was about 513 degrees F measured about 10 ft from the muzzle.

Source

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_hot_is...let_when_fired

[sbeatty1983]

I put them in a45acp ammo box nose down and use that to stand tyhem on their bases on an aluminum screen. I spray them in a rubber made tub and reuse the excess powder