About a week ago I managed to break my HF sprayer, which has faithfully served me up until this point. I have had no gripes with the HF gun that couldn't be fixed with a pressure regulator, but I don't have the space in my garage to leave it set up at all times, and dragging out the foot pedal, box, and sprayer and plugging everything together was a minor chore that occasionally stopped me from doing small batches of PC.
After breaking my gun I clipped a 20% coupon and walked into my local HF store planning to buy a new one. However, I was disappointed to see that they were out of them.
I headed home and searched for a new one, and saw HF had the gun still priced at $80 ($70 on sale). I started searching other options out of curiosity and saw that there are very few sprayers and even fewer designs for sale out there. A PC sprayer is a pretty simple device, so I guess the need for complexity is low.
Searching on Amazon, I found the "Electric Portable Powder Coating Gun System, No Air Compressor Needed" which looks identical to (And probably IS identical to) the old Craftsman gun a lot of us considered back when PC was just becoming a thing on here. I know most folks went with the HF gun, as I did, but I decided for 50 bucks, I'd give this thing a shot.
http://www.amazon.com/Electric-Porta...owder+coat+gun
I got it today and was very pleasantly surprised. It's your typical Chinese piece of hardware, same cheap plastics and feel as the HF gun and it wasn't expected to be any different in that regard. However, all the parts fit together well and more importantly it was dead simple! There's a jack on the back of the gun that runs to the "juicebox", which is about a quarter the size of the one for the HF unit. The box has a lead and alligator clip that you attach same as the HF gun, and you start spraying. That's it. No annoying pedal, no need for an air compressor, no nothing. Just put in some powder coat paint and start spraying.
MOST IMPORTANTLY, the ground line and power cable are LOOONG and easy to deal with- much better than dealing with the short ones on the HF box in my opinion.
I tested it on some of my favorite .44s, the Lyman 429303 and a new to me Mihec .44 HBWC. Coverage was good and "overspray" was minimal compared to the HF gun (I'll admit I used the dinky little standard regulator, so getting some "overflow" was a normal thing for me with the HF gun). At max power (dictated by how hard you pull the trigger) the spray was even, easy to apply, and not wasteful. Spraying took no more time than it would with the HF gun. After baking, the coating was about 0.0015 thick on my boolits (I used sized boolits at 0.430 that were mic'd at 0.431 to just below 0.432) and it sized back down easily.
Overall I am very favorably impressed! This unit is cheaper than the HF gun, works just as well for my needs, and doesn't require me to drag out my air compressor or anything like that. Powder waste was never something I bothered to mitigate, because I use mainly the HF powder and it's dirt cheap, but the flow of the portable gun made that a nonissue anyway. Everything landed on the aluminum foil on my baking sheet with no issues. If you like the more expensive powders I can definitely see using this instead.
Another plus is that in changing colors, this gun is much easier to do than the HF gun (unless you have multiple cups, and even then you still have a fairly large amount of the old powder trapped in the HF gun that will color your next few sprays). You just rotate the "lock", slide out the powder cup, and empty it out then rinse it. Couldn't be simpler.
Long term durability remains to be seen, but it's not like it's chief competitor, the HF gun, is any ironclad design either- I broke mine through fairly light use, and most of the wear probably came from packing it in its box and removing it as I didn't want to leave it out all the time.
So for those of you with space concerns, or who don't want to leave your gun out, or who just don't want to fool with an air compressor (I fit all three of those conditions) then drop the $50 on this thing. You'll be very happy.
It's also significantly quieter than running most air compressors... it's quieter than my dinky garage one, and it's one HECK of a lot quieter than my huge shop one (although the HF gun probably would explode if I attached it to that, lol!) The noise level is pretty much equal to a hairdryer, which is probably because that's all this really is- a hairdryer that imparts a charge to powder.
Doesn't look like much, although I think I can see some Hi-point heritage in that grip and trigger, but for $50 you really can't beat this.
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Originally Posted by Lucky Joe
I'm talking about your boolits. I love seeing well coated bullets.
