Has anybody tried the "other" HArbor Freight colors?

[tomf52]

My first attempt today at the shake and bake coating went very well with the Harbor Freight red. They also had white, yellow, and dull black on the shelf. Has anybody tried these and what were your results? I would like to use the dull black if it works too.

[RP]

Red seems to work the best yellow needs two coats most of the time black fails on shake and bake and white is good for mixing with red to make pink for the ladies

[Walter Laich]

the matt black won't work in the shake and bake method.

The white and yellow don't cover well for me. Red is OK but the commercial powders are so much better.
Once you try that you probably won't go back to HF stuff

[Slenk]

I use HF powder also because it is close to me. Red works pretty good, Yellow is OK, as well as White . Black is OK if you mix with one of the other colors . and then it takes two coats for good coverage.
Red & Yellow makes Orange. White & Black will make Gray but takes 2 coats .
I use the shake & bake method .

[retread]

I spray so they all work quite well. I mix different combinations to get some neat colors and effects. I hear it is not the powder for tumble coating however.

[therealhitman]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnEd3ezQy74

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn4MlMxXUuc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDKId51sDa4

[RogerDat]

If you shake and bake most report the HF colors other than red work poorly. You pay more for the better quality stuff but....
Might want to give this person a try. They have tested the products to determine if shake & bake will work with each one or if only can be used with sprayer. http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...raying-bullets

[rockshooter]

I discovered something lately- but this needs to be replicated by someone else.- The Harbor Freight red coverage is so-so, and Smokes "bacon grease" is the same, but mixed 50-50, coverage is 100%. The color comes out an oatmeal brown.
Loren

[rbuck351]

Approximately how many 30cal 180gr boolits would you expect to coat using the shake and bake with better powders and what do they cost? I want to try this but I don't want to mess with something that doesn't work well. I really don't want to coat anything twice.

[Spector]

Then smoke's powders are for you. I don't know how many thousands of bullets a pound of his powder will coat, but I gave away about half of my powder to a shooting buddy. I have coated thousands of boolits myself and still have plenty of powder left.

As far as ease of application using ''shake & bake'' I like his clear powder coat the best. it looks like a powdered donut coating until it glosses over in the oven and then it stays clear at that point. It is the easiest for me to gauge the coating thickness before baking. it seems like it coats the most consistently of any of the powders I have tried using ''shake & bake with air soft BB's added whether the humidity is low enough for static to be present or it is raining heavily outside or just a hot muggy summer day in Indiana.

Others here love their colors and l have to admit a fondness for Smoke's ''signal blue'' myself. It is easy to apply and gives good coverage. I can't say it's as easy as the clear, but if not it is very close to being as easy.

Recently a fellow showed a little concern at our range because I was shooting ''steel''. I assured him I was only shooting cast lead and not copper jacketed. Still all he could see were blue, green, red and purple bullets. I have returned to my clear coat roots so they can easily see they are just plain cast lead boolits with a little gloss to them.

I probably have 4 pounds of Harbor Freight red in a filing cabinet in my den that I never use now. Smoke's clear and others are just so easy to apply, Try it and you will wonder why you ever worried about the cost. I have a HF powder coat gun and compressor I have never bothered to set up. Shake and bake is just so easy for me, especially with his powders. Other members here use other brands of powders as well and seem to have great success with them. The only way Smoke's powders could be any easier for me is if ''powder coat fairies'' coated them at night while I sleep. grin...........Mike

[newton]

I am guessing here, but you may be putting 3-5 grains(maybe only 2) on a boolit. 7000 grains in a pound means well over 1000 if not well over 2000.

[Motor]

Approximately how many 30cal 180gr boolits would you expect to coat using the shake and bake with better powders and what do they cost? I want to try this but I don't want to mess with something that doesn't work well. I really don't want to coat anything twice.

If you have a Harbor Freight near by I'm sure you can get one of their 20% off coupons. So your pound of HF red powder will cost you about $5. Nobody can beat that "cost of entry". Add some Air soft BBs, Black .25gram and a free plastic bowl. The ones with a recycle #5 seem to work best.

Then you need an oven to bake them in.

I started with HF red and will continue to use it at least until it's gone. I have no complaints. I'm using it for everything pistol from .380 to 500 S&W and 30cal rifle.

I can't tell you how many boolits I'll end up PCing with that 1st pound of HF red. I've already done a bunch and it seems I haven't even put a dent in it yet.

For $5 you owe yourself a try on.

Motor

[rbuck351]

The nearest HF is 2000miles away by road and when I tried to order a couple years ago they wouldn't mail the powder. I'm not overly worried about the cost of the powder but I've been looking at some of the sites and some of the powders are costing $30+ per lb. If a pound will cover 1500 boolits this is still reasonable unless it has to be shipped by UPS or FedEx at a minimum of $35 to AK. I am doing ok with cast, getting 1 1/2" groups at 100yds with several of my rifles but accuracy tends to go away somewhere around 2000 to 2200 fps depending on caliber. Does anyone have success at 2400/2500 fps with PC? I don't mind buying a spray gun if it works better or better powders but I don't want it to cost 10 cents per boolit for the powder and I don't even want to start if my expectations are unreasonable. If I can't get a noticeable improvement over cast boolits with accuracy or velocity without loosing accuracy then I would rather not even start. I don't care about pretty colors and the lube mess doesn't bother me but accuracy and velocity improvements are why I'm interested. What say. Am I chasing Unicorns?

[NavyVet1959]

According to this link, a pound of powder will cover about 25-30 sq-ft.

So, let's take the Lee TL452-230-2R for example. It has a length of 0.65" and a diameter of 0.452". Let's treat it as just a cylinder instead of the irregular object that it really is. I suspect that with most bullet designs, this will result in a calculation of a slightly larger surface area than it really has, but it's probably not too far off for initial estimates.

The surface area of a cylinder is calculated as:
pi * diameter * length + 2 * pi * radius<sup>2

So, for this example, we would be looking at:
pi * 0.452 * 0.65 + 2 * pi * (0.452/2)2
= 3.141592 * 0.65 + 2 * 3.141592 * 0.2262
= 3.141592 * 0.65 + 2 * 3.141592 * 0.051076
= 0.20420348 + 0.320919905984
= 0.525123385984 sq-in

So, going with the low figure of 25 sq-ft per pound of powder, that means 3600 sq-in per pound of powder (i.e. 25 * 12 * 12).

That also means 6855.5 bullets per pound of powder (i.e. 3600 / 0.525123385984).

If you figure $10 per pound for the powder, that means 7.3 cents per box of 50 bullets. That's pretty cheap. Harbor Freight is a bit cheaper than that and Smoke4320's is about twice that. Either way, you're not talking about that much. I've never calculated how much it costs to lube with Alox though. Considering all the Lee bullet resizing dies that I have bought and the fact that all of them come with Alox, I probably have enough of it for the rest of my life.</sup>

[rbuck351]

Well that's plenty cheap enough even at $30 per pound. So now, is it going to help my accuracy or velocity with accuracy enough to make it worth the extra effort?

[NavyVet1959]

Well that's plenty cheap enough even at $30 per pound. So now, is it going to help my accuracy or velocity with accuracy enough to make it worth the extra effort?

Don't know... My accuracy is limited by my old eyes... Need to put the blurry front sight between the sides of the blurry rear sight and have that centered on the blurry target... Yeah, that works very well... Not...

Getting old sucks...

[rbuck351]

Well, most of my old guns can't see very well either so I put glasses on them and they can see the target a lot better now. My main concern is rifles and accuracy at better speed than I'm getting with lubed boolits and I wouldn't mind getting away from GCs as they take time to make and put on. Is anyone shooting PC at 2400+ with accuracy. I guess the only way to find out is to try it. I have spent a lot more time and money on other experiments, some of which were a total bust, some that work very well.
So, from what I have been reading, Smoke has the best powders and from what several have said, the clear is the easiest/best to use. Does the PC gun do a better job? I don't mind spending more if it works better and I do want to give this PC a fair test.

[NavyVet1959]

One other reason for PC is that there are some indoor ranges out there that don't like normal lubed lead bullets. They mistakenly think that the smoke from the lube that you might be generating is lead that they need to be concerned with. Trying to bring logic into the conversation doesn't work against their preconceived notions.

[exile]

Quick question, from the reading I have done it seems there is a need for airsoft BB' s to generate static electricity for more even coating. What size and color do you need and where can you get them? Thanks.

exile

[RogerDat]

Black Airsoft BB's are the best from all reports, and they worked well for me. Size I use is .25 gram not sure it matters if they are that size or the .20 gram size. It doesn't take much in a plastic bowl to do the job. Maybe a layer two or three BB's deep. Cool Whip bowl will work but something with a screw or tight snap lid in #5 plastic is better. Cool whip works but tends to leak around the lid. White BB's are reported to not work well.

Walmart, Meijers, Amazon, most of the big sporting good chains.

You can order from this guy on the forum if you have any doubts or difficulty http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...raying-bullets Smoke4320 sells the BB's and you can purchase a 1 pound sample pack of 3 or maybe 4 colors to try. More expensive than the harbor freight red but in a whole different legume in terms of quality and ease of application.