This post is not meant to dissuade anyone from their own current practices or to say that PC’ing is better or anything along those lines. This is my own opinion from my experiences with PC’ing cast boolits and thought I would just share. My hope is to maybe help someone with some ideas, just like other members helped me by sharing what works for them. If you find anything that helps you, donate to the site. Its places like this with all of the different ideas that keeps me motivated.
That being said, PC’ing boolits has really opened up my reloading and shooting world. I shoot primarily indoors on my lunch hour and shooting standard cast bullets for even forty five minutes made my lungs feel like I smoked a whole pack of cigarettes. I was also not fond of the additional equipment and supplies required with traditional methods. I also wanted to starting PC’ing to see if I could make an even more economical and accurate round as some of my blasting plated ammo. I have, and still do, use a lot of Rainer bullets for just plinking and practice ammo.
I began PC’ing 38 Special rounds (146g H&G SWC) to get the process down and to see if it would work for me. Initially going through the posts I found that some people were getting great results while others struggled to get an acceptable coating. So I went out and found a large toaster oven at a rummage for $20, went to Walmart and picked up some Tupperware, Black airsoft BBs, Non-stick (NS) foil, oven thermomter, and then some Harbor Freight (HF) red and Kawasaki green powder to start. I would shake for a minute or two and then individually pick out each boolit setting them upright on the tray.
Single coat BB Dry Tumble (BBDT) with stand up method. HF on the left Powder by the Pound Kawasaki green on the right.
The first batch cooked perfectly. I had good adhesion with the pound test and sizing through the lee die was like butter. At the range I found they shot just as good if not better than standard methods. They also produced significantly less smoke.
I quickly moved to all of my other pistol calibers to this method. The one aspect I didn’t like was that I had issues with the boolits sticking to the foil and pulling it up when I removed the boolits. Going to Bed, Bath, and Beyond I found a Silpat (silicon baking mat) as tested and recommend by someone here and found that to be vastly superior to NS foil. They do not stick to the mat at all and it can be used over and over. I highly recommend one. This mat has had several thousand rounds baked on it in a variety of colors. (Note the long lay marks. Will discuss later)
Next was to limit the amount of time it took to pick through the BBs to find all the boolits. Off to Walmart to find a 98 cent strainer. I drilled the holes out a bit larger than the BBs to let them fall more freely away from the boolits.
The BBs and excess powder coat would fall to the bowl underneath it so I could take my home made tweezers and pick them out. I found an old metal coat hanger, cut a section off, and bent it to the correct shape. It takes very little effort to squeeze it and it wants to spring back just fine. The diameter of the coat hanger also fit many of the lube groves of the booilts which help in controlling them while being placed upright.
I have also found that I only need to shake them for less than 30 seconds to get a good coating of PC on the boolits. I’ve seen people shake for minutes, use tumblers, and other methods but for me just a few seconds and they have a sufficient coating on them for baking.
I then got tired of placing them up individually to coat them. I know a single coat of PC is more than sufficient, but I felt that a double coat was better for total coverage. This was especially true for some of the powder coat powders I had that were really high gloss. (e.g. Jolly Pop blue or maple sugar from Powder by the Pound)
So instead of picking them out and setting them upright I started to just sift and dump them out onto the baking mat and coating them twice before sizing. I have found that sizing after two coatings to not be an issue with my NOE moulds. However some of my friend’s older molds drop rather large so a coat, size, coat, and size again was required to avoid the PC and lead from stripping down towards the base when sizing. For these boolits I now only single coat with powders that provide better initial coverage to reduce the work involved. (e.g. Neon orange, Kawasaki green, HF red)
For pistols, and bulk production for boolits, the sift and dump (S&D) method works fast and well for me. The only drawback is that the boolits can sometimes stick to each other and have lay marks where it contacts the mat. This is not a huge issue as a double coat takes care of most of the marks. I have also found that their accuracy has not been affected.
I have recently started getting into Rifle boolit casting and PCing. I contacted Phantom30 after seeing his accurate mold 240 grain HP design. I am tired of spending .30 a piece for subsonic 300 blackout projectiles and had been looking for an option like this. He graciously provided me with some samples to PC and accuracy test. I used the S&D method using two coats of Neon orange and then sized to 308. They shot very well at 50 yards using Accurate 5744 powder. (still working on load development)
However I did not like the large lay marks and PC "pooling" that the S&D method caused. The smooth bearing surface would contact the mat and leave a laymark (as shown on the picture above) that you could later feel while sending the boolit through the lee sizing die.
So I started watching PCing boolit videos on Youtube when I came across Fortunecookie45LC’s (great Youtube channel) rifle boolit PC method. He had used a cooling rack to keep his 8mm or .30 cal bullets up right on the tray. He had cut it and made it fit for his tray and oven and that got me thinking. It also caused me to buy a larger convention toaster oven that could fit a 9X13 pan. I found that a smaller cooling rack would fit over a 9X13 pan perfectly. The feet of the cooling rack would slip over the side of the tray just right to hold it roughly in place. I then use binder clips to ensure that it does not pop off while moving it to the oven or while placing bullets in it. Add the mat below and the boolits barely stuck to anything except maybe the cooling rack if they tipped a bit. This allows for a much better looking, but better coated boolit in my opinion.
Again, I don’t mind the time involved with this method as it produces some pretty good looking and shooting bullets. Sizing after two coats works fine. However, after several boolits sizing can become difficult. To solve this i use the smallest drop of Hornady One Shot on the driving band of the boolit. This makes sizing efforts much easier for the next 15 to 20 boolits. The end result makes the band as smooth as glass.
This is still an ongoing process in terms of accuracy testing and feeding through different mags in the AR platform. I have only started with PC’ing subsonic rounds and also begun testing with some supersonic NOE HTC 309-153-SP 4 boolits (thank you Dragonheart!!) in 300 blkout, 308, and 30-06. I will try to provide any additional info when I can get the time to get out shooting. Let me know if anyone has questions.
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Originally Posted by bangerjim
