Always use an oven thermometer till you've proven your temp settings!!
I've been powder coating for a couple years for my 25-20WCF with great success, and just got started with a new 45acp. I've noticed a faint gray line along the lands on the 45 that is hard to get out. These bullets passed the smash test as well as a couple swipes with acetone on a rag. After seeing the residue in the 45 barrel I wet a rag with acetone and kept rubbing the bullet, about a minute in I started seeing color on the rag and then the whole area I was rubbing wiped off.
That led me to believe they weren't fully cured. Maybe the extra mass of the 45 bullets were soaking up more heat than the little 25s. I had checked the oven empty and noted it was 15-20 degrees hotter than the temp setting. I tend to load up the tray with as many as I can stand up with finger room around them.
Thinking I was overloading the Black &Decker toaster oven, I put the thermometer on the tray and stacked 100+ already cooked bullets around it and put it in at my normal 400 degrees for 20 Minutes. I drug up a seat and a flashlight to watch the thermometer, something I hadn't done in the past. By the time it was down to 15 minutes it was only at 250 degrees, but the thermostat was cycling on and off. At 10 minutes it was barely up to 320, 350 by 5 minutes to go. I then turned the temperature dial up to 450. It didn't take long to pass 400 and by the time it hit 425 I started turning the dial down little by little. I ended up with it back at 400 for the remainder of the required 10 minute soak time.
I think I'm going to experiment a little, put a new batch in and turn it to 450 till the thermometer gets to 400, then back off to 400 on the dial for 10 minutes. Or maybe just set it at 410-415 for 30 minutes or so and watch it again. The oven had been pre-heated for about 10 minutes before I started.
Would re-heating the bullets I've already coated cause any harm or do any good?
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