Anyone try Electroplating?

[nun2kute]

very interesting
you've hit the size/cal. on the money
how close are the weights of individual bullets

[36Power]

They drop at 56 grains. By the time they're done plating they weight between 62.5 and 63.2 grains. There's been a few that came out as high as 63.5, but only a few. Most finish between 62.7 and 63.0 grains with the majority of those sitting right at 63.

The size is pretty easy to hit since the process is fairly slow. The bullets only grow by about .001-.0015 an hour so it takes time to get to .224 - .225 OAD where I usually stop and size them. Push through sizers work just fine so you can go as high as .226 and not really sweat it.

[nun2kute]

I couldn't find a sticky on this subject
you should run for president, i'm think'n
not sure why this is so fascinating
if my body were in better shape, i'd be running with this too
thank you for bringing this info to the board.

[36Power]

Probably not sticky worthy yet, but maybe it'll get it there sometime soon.

Yeah, no POTUS for me, don't want the attention

Happy to share. Lots of guys have talked about this here before. Search for threads by MGNoob. He was doing some cool stuff several years back.

[P Flados]

Most of the guys here trying PC in their ARs are not getting 3000 fps loads that are also accurate. At least not without GCs, lube, and/or case fillers. I've no desire to lube, gas check, or shoot mouse fart loads out of an AR15...so plating is where I landed.

Congrats on your progress and thanks for sharing.

You seem to be making great progress at solving the puzzle that would allow the "do it at home" crowd to make useful plated bullets for 3000 fps loads.

Interesting that you are putting all this work into 22s and you have gone by 45R... and 36P...

I too have chased shooting "more than mouse fart" boolits in an AR.

However, it was not with the 223. Never really had any desire for the caliber to start with.

So far my first success was a 200 gr PC coated boolit at ~2050 fps in a 357AR (see post 83 of http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...-Rimless)-AR15).

I currently am working on 7TCU, but will admit that I will be happy with a little less than "full power", http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...olit-gun-7-TCU

I tried 300 BO but gave up.

[36Power]

I'd never even heard of 7TCU

Wow...that's really impressive work, Flados. I wish I had access to that kind of machinery. Lotsa guys 'build their own' ARs, but with parts they bought elsewhere. Very few here have the skills to ream and cut their own barrels and BCGs.

Very cool AR builds, my friend. Very cool.

[P Flados]

The 7TCU is made from 223 brass so it uses a standard BCG.

Making the barrel was pretty standard for lathe work. And my tooling is pretty low end for barrel work, a 7x14 Chinese mini lathe.

Making reamers and custom NLG molds is probably less common for "make it at home" gun enthusiasts than making barrels.

Speaking of which, where did you get your 22 NLG mold.

I am in NC, so all of the C19 recommendation non-compliant types have got the virus spreading worse than ever here. I am not sure when the public outdoor range will re-open. By the time I get some 100/200 yard shooting in, I will probably have forgotten the technique things I used to get a good 25 yard group.

[36Power]

Chinese mini lathe or not, it is still a lathe. One of which, I do not own, nor could I even begin to confidently machine my own gun parts if I did.

My mold...good question. I originally worked with a company called Hardline Ind. They did my custom 9mm molds. Great guys who turned out some great molds. Spent months in correspondence with them sending rifle mold drawings back n forth. Finally settled on a .210 smooth side spitzer with a slightly radiused base edge and short meplat. I wanted a longer meplat but they talked me out of it....Right about the time we finally agreed on a design, they disappeared. Went out of business I guess b/c they just stopped responding. I was practically begging them to take my money and make the mold...but nuthin happened.

So I took their design and started shopping it around to other custom mold makers. Nobody would touch it. They all seemed to hate the radiused edge, that and nobody was tooled to make .210 cherries I guess. One place wanted $400 to make the cherry and another $250 "if" they could produce the mold and it worked. [eyeroll]

If you can believe it, I finally settled on Lee. They also refused to do the radiused edge, but since no one else would either I went with the company that offered the best price and the best lead time, that was Lee.

Result was a 6 cavity aluminum (wish it was steel instead) mold. Final bullet shape was basically the same bullet, but with a right-angle base edge and a little more taper in the driving band area.

So. Hard. To. Cast. These. Things. Tiny little bullets with a super hard alloy and an aluminum mold. I probably cull 20-30% of them. On the upside the bullets are consistent and drop right at .210.

Once I get this all perfected I'll resume my search for someone who will cut me a slightly different mold shape.

[P Flados]

The smaller you go the harder it is to make a nonstandard custom.

But on the other hand, very simple designs that are NLG and plain flat base are drastically easier than anything requiring a true cherry. For mine I simple shape a piece of drill rod, grind 50% off one side and harden it to make a D Reamer. Making a single mold with a series of slightly different weight boolits is also a lot easier than trying to make multiple cavities that are all the same.

If I try real hard I can get 2 cavities to match pretty good, but doing so has been pretty tedious with my current tools. I probably need a 4 jaw (independently adjustable, under $100) chuck and better indicating instruments if I am going to keep doing molds.

And a standard Lee 2 cavity blank can easily be made into a 4 cavity mold when you are smaller than 30 caliber.

FYI, I like making "special molds", but anyone wanting me to make them one is taking their chances on what they end up with. My standard "fee" would be to have someone buy two blanks ($19.49 each at Titan - to be delivered to me) and I would use one of them to make a requested mold.

[36Power]

Finished a batch this morning. 36 total hrs in the plating machines. I won't even polish these. Shiniest batch I've ever done.

Hope to shoot 'em next weekend.



After a 10 second rinse in lemishine, still no polish:

[Tazza]

They look awesome, one day i hope to give plating a go, depending on if i can get the chemicals over the pond in Australia.

[36Power]

They look awesome, one day i hope to give plating a go, depending on if i can get the chemicals over the pond in Australia.

Battery acid is the worst of the chems. Pretty common stuff. I can't imagine why anyone would make it difficult to get.

Aside from that the rest of the stuff should be available at any big box hardware store. I suppose you'd need to order the Caswell alkaline kit.

Hopefully any issues would be just about finding the stuff and not about having to get around stupid gov restrictions.

[Tazza]

Battery acid is the worst of the chems. Pretty common stuff. I can't imagine why anyone would make it difficult to get.

Aside from that the rest of the stuff should be available at any big box hardware store. I suppose you'd need to order the Caswell alkaline kit.

Hopefully any issues would be just about finding the stuff and not about having to get around stupid gov restrictions.

I had a hard time finding someone to sell me nitric acid a few years ago, but once i found the right places to look, it was quite easy. So far, i haven't had any restrictions on chemicals i have been after. As long as they can''t be used to make drugs or explosives, i'd like to think it would be fine.

[36Power]

Quick update...Second range trip with these. Two batches, each prepped and sized a lil' different. All other load/target info was the same as noted below.

FWIW- My gun (20" 1/9 DPMS Flattop) is a better shot than I am. I rarely put MOA holes in targets.

Not quite 2" groups yet, but sooo close.

Bullets:
63 gr +/- .3


Load:
23.8 gr VV N133
COL 2.24
10 shot average velocity: 3032 fps

Range: 108 yards.

Batch 1, last 10 shots in the mag:



Batch 2, last 5 shot group of the day:



For reference, 10 shots of LC factory 55 gr FMJs. Like I said, I am not that great of a shot...pretty good perspective on these cast loads tho.

[Wisest.fool]

45reverse: your results are impressive. Where can i find more information? Ive got the powder coat down. But my glock 40 10mm will not eat a lead bullet at any bhn and anysize. Powder coated or not. And i like projects like this. Is there a book or was it just trial and error?

[36Power]

45reverse: your results are impressive. Where can i find more information? Ive got the powder coat down. But my glock 40 10mm will not eat a lead bullet at any bhn and anysize. Powder coated or not. And i like projects like this. Is there a book or was it just trial and error?

Well, info on plating is all over the web. Not sure I could offer a single source. This forum has some good info going way back so read it all. Myself and MGNoob have posted a lot. There are a few others too.

I'm keeping a word doc of everything I do and updating it as I tweak the process. When I finally hit consistent 2" groups I'll offer it up to anyone who wants to read it. For now, google up plating copper onto a lead and try to get a feel for the challenges it presents. After that look into basket tumblers, various copper plating solutions, and maybe do some research on the expenses you'll have to gear up for it (pro tip- one could spend anywhere from 100 to 1000 bucks equipping themselves for it)

...if you have specific questions I'm happy to help however I can.

[edit] - Not sure if this will help you at this stage, but here's a site that was invaluable to me. Helped me figure out how to do this and then later, to troubleshoot problems I ran into.

https://www.finishing.com/home/about.html

This is where me and several others first copied our basket plater designs from:

http://www.nulltime.com/zincplating/...rel/index.html

These guys have the one thing that you just can't get anywhere else (alkaline bath):
https://www.caswellplating.com/

Some Cast Boolit content that might be helpful:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...r-than-coating

This is just cool :

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...ojectile-video

[Wayne Smith]

I went to that site - but the adds cover the content, not a good way to handle a website.