Sucess at last

[technojock]

I've managed to scrounge up a couple more suitable containers. I'm going to cast some .430 and .452 boolits to coat soon...

Tony

[technojock]

I cast up a hundred or so .430 boolits for my old Super Blackhawk and tossed them in the container with the blue and chrome mix and they coated great. With this success behind me, I tried to coat some more of the 87g .310 boolits with mirror red Eastwood powder. I'm glad I didn't start with this because they came out blotchy.

I don't know if I did any thing wrong or if it's the powder. I'll post pix later on. I'm beat right now and my back is killing me...

[technojock]

Here's my first attempt with Eastwood Mirror Red.


At first I wasn't sure if I had done something wrong or if the problem was in the powder. So I took a handful of them and dumped them in the container that still had some blue/chrome powder mix and got this result.



The pic is a bit dark, but the coverage can't be mistaken. This powder just sticks and coats great.

Next, I tried cleaning the red out of the container and most of it off the BB's. I then added a spoon full of the chrome powder to see how it would work. I tossed in the rest of the blotchy coated red ones and the rest of the ones I had cast up that were still uncoated. This is the result I got...


So am I doing something wrong with the red/chrome? It doesn't look like it's coating down in the lube grooves.

[charlie b]

Some colors just won't work for you. I got some red from Smoke that leaves a 'rough' finish. The pictures above of the red and blue show how it worked fine when mixed with the Lt Blue.

I would stop coating one color over another until you get good results with one coat of that color.

[technojock]

I got around to trying some more boolits with the E.W. mirror red. This time I preheated the boolits to around 80 degrees and had much better coverage. I got some more BB's and another tub and I'll try again. I think the mirror red is not the best choice for this type of coating but it can be made to work.

[45workhorse]

Here's my first attempt with Eastwood Mirror Red.


At first I wasn't sure if I had done something wrong or if the problem was in the powder. So I took a handful of them and dumped them in the container that still had some blue/chrome powder mix and got this result.



The pic is a bit dark, but the coverage can't be mistaken. This powder just sticks and coats great.

Next, I tried cleaning the red out of the container and most of it off the BB's. I then added a spoon full of the chrome powder to see how it would work. I tossed in the rest of the blotchy coated red ones and the rest of the ones I had cast up that were still uncoated. This is the result I got...


So am I doing something wrong with the red/chrome? It doesn't look like it's coating down in the lube grooves.

They look like they got a sun burn!

[mehavey]

Eastwood Mirror Red is one the most dependable Coatings there is....
https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...=1#post4953215
https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...=1#post5268624

Tell us a little more about your bullet condition/coating process.

[technojock]

I'm not sure what I did wrong on my first attempt with mirror red. Like with Ford light blue and chrome, I used a repurposed cottage cheese container (with a #5 recycling label) and black BB's. I put in a teaspoon of mirror red, closed the container and shook it like crazy to get the BB's coated. Then I put in around 50 or so boolits, again shook it like crazy, then one by one with forceps, I put the boolits on the baking tray base down and baked. Just like every other time. They came out very spotty but when given a second coat of mixed FLB and chrome, the came out looking great.

This last time with mirror red, I did it the usual way other than preheating the boolits. The coverage looks to be around 98% and I think they'll probably shoot OK.

The problem batches of .30 caliber boolits were all from the same casting session as all the ones that coated well. I coated the remaining boolits from that session with chrome and even in a cold shop, the coated perfectly.

I bought some new BB's and I'll see if they help after I cast some more boolits. Right now I'm out of boolits to powder coat...

BTW, I looked at the pix in your links. They look great. Hopefully I can get mirror red to work like that for me...

[mehavey]

For BBs, I recommend these:
https://www.cabelas.com/shop/en/cros...soft-camo-ammo

For Containers, I recommend these:
https://www.safeway.com/shop/product...960458534.html

Both are (darn near) foolproof and take no longer than 60 sec shake/swirl to produce these before baking:
https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...=1#post5363150

and these after same:
https://i.postimg.cc/J7xxrJnF/45-ACP...200-H-Lead.jpg


Good luck..

[technojock]

I just bought these from Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'm going to give them a try before buying any others. I'll look for the containers you suggest. I'm hoping to find some round bottom ones as I think that would make it easier to agitate the boolits. I still find it odd that only the red gives me problems. The other 2 colors work great.

I was considering other colors from Eastwood but I hadn't heard anything about them. Until your input, I hadn't heard anything about mirror red and all the YouTube videos I watched that mentioned EW red powder, used ruby red. I was seriously thinking I bought the wrong red. Anyway they have a cool looking bronze like color but I don't want to be the one to find out it doesn't work on boolits...

[Finster101]

I don't even bother with BBs anymore.

[mehavey]

I do use BBs -- (the tan & brown "Camo" colors* vs black.)
I find they produce considerably *more static, and cushion the relatively
soft lead bullets from beating themselves (and their edges) to death

The rectangular containers do just fine on agitating the BB/Bullets combo.
Just Shake'N Swirl like a Coconut Maraca (literally)

I'd shy away from bronze/copper colors. (Ask me how I know )
But Extreme Chrome, Single-Stage Chrome are unbelievable.
https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...=1#post5432610
...and static-coat upon shaking in not much more than 30 seconds

[technojock]

If I had it to do it over, I would only get the chrome. However, I really like red...

[technojock]

I took another stab at trying the mirror red. They came out blotchy again so I did a second coat and they came out not perfect, but very usable. It could be that it's much more humid than after my earlier successes. For now, I'm going to give up on red boolits...