Here's my test.. had some powder laying around and picked up a cheap no-compressor-required powder gun to coat them in a toaster oven. (Note to married guys: buy your wife a new toaster oven and take her old one, makes it a lot easier!) Used some translucent colors as well as some "copper" powder I bought for this.
These are 300 BLK subsonic rounds... might try integrating some of the hBN later on but these were run through the sizer and felt pretty slick already! Didn't lube any of them. No marks from the sizer either, even though they were cast a bit larger than .309" - they came out perfect but the trick to it is to stand them up on top of a gas check (inverted) so the gas check is what sticks to the aluminum foil and not the boolit itself. Grip the gas check gently with pliers and the boolit pops right off leaving a clean base.
Trickiest part is lifting the tray of tall skinny boolits up to put in the toaster oven. Not too bad if the bases are straight so I make sure they are before I coat them.
Ken, I hope you can try your bullets out soon! Please post your results. I have been using powder coated 9mm bullets with good results. It is hard to get the bullets in the oven without knocking them over.
Hi Ken and Bmiler, I would also like to see test results, specifically if possible, guns used, speeds shot and powder loads, and sized diameters versus barrel bore diameter.
How many fired, and temperature the barrel reached after shooting.
If possible, see if you can capture in ballistic Gel, the fired projectiles, so you can determine what has happened to coatings.
I did do a function check to make sure nothing was awry with just one in the chamber and it worked just fine. No apparent leading or degredation of the boolit coating was apparent in the barrel (it went bang and not boom.)
The real trick was the inverted gas checks as "stands" - otherwise the powder coating made a "fillet" at the bottom of the boolit that doesn't come off easily (or evenly, for that matter.) The gas checks completely avoid that issue while still allowing conductivity to the boolit for the electrostatic spray.
Of course, having a steady hand and the toaster oven right there in front makes a big difference in not knocking them down.
I just finished building my shooting bench (out of an old picnic table) and I'm trying to figure out a solid mount for my Chrony so I don't shoot it again.
As for ballistics gel; got any *cheap* analogs to that? Otherwise I'm limited, don't think I could do all that and stay married, and I'm pretty partial to my wife.
I tried firing my powder coated bullets into a stack of paper magazines.
The paper stopped the bullets but the cast lead bullets expanded very good.
The stack of paper was dry, someone else used paper but it was indicated the paper was soaked in water to make the paper wet. There bullet catcher is shown on another page of this this thread. The wet paper might work but dry paper works very well as a stopper but the bullets mush room too much.
The bullets used in this test did not have gas checks but since then I installed the cola can gas checks since I made several thousands of the checks.
The paper pullet trap used by the other guy is on page 20 of this thread.
The paper was wet, there is a picture of the trap on this page as well as some pictures of the captured bullets.
Any time. I jumped in, I'm a relative n00b to this myself but if you read on here, you can learn a LOT from some really sharp folks and start to understand it a lot better than most.
I'm not a n00b to powder coating as I use it quite a bit when restoring my cars; I had some cool colors (as seen above) but the unit I had for coating was the cheap Harbor Freight unit that requires an air compressor. I found the Sears "portable" (doesn't require an air compressor) unit on Amazon for about $35. Sears stopped carrying the unit (they were selling for $180 new) but other companies still sell them (Summit Racing for example) so they are not obsolete by any means. I bought my powder gun for $35 on Amazon then jumped on Summit and bought 4 more powder cups for the gun for another $50. The additional cups are supposed to come with "plugs" but of course don't, so I had to fab some up. I'll get plenty of use of this outside of my boolits at least, so it's not a one-time fun thing for me.
The powders I had laying around and I'm already casting boolits so - why the heck not? I've already made a PID controller setup for my casting pot which has helped a bit with more consistent boolits, even. I think that cost me less than $60?
You can buy hBN in small quantities too - I think that's the next test.
Here's a pic of my powder coating setup.. I just got the new color cups in yesterday. The gun uses a big power supply with a long cord that plugs into it, and a green ground wire with an alligator clip that you clip onto the tray where your boolits are. The nice thing is it has a variable trigger so it's not a blast of powder; you can be very gentle with it. The only thing I did was fab up some "gaskets" where the cups meet the inside of the gun as there was some blowback inside the gun itself. I just use a sheet of the "foamie" stuff you get at the hobby store for $.50 or so and cut little circle gaskets for it. I also made some little sticks with foam on them to plug up the cups when not in use (that still have powder in them.)
Are the boolits powder coated before or after they go into the oven?
Before - that's how powder coating works. Coat the boolit(s) with the gun, then put in the toaster oven, bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, then let cool.
Powder coating works by applying a positive static charge in the gun (the unit I use makes 15kV!) and the project you're coating is negatively charged (green wire with an alligator clip is clipped to the pan lined with foil that the boolits sit on.) The gun has essentially a small hair dryer blower in it that blows the powder onto the project and the static charge makes it stick.
Once they're coated with powder, you put it in the oven and the powder melts into once nice contiguous coating that is EXTREMELY durable. You'll see just how durable when you pry the boolits off and crinkle up the aluminum foil they were on!
Thanks. Am aware as to how the powder coating process works, but from previous discussions, wasn't sure of the procedure of coating before or after in the oven.
Hi,
I am interested with your results. It seems to work OK.
However, you may consider that the majority of powder coatings contain a material called TGIC. It is the stuff that cures the coating when heated.
TGIC has been on health allert question for many years. In Australia, it is still used but not for applications where the coating may produce airborne dust. The TGIC ingredient was under scrutiny for cancers, mutagenic effects and other gealth effect,and, from what I heard is not very healthy material. Powder coating is an excellent product for designated applications, but have doubts about use on ammo.
Triglycidylisocyanurate (TGIC)
A study was done by the Australia government on the Public Health Issues with TGIC
Part 12 is shown below of the study.
12. Public health assessment
The TGIC in powder coated metal articles available to the public is fully cross-linked
with the polyester resins, that is, it is completely reacted into an inert form, and
therefore poses no health risk.
It is possible that public exposure could result from an accident during transport of
either TGIC or TGIC powder coatings. In the case of TGIC spills, the risk of exposure
from TGIC is minimal as it is imported in a pelletised or granular form which reduces
dust production.
The only health issues were in the handling of the powder bbefore it was cured.
After curing the TGIC is completely reacted and in an inert form.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s...iw=918&bih=474
#1: Nyclad bullets were not the "Cop Killers". They were made to use new technology to produce a cheaper projectile and ammunition for practice.
#2: "Cop Killer" bullets were bronze, pointed bullets coated with TEFLON that were designed to penetrate protective vests that felons were beginning to use in the early to mid 1970's.
Please get your facts straight before giving the enemy any ammo to use against your fellow shooters.
Listen! Do you hear it. The roar of cannons, the screams of the dying! Ahh! Music to my ears!
Thanks much. Most interesting.
I personally knew a person who worked in the lab in powder plant manufacture. He was 25, and contracted cancer, which was claimed at that time as being caused by TGIC. Several workers there later also contracted cancer at various periods, some after they had left that industry. I cannot understand why they got these at that time, and, it was 20 years ago.
There was much controversy about that product at that time, and once such matter is raised it is hard to dispel or ignore. It is a difficult area.
I wonder if a blend of powders could be used. Like adding 25% molly,mixing, then applying/baking. Would greater lubricity resault? Would the powder coat still bond? What about a HD PE plastic powder? PE coated bullets?
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |