lead bullets coated with polymer paint

[leftiye]

Snot the same thang? I was about to run out and buy a powder coat gun and etc.. Anybody have any idea what happens with hot loads?

[Four Fingers of Death]

Originally Posted by Four Fingers of Death
I have fired thousands of the commercial polymer coated bullets with zip problem. I don't know how you would go with the powder coated ones though.

That is what I would like to find out. How does the powder coat affect the barrel. Been watching this tread but it doesn't seem anyone has shot excessive rounds of powder coat.

The bullets I have fired were coated with the proper polymer coating applied by professional bullet manafacturers. I don't know how the powder coated ones would go. I iimagine they would be alright. The polymer coated bullets don't seem to make an impression on the barrel at all.

[Silver-Silver]

I have fired thousands of the commercial polymer coated bullets with zip problem. I don't know how you would go with the powder coated ones though.

I think some companies do in fact use powder coating. But I could be wrong. It doesn't appear that they all use powder coating.

I bought a quart of 28A from Sandstrom to try coating bullets. It was the smallest amount available that wasn't a spray can. It will coat way more bullets than I need done. They say 1 quart should cover 125 square feet at the recommended thickness. I plan to size after the coating dries.

Has anyone gotten a liter of polymer coating from Australia? I am very interested in the price if there is a small group buy.
-Steve

[Four Fingers of Death]

I think some companies do in fact use powder coating. But I could be wrong. It doesn't appear that they all use powder coating.

I bought a quart of 28A from Sandstrom to try coating bullets. It was the smallest amount available that wasn't a spray can. It will coat way more bullets than I need done. They say 1 quart should cover 125 square feet at the recommended thickness. I plan to size after the coating dries.

Has anyone gotten a liter of polymer coating from Australia? I am very interested in the price if there is a small group buy.
-Steve

Commercial bullet makers need to coat the whole bullet and all here that offer coated bullets use the tumble method as it is the only way of coating it all. Coated bullets no doubt work ok, as milsup bullets have had lead exposed bases for yonks. It would not attract buyers however I'm thinking.

The lubricity of powder coating is an unknown (well to me it is anyway), not slippery enough under great stress and heat and it may not operate as desired. Short of shooting them until the barrel wears out, I can't think of how you would work that out either.

You may find spraying lightly into a quantity of tumbling bullets until the desired coat is achieved and then turning them out before cooking may work. That way, they would be fully coated. If it didn't work they can go back into the pot, just keep away from it while the smelly smoke comes off.

[beex215]

i might trey this. posting so i can find it

[Silver-Silver]

Commercial bullet makers need to coat the whole bullet

It has been shown earlier that not all commercial companies coat the whole bullet. I agree that it would be easier and faster to do many at a time in a tumbler like you mention. But the finish is definitely different.

There are some pictures below that show a coating that is very different from the coating you posted. Have you found out the cost of the coating you can get ahold of? It is definitely the coating I would like to test out after hearing your excelent results.

The lubricity of powder coating is an unknown (well to me it is anyway), not slippery enough under great stress and heat and it may not operate as desired.

This was also adressed earlie by 357maximum. He said it looked the same to him when he powder coated his boolits, and said the sizer actually made the paint feel slipperier.

I think there is 2 main ways to coat bullets, a tumbler like you mention and regular powder coat.

I will post my results with the 28A from Sandstrom later. There are definitely some improvements I would like to make on my next batch.
-Steve

[Four Fingers of Death]

I wasn't poo-pooing the powder coating, just felt that consumers wouldn't find bullets that were not coated on the bottom as 'professional' enough looking.

Cleaning them, lining them up and spraying the bullets (not to mention cleaning the gun, etc), then cooking them sounds a lot more work than just lubesizing boolits to me.

Be a neat experiment though.

[Silver-Silver]

Four Fingers of Death, I agree with you. Powdercoating seems to be more work. I used some of the Sandstrom 28A this weekend and I got the coating on to thick.

I used a tumble process of pouring the bullets in and then pouring in the 28A. I need more agitatiors in the tumbler because boolits seemed to just want to slide around and not tumble. After tumbling for hours the coating seemed dry and I added a bit of Carnuba Wax from randyrat. This gave the bullets a slight amout of sheen over the flat black coating. The coating does cover every side of the bullet, but it doesn't have the same even coat that the Australian coating has. I know it is a different coating all together, but I think I need to mimick the process that four fingers of death has talked about previously...Coat, dry, coat, dry, coat and then final dry.

As a side note, I use a Star Sizer and you can go unbelievably fast when sizing

Picture is of coated and sized boolit and normal boolit with lube in the grove for color comparison.

[totallycustom]

This is really interesting.

I definitely think that tumbling is the way to go. I think part of the appeal to me is less work and un-sticky bullets and the ability to run them faster without a gas-check.

My only concern is getting the bullets smooth in the tumbler while drying. I guess I will have to try this out.

[Four Fingers of Death]

Four Fingers of Death, I agree with you. Powdercoating seems to be more work. I used some of the Sandstrom 28A this weekend and I got the coating on to thick.

I used a tumble process of pouring the bullets in and then pouring in the 28A. I need more agitatiors in the tumbler because boolits seemed to just want to slide around and not tumble. After tumbling for hours the coating seemed dry and I added a bit of Carnuba Wax from randyrat. This gave the bullets a slight amout of sheen over the flat black coating. The coating does cover every side of the bullet, but it doesn't have the same even coat that the Australian coating has. I know it is a different coating all together, but I think I need to mimick the process that four fingers of death has talked about previously...Coat, dry, coat, dry, coat and then final dry.

As a side note, I use a Star Sizer and you can go unbelievably fast when sizing

Picture is of coated and sized boolit and normal boolit with lube in the grove for color comparison.

The method I described previously was coat while being tumbled, tip out dry, heat in an oven, coat while tumbling, etc and a final heat session.

The reason target shooters here developed them was to cut down on smoke, a big problem during morning shoots in winter.

I have twenty guests coming up from the BMW Touring Club (motorcycle) for a campfire and camp out on Saturday night and a shoot (none of them are shooters) on Sunday mornign before they ride home in the early afternoon. They will probably put a couple of ten round mags through my 92FS each and I won't be worrying about cleaning because it will be squeaky clean at the end of it.

[leftiye]

SS If the Sandstrom 28 a is the same as the old boolit master, then you could roll them in it on a can lid. More work, but it used to work well for me. Let us know how those shoot. I used to size them and heat treat them before Bullet Master, and then lube them too. For red eyed maniac loads.

[1845greyhounds]

I think some companies do in fact use powder coating. But I could be wrong. It doesn't appear that they all use powder coating.

I bought a quart of 28A from Sandstrom to try coating bullets. It was the smallest amount available that wasn't a spray can. It will coat way more bullets than I need done. They say 1 quart should cover 125 square feet at the recommended thickness. I plan to size after the coating dries.

Has anyone gotten a liter of polymer coating from Australia? I am very interested in the price if there is a small group buy.
-Steve

How much did the Sandstrom 28A cost and where did you buy it?

[Silver-Silver]

How much did the Sandstrom 28A cost and where did you buy it?

I bought 28a from Sandstorm - Phone Number 1-800-747-1084
28a is best when air dried 18 hours not force cured and at 1/2 mil thickness it will coat 500 sq ft. per gallon. I covered in 1 coat, but next time I am going to use multiple coats using the tumble while drying method. I don't know if a thumblers tumbler would work, because the ends are sealed, the coating may never dry. I purchased a quart, and it will cover lots and lots of bullets. The problem I ran into is it costs lots compared to regular beeswax based lube. It doesn't save any time because it still needs to be sized. The star sizer can go really fast when not lubing and the bullets are coated. I was going at about 1500 rounds/hour, and could have gone faster if I had a bullet collator.

Overall, I will use up everything I have, I estimate it will cover 10,000 rounds using the coating thickness I used which was to thick. So as an estimate 15K rounds as an estimate using the correct thickness. I will definitely be using the coating method again. I am interested in the coating out of Oz. The main reason is there is no lead handling when loading bullets, and they should work in a bullet collator mounted on a progressive press.

Keep this thread alive with your results. If the other big countries are using coated bullets, and the benefits are as great as people say. This is something I am interested in.
-Wildcat

[bgokk]

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[torpedoman]

Why would this make a difference for shooting them from a Glock?

yea the glock will KA_BOOM anyway

[Four Fingers of Death]

One thing that I mentioned earlier (well I think I mentioned it) is that the guy that makes the Aussie coating is developing a super coat for high velocity bullets, to enable full high velocity jacketed equivalent performance for rifles. He said it was not much different to his normal stuff, but he wanted to get it 100% right before marketing it. That might change the game a little.

[leftiye]

Wildcat. Are you shooting those Sandstrom coated boolits without further lubricant? What kind of loads are you using that on? And any range results/ accuracy results yet?

[Silver-Silver]

I am using the coating on 9mm handgun as that is my most used "toy"

Lee Round Nose Flat Point 125 grain 1 lube grove which goes unused
Sandstorm 28A coating then sized to .357 on star sizer (my gun barrel slugs .356)
4.5 grains Unique and CCI small pistol primer.

I am not at my bench so memory says 1100 to 1200 fps muzzle velocity. I do lots of plinking and IDPA style so accuracy was not checked as much as others would. So I can't comment on benefits or downsides there.

No leading at all and no other lube used besides the coating. I wanted to get into the coated bullets because I should be able to use a Mr Bulletfeeder collator with it and not gum up the bullet feed dies. And loading ammo or going to the range and not having to touch lead would be a nice benefit also.

[1845greyhounds]

Wildcatbrass, how hard are your bullets pre-coating or what's your lead formula and heat treat? Does the rifling penetrate the coating (all the way to the core) when shot? I ask because I have lots and lots of soft range lead and very little hard lead. I'm wondering if the Sandstrom 28A will enable the use of this lead as-is (shot ~900 fps in a Glock). I plan to cautiously try, but was curious about your experience.

[Silver-Silver]

Wildcatbrass, how hard are your bullets pre-coating or what's your lead formula and heat treat? Does the rifling penetrate the coating (all the way to the core) when shot?

To tell you the truth, I have been a little busy lately and trying to use up my regular boolits when I do get a chance to shoot. The couple hundred rounds I have shot did not lead the barrel.

I actually made these boolits way softer than my regular. These are 98% lead and 2% antimony. I let them air cool, and I am not fancy enough yet to heat treat. As I said these are fun plinking rounds, standing offhand, I know I am the weak link in the formula. I will try to use a rest some day to know for sure.

I haven't recovered a boolit so I don't know how the rifling affects the coating.

As a crude test I used the "Hammer Test" to see how they would react.



They held up very well and the ends that were smashed between cement and the hammer are still covered as it seemed to push the coating into the lead. The sides that buldged out are still covered and didn't crack or flake off. The coating just streched as we would want it to.

-Wildcat