lead bullets coated with polymer paint

[Wal']

My last batch of 9mm & .38's from Bullzi I used were both Gold & Black.

[bstone5]

In earlier post there was a topic of a method to cure the coatings applied to the bullets.
After looking around a convection counter top oven was found at Target that could heat to 450 degrees F.

The oven is made by GE and is as always manufactured in China. The purpose of the oven was to try to powder coat bullets.
The oven worked very well for curing the powder coat at 400 degrees F for the powder coated bullets.
The convection portion of the oven is a small fan that circulates the air interal to the oven. The circulating air results in a much even temperature internal to the oven and this oven works much better than just a toatster oven without the convection air circulating fan.

The pictures below show the oven, cured 38 caliber bullets and the cola can made gas checks installed on the bullets.
The bullets were fire with and without the gas check.
At low pressures and velocity the bullets showed no leading without the gas checks.
When loaded to 357 Mag jacket pressures the gas check is installed due to the higher pressure.

No leading or coating was internal to the barrel of the revolver in both cases low pressure or high pressure.

This oven might work for curing the painted bullets if the kits become available.

[HI-TEK]

In earlier post there was a topic of a method to cure the coatings applied to the bullets.
After looking around a convection counter top oven was found at Target that could heat to 450 degrees F.

The oven is made by GE and is as always manufactured in China. The purpose of the oven was to try to powder coat bullets.
The oven worked very well for curing the powder coat at 400 degrees F for the powder coated bullets.
The convection portion of the oven is a small fan that circulates the air interal to the oven. The circulating air results in a much even temperature internal to the oven and this oven works much better than just a toatster oven without the convection air circulating fan.

The pictures below show the oven, cured 38 caliber bullets and the cola can made gas checks installed on the bullets.
The bullets were fire with and without the gas check.
At low pressures and velocity the bullets showed no leading without the gas checks.
When loaded to 357 Mag jacket pressures the gas check is installed due to the higher pressure.

No leading or coating was internal to the barrel of the revolver in both cases low pressure or high pressure.

This oven might work for curing the painted bullets if the kits become available.

That is very interesting results. After coating, did you size the projectiles? What type of powder coating did you use? How long did you cure with heat? What gub was these fired with? Please supply as much information as possible, Thanks.

[HI-TEK]

Vindicator in the NT use Gold.
John Connors uses Brown.
Topscore gold of course.
HRBC use the silver, copper, and brown. I used their black and blue and the coating was terrible.

I used to use the ICBM red coated back in the late 1990's they were very strange.
Redback used black coating too in the 1990's

Hi Trevor, Interested in your comments with the HRBC prodgies. You mentioned that they use a Brown colour, I have not seen the brown coloured stuff.
Also, you found hat black and Blue were no good. What did you find as going wrong, when using these, that convinced you about these not being OK?
Just interested in the bad results and why such coatings had not worked.

[HI-TEK]

Hi Wal, how did you find Bullzi bullets? What did you use to shoot them and what loads?

[bmiller]

I have been dabbling with powder coated bullets. I am using a lee tumble lube 125 grain round nose. Shooting them out of a S&W m&p pro with a storm lake after market barrel. Chronographed at 1080 fps average velocity. Using cheap Chinese powder coating. Tried both sized and unsized, made no difference in accuracy. Have not had any leading and are very accurate. I tried bayou bullets and did not have luck with them. Leaded slightly and was not as accurate in my pistol. Bayous were sized smaller than my bullets, and my pistol prefers .358 bullets did not have good accuracy with plated at .355 either. Bayou bullets have quite a following, and I think they were simply not the right size for my pistol. Have some 160 grain bayous that I am going to shoot in my new para p18 with the 6" slide kit. By the way Joe, what's the funky smell I get when I shoot bayou bullets?

[bstone5]

The powder coat was Polyester.

The powder require 400 degrees F for 10 minutes after the bullets are at temperature for the proper curing time.

It would take about 10 minutes to bring all of the metal to 400 degrees, so the total heating time was about 20 minutes.

The bullets were the first items I have ever powder coated.

I made the post with regard to the oven since it worked well in curing the powder coat on the bullets.

The bullets were sized after the powder coat was applied by pushing thru a Lee sizer in the normal manner.

The gas checks were installed with the same Lee sizer but the sizer is up side down when pushing thru to install the gas checks. A small hand press from Harbor Freight is used to make the gas checks and to install the gas checks.

I got on this forum to learn how to keep lead out of the barrel while shooting 40 S&W.

There is a lot of info on making gas check in other threads on the forum.

I added about 5% PTFE to the powder coat to add lubricity to the coating.

The PTFE is 5 micro, this size PTFE is used in ink to make better colors on high end publications.

After learning on how to make a gas check maker and how to make gas checks in large quanities, I usually add the cola can gas check to all cast bullets I make or purchase. The gas check removes all possibility of getting lead in a barrel.

The bullets were fired from a S&W revolver.

The first picture is the first trip thru the Lee sizer, The second picture is the amount of PTFE added to the powder, the cup has about one inch of depth of powder in the cup before adding the small amount of PTFE.

I was very pleased with the ease of applying the powder coat and how well the coated bullets shoot.

This amount of powder coat in the cup would coat about three plates of bullets with 108 bullets on each plate. It took about 4 hours to coat 800 bullets and at the same time learning how to powder coat and how to work the convection oven.

The powder coat seemed to work fine. The paint method might be best for doing a large quanities of bullets.

Thanks for the comments HI-TEK, your information is very informative.

[Wal']

Hi Wal, how did you find Bullzi bullets? What did you use to shoot them and what loads?

Never found a problem with the Bullzi brand bullets except the occasional under size .32 98 HBWC swaged bullets, been using Bullzi for approx 15 year's.

I've never chronograph my hard coated boolits as there were no reason to, no leading.

My original 9mm soft lube loads were traveling at approx 1000 fps with 5.6 of ADI's AP100 as any slower accuracy dropped away, where as the .38 & 357 target loads were 8-900 fps using WST.

I am using the same loads with your hard cast lube, 9mm Browning GP, S&W 686, Taurus 689 & Taurus .38 model 86

As stated in previous post's since using your formula with bought coated boolits, leading ceased to be a problem & something I no longer think about, just a quick clean after a comp' shoot.

Can't wait until someone comes up with a DIY kit that I can hard coat my own cast boolits.

[HI-TEK]

Never found a problem with the Bullzi brand bullets except the occasional under size .32 98 HBWC swaged bullets, been using Bullzi for approx 15 year's.

I've never chronograph my hard coated boolits as there were no reason to, no leading.

My original 9mm soft lube loads were traveling at approx 1000 fps with 5.6 of ADI's AP100 as any slower accuracy dropped away, where as the .38 & 357 target loads were 8-900 fps using WST.

I am using the same loads with your hard cast lube, 9mm Browning GP, S&W 686, Taurus 689 & Taurus .38 model 86

As stated in previous post's since using your formula with bought coated boolits, leading ceased to be a problem & something I no longer think about, just a quick clean after a comp' shoot.

Can't wait until someone comes up with a DIY kit that I can hard coat my own cast boolits.

Hi Wal,
What do you mean about a "kit"? The coating is available in 5 litre lots. That coats about 200,000 prodgies. You also need Catalyst, (1 litre for about 5 litres coating)
If you are a small user, you need a two litre Milk bottle, plastic, for coating, half fill, add, diluted catalysed coating, just barely enough to coat what is in bottle so that there is no run off to the bottom.
After coating, pour coated prodgies onto drying racks, mesh or trays. Do Not disturb at all until dry. When dry, shake to loosen, then bake at 200C for about 10 minutes. Lenght of time in oven, will depend on how good is air circulation inside oven and metal loads.
Repeat process, until you get results you want.

[HI-TEK]

The powder coat was Polyester.

The powder require 400 degrees F for 10 minutes after the bullets are at temperature for the proper curing time.

It would take about 10 minutes to bring all of the metal to 400 degrees, so the total heating time was about 20 minutes.

The bullets were the first items I have ever powder coated.

I made the post with regard to the oven since it worked well in curing the powder coat on the bullets.

The bullets were sized after the powder coat was applied by pushing thru a Lee sizer in the normal manner.

The gas checks were installed with the same Lee sizer but the sizer is up side down when pushing thru to install the gas checks. A small hand press from Harbor Freight is used to make the gas checks and to install the gas checks.

I got on this forum to learn how to keep lead out of the barrel while shooting 40 S&W.

There is a lot of info on making gas check in other threads on the forum.

I added about 5% PTFE to the powder coat to add lubricity to the coating.

The PTFE is 5 micro, this size PTFE is used in ink to make better colors on high end publications.

After learning on how to make a gas check maker and how to make gas checks in large quanities, I usually add the cola can gas check to all cast bullets I make or purchase. The gas check removes all possibility of getting lead in a barrel.

The bullets were fired from a S&W revolver.

The first picture is the first trip thru the Lee sizer, The second picture is the amount of PTFE added to the powder, the cup has about one inch of depth of powder in the cup before adding the small amount of PTFE.

I was very pleased with the ease of applying the powder coat and how well the coated bullets shoot.

This amount of powder coat in the cup would coat about three plates of bullets with 108 bullets on each plate. It took about 4 hours to coat 800 bullets and at the same time learning how to powder coat and how to work the convection oven.

The powder coat seemed to work fine. The paint method might be best for doing a large quanities of bullets.

Thanks for the comments HI-TEK, your information is very informative.

Interesting stuff.
I do not recomend that you use PTFE or similar materials, where heat as from gun powder may can cause fumes which are not good, especially inside indoor ranges.
Generally, making stuff more slippery is genrally not recomended, as it can cause loss of accuracy due to loss of pressure build up behind prodgie. I am aware, that lubes are in the majority are used with aim to reduce Leading residues.
The other problem is that in Powder coating, that no one discusses is that it contains a heat activated curing agent, TGIC, (Tri-Glyceryl Iso-Cyanurate), which has been linked to Cancers.
I do not know if any one has done any testing to determine if these agents are being generated during firing as inhalable dust.

[Wal']

Hi Wal,
What do you mean about a "kit"? The coating is available in 5 litre lots. That coats about 200,000 prodgies.

Thanks HI-TEK, didn't think it would be that easy, but minimum 200,000 projectiles for a home loader ????????

Will have to find some other shooters/casters to share the 5 litre lot.

Will PM you for prices and availability.

[HI-TEK]

Thanks HI-TEK, didn't think it would be that easy, but minimum 200,000 projectiles for a home loader ????????

Will have to find some other shooters/casters to share the 5 litre lot.

Will PM you for prices and availability.

Hi, You would be better off in contacting two companies that can help you in US.
They both should have coating, and possibly home kits.
If you contact Ferrara Leather Company (Nick) or Bayou Bullet Company (Donnie) I am sure that they will steer you in the right direction.
Nick was looking at supplying the home user with complete kits, of coating, Oven and coating method.I am not sure how he is going with it. If you contact them, please let me know how you went.
It also may be useful, if you can get a few mates involevd so you can buy at better prices from either company, and share costs as well

[HI-TEK]

I have been dabbling with powder coated bullets. I am using a lee tumble lube 125 grain round nose. Shooting them out of a S&W m&p pro with a storm lake after market barrel. Chronographed at 1080 fps average velocity. Using cheap Chinese powder coating. Tried both sized and unsized, made no difference in accuracy. Have not had any leading and are very accurate. I tried bayou bullets and did not have luck with them. Leaded slightly and was not as accurate in my pistol. Bayous were sized smaller than my bullets, and my pistol prefers .358 bullets did not have good accuracy with plated at .355 either. Bayou bullets have quite a following, and I think they were simply not the right size for my pistol. Have some 160 grain bayous that I am going to shoot in my new para p18 with the 6" slide kit. By the way Joe, what's the funky smell I get when I shoot bayou bullets?

Hi, I do not know if you are still using the old coating he used previously. That did smell somewhat.
Now he uses a new and much better coating, that has no smells at all, and shoots well.
The new coating is a Dark Green and lube groove is yellow ringed internally. Very slippery suckers and handling them tells all.
Many have now used this new coated prodgies, and reports are nothing but praise.
Donnie is flat out catching up since the tornado went through.

[Wal']

Hi, You would be better off in contacting two companies that can help you in US.

HI-TECH, I hope you noticed my signature, but I'm here in Oz.

Would seem a little strange to me re-importing the product back here to Australia, where it came from in the first place.

[HI-TEK]

Hi, You would be better off in contacting two companies that can help you in US.
They both should have coating, and possibly home kits.
If you contact Ferrara Leather Company (Nick) or Bayou Bullet Company (Donnie) I am sure that they will steer you in the right direction.
Nick was looking at supplying the home user with complete kits, of coating, Oven and coating method.I am not sure how he is going with it. If you contact them, please let me know how you went.
It also may be useful, if you can get a few mates involevd so you can buy at better prices from either company, and share costs as well

Hi,
Apology, I did not realise until later, that you were in Australia. You can contact me directly as my email is on the system. I can advise about supply then.

[HI-TEK]

HI-TECH, I hope you noticed my signature, but I'm here in Oz.

Would seem a little strange to me re-importing the product back here to Australia, where it came from in the first place.

Sorry, I did not read things carefully. Where in Australia are you? You can contact me by my email and I can help.

[Ausglock]

Hi Trevor, Interested in your comments with the HRBC prodgies. You mentioned that they use a Brown colour, I have not seen the brown coloured stuff.
Also, you found hat black and Blue were no good. What did you find as going wrong, when using these, that convinced you about these not being OK?
Just interested in the bad results and why such coatings had not worked.

The blue HRBC pills had the coating coming off on your fingers while loading. the black coating came off in the barrel and leaded like buggery.
The red ICBM's were ok for coating, but their sizing was all over the place. John connors brown pills are working great. I fired 200 today in an IPSC match and the barrel was nice and clean this arvo when I cleaned the gun. I too would be keen to try coating my own cast pills. Maybe Wal and I can share a buy?

[PAT303]

Hi Trevor, Interested in your comments with the HRBC prodgies. You mentioned that they use a Brown colour, I have not seen the brown coloured stuff.
Also, you found hat black and Blue were no good. What did you find as going wrong, when using these, that convinced you about these not being OK?
Just interested in the bad results and why such coatings had not worked.

I just got 1000 black coated HRBC and it comes off very easily,not really happy with it as the bluey/green coloured coating sticks very well. Pat

[PAT303]

I'd like to get a few litres of the coating posted to Newman. Pat

[KYCaster]

Hi, You would be better off in contacting two companies that can help you in US.
They both should have coating, and possibly home kits.
If you contact Ferrara Leather Company (Nick) or Bayou Bullet Company (Donnie) I am sure that they will steer you in the right direction.
Nick was looking at supplying the home user with complete kits, of coating, Oven and coating method.I am not sure how he is going with it. If you contact them, please let me know how you went.
It also may be useful, if you can get a few mates involevd so you can buy at better prices from either company, and share costs as well

I've contacted both the companies you mention and neither will quote a price nor provide a projected shipping date for ANY quantity.

Any other suggestions?

Jerry