Epoxy paint

[Don Fischer]

I was watching a you tube video on using epoxy paint and have decided to give it a try. question about any coating though. Why does the bullet get coated in front where it never touch's the barrel? What I saw was the people doing it sitting the bullet's on their base and painting everything except the bottom. Would it be better to place them on a board with holes to put the nose in and paint the side of the bullet's and the base?

if I was to try Powder Coating also, would it be smart to get a separate tumbler for tumbling the bullet's? Don't know how soon I might try powder. Closest place to get it seem's to be about 80mi from here, Harbor Freight?

[bangerjim]

Don't worry about the base. We have covered (pun intended) that tons of times on here. Base coverage offers no protection. Does your grease offer protection? I think not. Tops of grease grooves is what your are worrying about. The nose just gets coated by default. Who cares? And the base gets covered by default with BBDT.

Why epoxy? You can find any idiot on youtube. Very messy. Very expensive! Very time-consuming long bakes. Not good protection from what I have found from much experimentation.

Stick with PC, either BBDT or ESPC.

Absolutely...... NO TUMBLER is needed!!!!!! A few use them but NOT required at all for perfect coats. Read the stickiest on PC. Don't try to reinvent the wheel we all have go working very well. Most use coolwhip or ZipLok #5 containers and swirl and shake by hand for only about 15-20 seconds. Tumblers take 20-30 MINUTES and grind off lead in the process, darkening your PC colors. Again.....advise derived from MUCH experimentation!

Read.....read.....read. Stickies are your friend, even though they get big! We took years to generate them.

banger

[Walter Laich]

Jim is correct

quick swirl in a #5 (recycle code on bottom of plastic) container followed with some upside down and back flips--total time 30-40 seconds.

pull them out with hemostats, on the tray and bake.

If you use some ASBB (airsoft b-b) in the container it keeps the bullets from crashing into each other. About a layer or two--I use 3 but I'm doing .45 ACP and Colt bullets. With my .38 Sp Lyman 358242 little pills I have all on one layer.

Jump in and give it a try--worst case scenario you remelt and all the evidence is gone.

[Walter Laich]

Also nothing wrong with ordering the PC through the mail

Smoke, here on this site has a lot of happy followers. http://castboolits.gunloads.com/foru...-4320-s-Corner

[runfiverun]

I'd order from smoke if I were gonna do the P/C thing.
his colors are cooler, and they work better than the H/F stuff.

[Freightman]

I'd order from smoke if I were gonna do the P/C thing.
his colors are cooler, and they work better than the H/F stuff.

Definitely much much better

[Don Fischer]

Thanks for the reply's.

[MGnoob]

Banger jim, i dont totally agree with you about the epoxy. YES, it is a sticky mess and i will add they are more prone to stick together than with pc.BUT, it is good stuff with good results. I can't really compaire the price of pc vs epoxy because its probably irrelevant.
But i will say if you bought 1 gallon of epoxy and a small amount of hardener. It would probibly coats a lifetime of projectile for most people here.

The major downside is dyeing the expoxy colors doesnt achieve as rich a color of PC and the amount of pigment to get it vibrant usually effects the properties of the epoxy... atleast in my experience.

[bangerjim]

Banger jim, i dont totally agree with you about the epoxy. YES, it is a sticky mess and i will add they are more prone to stick together than with pc.BUT, it is good stuff with good results. I can't really compaire the price of pc vs epoxy because its probably irrelevant.
But i will say if you bought 1 gallon of epoxy and a small amount of hardener. It would probibly coats a lifetime of projectile for most people here.

The major downside is dyeing the expoxy colors doesnt achieve as rich a color of PC and the amount of pigment to get it vibrant usually effects the properties of the epoxy... atleast in my experience.

Most on here are talking about buying those silly spray cans of VHT epoxy paint ans SPRAYING the boolits, not slopping epoxy mixed-from-a-can paint on them.

Spray cans are 80% vehicle and a waste of your money. Wet tumbling of epoxy is an older method of the early days of coating development on here. Most people today either BBDT or ESPC their boolits. Some still use HiTech also. I do not like the stuff. Wet tumbling is much messier than PC'ing from my experience with LOTS of messing around!


Good luck with what ever method floats your boat. They all go splat at the other end.

bangerjim

[Dragonheart]

If you want to try epoxy just order an epoxy powder coating powder. I can honestly say I tried HF Red powder and rejected it because it took two coats for coverage in my humid environment of the Gulf Coast. I mail order Prismatic Solid Color Powders and have had excellent one coat results, but understand Smoke's powders are good. I like that Prismatic posts their prices & shipping cost and have sales quite often.

I agree with Bangerjim on a lot of issues, but not on bare bottom bullets. Powder coating the base of the bullet and cooking base down allows the powder coating to coat the bottom of the bullet filling in sprue imperfections to make a flatter base. A flat base bullet is going to be a more accurate bullet, a proven fact. Additionally, the powder coating will withstand greater temperatures to inhibit gas erosion and flow back. You can easily prove this, which we have done, by applying a torch to a PC bullet; the lead will melt out leaving the PC jacket. PC the entire bullet completely covers the lead making the bullets safer to handle and shoot.

All of this sounds good if your quest, as is mine, to make the most accurate bullet at distance, but if you want to make a bullet that will shoot fine at short handgun ranges bare bottom works and sitting base down makes it easy to spray. On hollow points I do place the bullets on a nail bed to spray, which coats everything but the inside of the HP cavity. Your idea about nose down might be worth a try as I have thought about doing this, but I still like the complete coating I get with tumble coating.

[Don Fischer]

I was going to try enamel paint a week or so ago. Got the stuff and realized when I got home it was high heat enamel. Well I set up a bunch of rifle bullet's and sprayed them, figured I might as well give it a try. Boy they looked good when I was done so I tried that hammer test people talk about on here. Paint flake's all over the place. Good side is the recover the lead, just drop in the pot and remelt! I wouldn't call it a waste of time but I certainly could have used the time better! "-) Waiting for my powder to get here now, probably by the end of the week.

[bangerjim]

Enamel does NOT work at all. I have tried several quality brands and it flakes like crazy when stressed.

VHT spray does hold up but is extremely expensive!!!!

Best thing is PC. Whatever method you use of applying it, that is far better than any other "paint" coating.

Hear me now and believe me later.......I have tried every combo of paint, spray, shake, rattle, roll, dunk, glob, etc for coating boolits and ESPC is the best followed by BBDT for PC.

Don't waste your time and $$......I (and others) already did that for you!

bangerjim

[noisewaterphd]

Don't waste your time and $$......I (and others) already did that for you!

bangerjim

I totally get what you are saying, and to some extent I agree.

But, if nobody ever wasted their time and money, we wouldn't be powder coating, we would all still just be lube sizing.

Even if someone tries the *exact* same thing you have already tried, that process through different eyes just might reveal some new information.


Having said that, rattle can enamels are absolutely out. They do not work. Has to be an epoxy, and really needs to be baked. At least from what I have found so far. And I've tried some crazy stuff. I even imported a high dollar moisture cure miracle paint once. It worked better, but ultimately not strong enough to not peel off and lead.

[RP]

But, if nobody ever wasted their time and money, we wouldn't be powder coating, we would all still just be lube sizing.

That is so true and the main reason so many ways have come to light on what works and for some it may work for them but not the next guy for many reasons. The great thing about the people here is sharing what they have learned and others picking up where they stopped and taking it to the next level or finding out its been carried as far as it is able to go.
I kind of think of this place as a great big think tank when you really look read and asked the people here are a great resource for learning. And finding new fun ways of spending more money then you ever planned and doing things you never dreamed of doing on your own.

[Dragonheart]

I for one am glad you gave it a try, at least you are thinking outside the box. We learn a lot more from failure that we do when everything goes right. The key is learning from your mistakes because doing the same exact thing over and over expecting different results is insanity.

[Shotgundrums]

Banger jim, i dont totally agree with you about the epoxy. YES, it is a sticky mess and i will add they are more prone to stick together than with pc.BUT, it is good stuff with good results. I can't really compaire the price of pc vs epoxy because its probably irrelevant.
But i will say if you bought 1 gallon of epoxy and a small amount of hardener. It would probibly coats a lifetime of projectile for most people here.

The major downside is dyeing the expoxy colors doesnt achieve as rich a color of PC and the amount of pigment to get it vibrant usually effects the properties of the epoxy... atleast in my experience.

Much agreed on epoxy (2K). I started epoxy coating bullets long before the YouTube video came out by Markus on the MCC method. I used a clear resin and added whatever pigment I wanted. The get-around with sticking bullets is to use thin coats of low viscosity resin... Once setup starts, agitate the mesh they're sitting on, bullets then separate. Apply second coat after a couple hours, agitate tray to separate. Warm in oven the next day for 25 mins at 200F, no need to stand bullets on end. At mid oven cycle, jiggle the tray and close the door and finish cure. Streamlining this process with thousands of bullets makes this very time economical.

Epoxy is more expensive, but small quantities will coat LOTS and LOTS of bullets. And this process is very user friendly and bullets are aesthetically pleasing.

[dkf]

I successfully coating and shot .380, .357sig and .223 bullets coated with VHT Black Epoxy paint. (rattle can) I first tried tumbling them to apply the paint but th ebullets got blotchy and ugly. I then just lined the bullets up on the table base down and sprayed two coats of the paint on. Then on top of the coal stove to bake after each coat was dry. They shot very good and coating held up. I have since switched over to the Hitek powder because of cost. The VHT was around $8 for one rattle can and I went through it fairly quick.