Jumped in, now jumping out

[roysha]

Well after giving it, what I consider a fair trial, I have come to the conclusion that FOR ME, it is not worth the effort. I am not condemning the process of coating, just that I find it more work than it is worth. So give me my Star, Lyman, or Pitzer sizer and good ole Carnuba Red and I'm good to go.

[aquarist]

What problems were you having that led to you giving up?

[jmort]

Ain't nothing wrong with that. I never got the idea that we all must adhere to a certain way. That is a good question there by aquarist, ​what were the deciding factors?

[NavyVet1959]

I would like to see someone automate the process a bit more just to see what sort of throughput could be achieved. I think this has been mentioned before though. Something like a clip that holds the bullet by two points and then the bullet gets heated, dunked into a powder fluid bed, and then rolls off along a long conveyor in a sort of pizza oven heating chamber.

Kind of difficult to beat the speed of tumble lubing large quantities of bullets with alox though.

[aquarist]

I'm only asking because I am thinking of starting to PC, I've heard the good, now let's hear the bad.

@Navyvet does your LLA take a long time to dry? I've always let mine sit over night before using. Also have been doing some reading on letting your projectile "cure" before using, so now thinking may let mine sit for about a week before using.

[NavyVet1959]

@Navyvet does your LLA take a long time to dry? I've always let mine sit over night before using. Also have been doing some reading on letting your projectile "cure" before using, so now thinking may let mine sit for about a week before using.

When I said "speed", I was talking about the amount of time that I am actually hands-on dealing with the lubing of the bullets. I was not counting the drying time since I can set them to dry in front of a fan and come back the next day.

In practice though, I use the alox plus Johnson's paste wax for a lube. It seems to dry a bit harder. I then dust the bullets with talcum powder so that they are even less messy.

I've wondered whether baking the bullets would make them dry faster or just result in a fire in the oven...

[newton]

I think you'll find that people who did mainly tumble and pan lubing are the ones who are going to try PC and thoroughly love it. The ones who have the high dollar lube/sizer will not find the benefit to be that great.

I do not think its speed as much as it is handling. The point between after you cast the bullet and before you load it, handling of the PC'd projectiles is much more involved than those that are run through lube sizers.

I think the biggest hicup you'll find is the application of the powder itself. Whether it is tumble or spray on, it is involved. The baking/curing is not a big deal. Find a way to do the application of the coating in a way that does not take ADHD, but turns out beautiful looking boolits, and you'll find a lot more people doing it.

Most of us do not care what our coated boolits look like. But if you sat down with someone who has the lubersizer setups you'll find some beautiful boolits. We can get beautiful coated boolits, but it takes more time and attention to detail. At that point, the benefits of PC do not necessarily out weigh lube/sizing.

My theory anyways. If you tumble lube right now, the process is the same(except for a tad bit different handling of the boolits), so I doubt I would ever see someone dropping PC to go back to TL.

[Schrag4]

aquarist, many who apply by shaking also painstakingly stand up each bullet before baking. That's what I do, and is fairly time consuming (because you don't want to knock/wipe the powder off each bullet). For me it's worth it, though, because I'm not really a high-volume shooter. I can cast for an afternoon, then spend 30 minutes here and 30 minutes there over the next several days to get them coated, and that will last me 4-6 months.

I know others who shake-n-bake will dump them onto hardware cloth or some other type of screen, let them cook halfway then shake them so they don't stick together, and then finish baking (I think I got that right). They don't look as pretty, but from what I hear, they shoot just as good. If I significantly increase how much I shoot, I might try to switch to this method, as you spend very little time on the coating steps.

It's my understanding that if you have the ESPC gun, it's the best of most worlds. You do have to stand them up, but you do it before you coat so it goes faster. Applying is fast, and they're already standing up so you just bake right after coating, and best of all, coverage is 100% perfect. If I'm going to increase how much I shoot, it may make more sense for me to get the ESPC gun rather than trying the dump-bake method - haven't made up my mind yet.

I tried the tumble lube thing ONCE and decided I just can't deal with sticky lube getting all over everything, especially the reloading dies. Perhaps I would be happier with a lubrisizer, but I'm pretty happy with PC at the moment. Again, I'm not a high-volume shooter (around 250-300 rounds per month) so YMMV.

[noisewaterphd]

My theory anyways. If you tumble lube right now, the process is the same(except for a tad bit different handling of the boolits), so I doubt I would ever see someone dropping PC to go back to TL.

I'm almost there. And I have a lube sizer.

The One Step/Alox or JPW/Alox mix by themselves are almost good enough for me to consider it for all of my pistol loads.

I'm slowly working on my own formulations of a tumble lube, and if I can get it to do what I'd like, TL will become my "main" method.

Until then, I use all 3, depending on my mood.


The end result of PC is great for a lot of applications, but the process is tedious, and baking them is a bottleneck (at least for me).

[noisewaterphd]

I tried the tumble lube thing ONCE and decided I just can't deal with sticky lube getting all over everything, especially the reloading dies. Perhaps I would be happier with a lubrisizer, but I'm pretty happy with PC at the moment.

Not an attempt to steer you away from PC at all, but there are tumble lubes that are not sticky at all, and work really well.

And yes, lubrisizers are excellent machines.

[rsrocket1]

aquarist,
Getting into PC'ing is highly dependent on a lot of things.
If you simply tumble lube (especially with 45/45/10 or Ben's Liquid Lube) and don't need to size your bullets, there is nothing faster. 60 seconds in a gallon Ziplock bag, pour them onto a wax paper lined tray and either let them dry overnight or blow a fan over them on a warm day for 1/2 an hour and you're ready to load 500 bullets (or more if you do more batches).

For me, tumble lubing works with 38/357 and 45ACP bullets and I get zero leading so I still use this method for those projectiles.

My 9's and 40's tend to lead the barrel slightly and I need to size them anyway but I didn't want to spend $100's on a lube sizer/dies/etc. Had PC not come by, I would have probably kept TL'ing and scrubbing the bore with a Chore Boy wrapped bore mop. 60 seconds per shooting session was not a big deal.

My initial outlay to try ASBB tumbling consisted of paying $4 for a toaster oven at Goodwill and $5 for a pound of HF red. I already had Airsoft BB's, shaker container, parchment paper and nitrile gloves so I read the posts and tried it out. I didn't know how lucky I was to be living in a dry climate because from the very first batch, the coating was great. Shooting left zero leading and I typically coat about 500 bullets an hour because I simply pick up the bullets with my gloved fingers dusted in the powder, tap off the excess (yes there is that much) on a plastic lid, then set the bulled down on the parchment paper lined tray. In the summer, I don't even use the BB's, I just massage the bullets and powder in a gallon Ziplock bag and they are coated.

I hear that humidity plays a big role in success/failure but lightly warming the bullets up in the oven or rinsing them off with Mineral Spirits then drying them helps greatly. 1 pound of powder coats close to 20,000 bullets for me so the cost of the powder is virtually zero.

If someone gave me a lubesizer and dies for free, I probably would have gone that way because I still take the step of sizing the bullets after coating them and that's another one at a time process, but for virtually zero cost and a little time experimenting PC was a great thing to happen to me.

[redbullitt]

Thinking of trying this ASAP. Not really for the convenience of it though. I tumble and pan lube whatever I can, but the PC route is very interesting for anyone using a suppressor. Recently got a suppressor for my 4570 that gets hunting duty most years. Did well this year with it. Pretty much no recoil and takes all the harshness out of the shot, even if you dont get plugs in the ears. Subsonic ought to be quieter too.

Long story short, lead buildup is annoying in suppressors you can take apart to service like mine. Its a deal breaker in ones like most that you cant. Lots of people shooting 300 whisper or blackout now too, myself inclued, so the PC route may be more travelled.

[Schrag4]

I know this has been mentioned already, but I try to shoot at the local IDPA match at least once a month, and since it's indoors, having way less smoke by powder coating vs traditional lube is pretty important. It's hard to shoot the target if you can't see it after the first shot, especially when they have us shoot in the dark (flashlight just lights up a cloud of smoke).

[shoot-n-lead]

To each, his own.

I left the lube/sizer...ain't going back...pc is easier, quicker and much cleaner shooting...for me.

I coat and size 500 per hour, on average and that is quick and easy enough for me.

[RP]

It is time consuming but for my it is also relaxing. I also PC other things besides bullets which I have the gun so that is something it allows me to do. I picked up a full size oven but have to remember to make sure I can get the items I want to PC inside the oven since most of the time they need to hang.
So I use to loading blocks I bonded together to load my bullets in and then flipping onto my trays then I spray and place in the oven. I only had two trays for bullets standing up style so that slowed me down a lot. I picked up some poplar base board off the job site which if I leave one roll off they will hold 90 bullets each and I can place 6 in the oven 12 if I double up on the racks. My plan is to spray a tray place it in the oven then spray another and place in it the oven 5 mins later at this rate I will be removing 90 bullets every 5 mins.
Going to be a nasty weekend weather wise so if all goes well I can do a test run with my HPs I have several trays made with nails that I can rotate in this way and there is really no wait time.
The main thing slowing me down now is playing with mixing colors and getting side tracked when I have a great thought rip threw my head lol.
So for me my lyman is for installing GCs and just sizing bullets and when sizing I use it as a push threw which after PC that is a lot faster then size and lubing and no gunk in the dies or sticky mess.

[chutesnreloads]

IF I had a lubrisizer I almost certainly wouldn't have got into the PC thing.Now kinda doubt I'll ever get the lubrisizer.

[nagantguy]

Pc has been the best thing I've taken from this board, love that I can color code different loads of a caliber and different calibers, love that once they are nice and coated and cooked my daughter can help /reload with me for her own stuff and though she still wears gloves I feel better about lead exposure, pc helped wring the most accuracy out of my big bore revolvers , rifles especially those old mil surps and took my muzzle loading projectiles to the next level, all with a cleaner bore and zero leading! Maybe a part of it is all the other stuff I learned here, consistency, tricks trouble shooting but I can say hands down after 2 years of experiments and side by side shooting trials my pcd boolits shoot as well of better in my weapons with cleaner bores and no leading even in rifles up near max velocity. Fit is king, pc and custom made sizer dies have taken some old used abused odd sized pitted nagants and got them.shooting well again. For idpa, I still tumble lube with Alox /paste wax if I'm pressed for time. Not against any other method of type of lube and to each his own, pc, especially since I got a hold of some of Smokes powder has been a joy and adds yet another enjoyable dimension to my shooting and casting. One more point for pc, long term storage and consistency, it does not get hard soft, brittle or old nor get covered with lint and sand, it's the same at -10 as it is at 95 and 100% humidity. And my "Fat man" muzzle loader boolits that I put a kurl on just look so cool with that gloss black coat, and my wife and daughter love the John deer green 38s and 357s and know those are for serious target work, Carolina blues are for plinking, reds are for hunting/serious social encounters.

[hickfu]

I used to pan lube, I got a lube/sizer and then got into PC. I still use the lube/sizer half the time but Im leaning more towards PC being my main coating. eventually I will sell the lube/sizer but not yet..

[warf73]

Like other I went to PC'ing but not because I didn't have a lube seizer. I've got a star that is set up with air feed for the lube and sizing dies for everything I cast for. Also have the Lee push threw sizing dies for calibers that I apply 45/45/10 to.
The deciding factor was SMOKE since I do 95% of my shooting at an indoor range. I all but gave up shooting cast boolits in my 40 because of the smoke factor shooting indoor competitions. I haven't PC’ed any 40 yet but have for the 380acp (girlfriend loves the yellow-green color) and 357 and love it.

If I could load/post a video, my girlfriend recorded me shooting cast boolits threw the 357, and also shooting PC'ed boolits using the same powder charge. It was night and day difference for me and really noticeable in the video.

It does take longer to get the final product onto the reloading press but TO ME it’s worth the extra time.

Really it all boils down to what a fella or gal wants to do. At least the OP gave it a try and found out it wasn't for him.

[Hickok]

As to PC, I was amazed at how clean the bore was after shooting numerous rounds. At my age it takes a lot to "amaze" me.

Like Nagantguy, I use the colors to "code" my boolits, and there is also the "cool" factor to the colors.

I still have my well-worn Lyman 450, but it only gets PC boolits, for those calibers that I don't have a Lee push through sizer for.

I have an older S&W Model 29-3 .44 mag that has large .433" cylinder throats. With PC I can make any of my .44 boolits from my molds fit these large throats perfectly. One coat of PC, and the boolits are a perfect match. They shoot great, and no more slight leading in the revolver anymore. This older S&W .44 has always been a bit of a problem child, compared to my other .44 mags. Now I can run one patch down the barrel after shooting PC boolits, and the bore looks like a mirror.