First attempt at powder coating

[fortysomething]

OK, so today I had a bit of time and thought I would try powder coating a few boolits for the first time. I have hung around an read enough to get the bug. Tumbled with black BB's using HF Red in an old cheese spread container (HDPE 5), then placed on non-stick foil on a tray for baking in my toaster oven.



On the left are Lee TL452-230 TC and on the right are some .41 cal 225 grain boolits that I bought at a gun show.
I can see the appeal of this process.
Now I just need to load them up and try them. Looking forward to it. Now I need to do some more casting.

[shoot-n-lead]

You did GREAT!

[fredj338]

Success!

[JASON4X4]

Fast and easy

[OS OK]

Looks pretty good from over here...just make sure that you don't have too thick of a PC on the meplat or you will have trouble seating the same round to round.
You gonna sizem or just stuff them as they are?

[fortysomething]

I plan to size them first. I was a little concerned about the coating thickness. I coated about 50 and most looked good.

[OS OK]

Ok forty...Take one of them and give it the hammer test...smash it flat and check to see if the powder flakes off, if not you got good adhesion because they were clean and bake time was right.
I spend a little more time with mine than others when picking them and standing them because I tap the tweezers on the side of the tray to knock off all the excess PC, noses & bases & drive bands...then I am assured that if I'm seating to a crimp groove I'll hit it each time with the crimp. I seat and crimp in separate dies.
Looks like you have it pretty much down pat, enjoy shooting your creations.

[Walter Laich]

you hit the problem area right on the nose: powder coating requires you to keep casting.
I have hundreds of bullets coated mainly because I love the results and to get there I had to keep casting which is also fun.
And add to that mixing colors to see what you can come up with keeps my lead supply down.

great problems to have

[RogerDat]

Too much fun to not try at least once (or several times) Looks like you did pretty good job with those. The HF red in a brass case looks sort of like little lipstick tubes, or those gold wrapped Halloween makeup sticks.

[fortysomething]

I will try the hammer test OS OK. May need to wait until tomorrow though.

i have been trying to plan a casting session, but time and weather haven't coincided for me. Soon I hope. Looking forward to casting and coating some more.

[fortysomething]

I smacked a couple with a hammer today to test the PC. Below is a photo of the results. Didn't see any flaking of the coating.

[OS OK]

It don't get no bettah dan dat forty!

[mistermog]

that looks like fantastic coverage... did you do 1 coat or 2? my HF coats look much spottier and thinner than that. (same method and stuff)

[fortysomething]

It is a single coat. It looked a bit thick to me, but as it was my first try I wasn't sure exactly how it should look. I did have a few bare spots, some of them filled in during the baking process. The day was a bit on the humid side, not bad though. One thing that I didn't mention before is that I baked for 20 minutes, but didn't start the time until the PC was starting to look glossy/shiny, per the label on the HF PC jar.

[mistermog]

looks good, just make sure the size is good and youre golden.

[Kevin Rohrer]

Forty: What method did you use. I also tried PCing today, but it was No Joy.

[pugjunga123]

I'm gonna go to HF tomorrow and buy supplies.

[fortysomething]

Forty: What method did you use. I also tried PCing today, but it was No Joy.

Used the tumble method.

Since it was a couple of small test batches, I used a small cheese spread container (HDPE #5) some black Airsoft BB's and the HF red PC. Shook, tumbled and swirled the container with the boolits for short time (probably 2-3 minutes). Used tweezers to move move the boolits from the container onto a tray with some non-stick foil for baking. For the first batch I preheated the oven to 400 degrees, but the second batch went into a slightly warm oven not fully preheated. Watched temp and coating, when coating started to become shiny I set the timer for 20 minutes at ~400 degrees. Pulled out and cooled.

Some of the the finished product were less than perfect, but none looked terrible. I have seen so many photos on here that looked perfectly coated and smooth. I am happy with the results, but I always figure there is a learning curve before achieving the best results. Just need to hone the technique.

[fredj338]

Some of the the finished product were less than perfect, but none looked terrible. I have seen so many photos on here that looked perfectly coated and smooth. I am happy with the results, but I always figure there is a learning curve before achieving the best results. Just need to hone the technique.

You won't ever get the smooth, even finish the spray guys get but it's good enough for shooting. You can also shorten your bake time, I do 13min total in a preheated oven, works fine.

[OS OK]

Attachment 177653

These are tumble coated and they look pretty dang good to me, if there's such a huge difference in spraying, I ain't seen it.