electro-plating cast bullets

[Thompsoncustom]

Has anyone tired this before? what were you results? Here is what I have been working on lately.

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o77/danielthompson8588/Picture2004.jpg

Here is how they look when they are done being plated

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o77/danielthompson8588/Picture2006.jpg

and this is what they look like if your were to sand them, I'm thinking that I could put something with some grit in the tumbler and get them to come out more like this.

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o77/danielthompson8588/Picture2007.jpg

Now these are the product of around 30 that I plated I'm having problems getting them to plate evenly and with lower amps I can't get them to plate at all. Any advice for those who have done any electro-plating?

[btroj]

Do a search on this site. Been tried before, never have I seen any results that were acceptable.

The big boys have ways of doing things we really can't.

[geargnasher]

The big boys have patented ways of doing things we really can't.

But I'll wager that sooner or later somebody on this forum will figure it out with hobby equipment, some have come pretty close already. Don't give up!

Gear

[Longwood]

I have a friend that does plating and he says it would be no problem.
He does chrome which has a copper, then nickle, base.
I would start with a mold that casts a smaller diameter, smooth sided, bullet.
He told me how much they would increase in size but I forgot how much it was.

[GRUMPA]

Worked in the machining aspect of things all my working life, I have watched them do this kind of stuff when I was just starting out (back in the late 70's) and watched them plate things all the time but never really asked a whole bunch of questions.

From an observation of just watching them plate things (not copper) they had small parts on a plastic looking like knitted bag (which I found out was conductive) suspended in a tank of some sort of solution from a wire that was hanging from a large 1" dia.x 6' long brass rod. What the solution was I have no idea but it was special for there purpose.

Depending on the plating determined what type nodule they would hang on the inside in the solution, once done that they would by hand take this electrically charge rod and touch it in various places on this bag, and do this for an average of 1/2hr and using DC current. After all that time working in aero-space this is the best explanation I can come up with. Don't know if it helps any but you never know.

[303Guy]

All that I could learn was that it required toxic chemicals. I've read here that a pickling solution is needed to make it work.

I have done a few and the coating was OK but it had a black stuff under it. Not sure mine would have survived firing. (More recently I have found that a coating of waxy-lube works pretty well so I find no need to persue the plating path. Then there came paper patching which is what I'm doing now).

[Bullwolf]

I tried this a bit ago in response to a similar thread back in Dec 2011.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?p=1507024#post1507024

I did manage to make a couple of copper plated boolits. I would probably still tumble lube them though, as my plating was much thinner than what I had intended. Especially so in the base, and lube groove areas.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_187904eed5ea946ab2.jpg (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=3052)

It looks like Thompsoncustom has managed to apply a thicker copper plating on his boolits, than I was able to.

Cleaning and de-greasing the boolits you are trying to plate was also a LOT more important than I had realized.

I found someone else who did a pretty decent copper plating job write up here.
http://mcdarksiders.forumotion.com/t3368-copper-plating-lead-bullets

It was all just an experiment for me really, but that's how we learn.


- Bullwolf

[Thompsoncustom]

That's the same article I read before I started the only difference in my solution is I add a small amount of sulfuric acid. Your boolit is much smoother than mine looks very nice, my thickness also varies from bullet to bullet but is around .006 so to have any of these useable they would have needed to be under size a good amount but i'm just testing at this point.

Oh forgot to say that the above boolits only took between 30mins to an hour to plate which I think is a lot shorter than how a lot of people are doing it. I ran my battery charger on the 55Amp start option and in no time they were plated.

GRUMPA I think that might help as I didn't think about running DC current back when I did some anodizing aluminum I used the ark weld as a power source and the DC current range on that is way higher than I would need, might be something I try in the future. Thanks

[GRUMPA]

Another thing that came to mind that someone already pointed out is the fact those little goobers have got to be clean. They may use something different now but back them they used warmed up trichlorethylene <---(SP) prior to plating which had to be done. And the poles from the DC current had to be going in the right direction, if they were reversed 2 things happened, the solution was rendered useless and it started to attack the metal it was supposed to be plating.

The current that was applied to the material was carefully regulated. Meaning if the current was to much the plating would actually start to attack itself, and to much plating would also attack itself. This process of plating is very touchy, a person starting out has got to pay very close attention.

[MtGun44]

OK, humor me here a bit.

Suppose a person were to spend the time and money and effort to perfectly plate
a thin layer of copper onto a boolit.

What is the claimed benefit that would come from this time, money and effort?
Other than color change, I can't see anything that the Berry plated boolits provide
for me over my own cast boolits and they do a wonderful job of it.

Bill

[GRUMPA]

Bill I believe that from what I've read on the forums there are an increasing number of indoor ranges that don't allow cast boolits to be used and check the ammo prior shooting. If your cast was plated they would never know the difference.

[RayinNH]

OK, humor me here a bit.

Suppose a person were to spend the time and money and effort to perfectly plate
a thin layer of copper onto a boolit.

What is the claimed benefit that would come from this time, money and effort?
Other than color change, I can't see anything that the Berry plated boolits provide
for me over my own cast boolits and they do a wonderful job of it.

Bill

Bill the club I belong to only allows plated or jacketed bullets on the indoor range. If you do any kind of quantity shooting plated and jacketed get kind of spendy. That would be the benefit if we could do it ourselves...Ray

[Freightman]

Here is a how to film in several parts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KM_hr5eCNo
looks promising, but needs to be a way to do more faster IMO

[MtGun44]

OK, I was wondering what the benefit would be. I suspect that there is no real
gain from plated boolits on indoor ranges, because the lead from primers and when
the boolit impacts the stop plate will still be there. BUT if that is their policy, it is what
it is.

Bill

[303Guy]

If that's the case then only a thin coating is required. That's do-able. It doesn't even take all that long. But they do need to be treated like plain cast. A clear lube would hide the fact that they are lubed.

[runfiverun]

a properly plated bullet with say 006 thick copper/guilding metal,
and a core of 1-2% antimony would make one heck of a bonded high velocity rifle bullet.
wait, thats how speer is doing their deep curls now, and federal fusions are also done this way.

anyways, i would do the plating as you guy's have been, learn as much as you can about it and keep on going.
copper tubing/pipe comes in different hardnesses.
i would also final size them.

[Longwood]

I was at a guntore last year that only had two boxes of non plated bullets. Every thing else was smooth sided plated.

[btroj]

What happens if you have a smooth sided bullet mould that casts a thou or so smaller than the desired size? Run it thru a Lee push thru after plating to make sure everything is the same size.

Big question is -How thick a layer of plating is needed to keep from getting leading? I have no idea.

[Thompsoncustom]

thinking about this a little more i'm using a 12v car charger and I believe all car chargers are DC aren't they?

Freightman thanks for the Vid I'm thinking running wire to the bullets would be much better than sitting them on a plate like I was doing. In part three of the vid he says he could probably plate 100 bullets in a little over ten minutes not counting prep time which is not bad the only problem I see is you would need to start with a under sized bullet I would think like say .352-.354 and plate over whatever your bore slugs at to get them to work right.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Plated boolits from any of the manufacturers have a pretty serious layer of material on them. .008 per side! That is a lot of plating! in fact .002 is alot of plating.

This insures that the boolit loads the same as a cast boolit but shoots like a Jacketed bullet. IE no leading period.

These boolits are tumble plated, IE tumbled while in the chem bath to insure even deposition of copper on the outside of the bullet.

They are then tumbled gently by themselves, no grit needed, to bring up the shine, then they are pushed thru a sizing die to insure they are sized correctly, and then retumbled.

This process is tightly controlled so that the sizing necessary is very very small.

This process is kind of expensive to do on a small scale although it could be done.

A visit to any industrial plating shop should yeild a clear understanding of the tumble plating process. It is no secret and has been being done for many years.

Adapting it to do small batches of boolits does not sound like it will be cost effective especially since you can buy a wide variety of plated boolits already that are ready to load. Since you can buy 500 .45 230gr RN for $57.00 at a gun show or have them shipped to you for a few $ more, it starts looking like reinventing the wheel and coming out square.

Randy

[ku4hx]

Push comes to shove and I think I'll just get more into home swaging JHP fodder; Corbin makes some great stuff. That or buy FMJ or plated bullets.

I remember when gasoline was 29.9 cents/gallon and I'd drive all the way across town to avoid paying 32.9 cents/gallon. I remember the oil embargo of 1973 (had a brand spanking new 1973 Mustang with a Cleveland 351 cubic inch engine that at best got 17mpg) and gasoline hitting 70 cents/gal. Then over time it went past $1.00/gal and now I feel lucky if I can get it here in the sunny South for $3.25/gal.

I also remember "gas wars" and my parents buying gasoline that was 11 cents per gallon. That was around 1957. We're all still driving. And most likely have more than one vehicle.

We'll adapt whether we want to to not and we'll shoot what we have to ... or not. As much as I like casting, if doing so became impossible for one reason or another, I'd happily shoot jacketed. I dearly love the casting journey, but if that option is removed, I'll do otherwise to practice my ultimate hobby ... pulling the trigger.

[wildphilhickup]

Western Nevada Bullets was copper plating bullets back in the early 80's. They claimed .002" minimum. I did a cross-section on them and found they were really .00025". Unless you do a cross-section on plated bullets, you will never know what they are.

Low current, longer platin time gives a better result. The pic above looks like the amps was too high.

[GRUMPA]

In order to check plating thickness accurately a person would need one of those high dollar tools called a perma-scope. The one we used looked a lot like the old analog multi-checkers for reading power. IIRC that thing was around 1k back then.

I just googled perma-scopes and I guess they call them by a different name now because now it refers to something totally different.

[R.Ph. 380]

OK, humor me here a bit.

Suppose a person were to spend the time and money and effort to perfectly plate
a thin layer of copper onto a boolit.

What is the claimed benefit that would come from this time, money and effort?
Other than color change, I can't see anything that the Berry plated boolits provide
for me over my own cast boolits and they do a wonderful job of it.

Bill

Berry's perfect plated are double plated and swaged after each plating. I've been shooting them for years.

[prs]

I think rattle cans of Krylon comes in copper color to apease the indoor range inspector.

Just josh'n, I would not do that.

Are they still "boolits"?

prs

[303Guy]

Found a pic of my copper plating attempt.

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-038F.jpg

The copper layer is fairly thick. I wonder how I did it - that was 15 or so years ago.

[22lover]

I should have a pic of my latest attempt at copper plating sometime tonight or tomorrow. It's "cooking" now and I have made some significant progress in terms of the quality. I think I have some of the initial kinks worked out re: the black sludge formation and adherence. I left one in all last night (too long) to prove things out and in addition to a durable full coverage it grew tentacles of copper that I couldn't remove with a drill-press spinning wire brush. More to come.

[Red River Rick]

How about something like this..................

RRR

[22lover]

Those look great! What method are you using? Tumbling?

[MUSTANG]

How about something like this..................

RRR

Those look great. I've given plating bullets a try 1/2 dozen times over the last 15 years; each time my effort proved unsuccessful. Plating efforts would usually give a Black and rough texture to the bullets. At times I would get a partial copper adhesion on the bullets; but uncovered lead or black spots would be present. Needless to say; I have not been successful but remain interested and optimistic that success will prevail one day.

The following picture is a plating attempt about 6 months ago on some rejected Lyman 311410 cast boolits. Unplated boolits have been placed on each end for reference. Note the copper color on some boolits; but mostly black. These were polished in the tumbler after "Plating".
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/images/smilies/confused.gif


http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_22090500767ac4d4bf.jpg (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=5950)



My first interest in the topic was back about 1978. There was a company that made a Home Hobby Kit for plating bullets. It could have been Caswell, but my memory says it wasn't them. Somewhere in a box in the garage I still have the brochure, but finding it is the challenge. Being a poor Marine at the time; buying the unit was out of my means. Prioritization of spare funds at the time was dedicated to paying off a college loan, a night out with the ladies, beer and shooting ammo.

Not ever having physically seen one of these machines first hand, I must rely on recollections of the brochure until I can find it. The plating machine consisted of 10 to 12 clear plastic tubes arranged vertically in a circle, with the bullets stacked nose to base in each tube. In this arrangement the Anode and Cathode would have to have been at the top and bottom of the tubes. The brochure came with a sample .38 Keith Style Semi-Wad cutter that had been plated and polished by tumbling. It was impressive with all angles very sharp and the copper a deep dark copper color. Nothing like my attempted efforts over the last 15 years.

Has anyone else ever seen the Plating Machine I mentioned (or better yet have one?) Sure would be interesting to see this type home unit resurrected for sale. I too have encountered the "You can't shoot your reloads here", no exposed lead range restrictions. It would be nice to have the option of plating a specific bullet when desired.

One opinion; I believe that the "RPM Thresholds" Larry Gibson writes of in various posts will still apply on Plated Boolits. If a void/imperfection/off center of gravity affects the cast boolit; it will still affect the same in a plated boolit.

[John in WI]

I think the black/dark grey color you're seeing isn't that the plating isn't working. The problem is that the RATE you're growing the copper film at is too fast. The rate you deposit the copper at depends heavily on the current you're supplying (and the concentration of the copper solution). It looks black and rough because it's not a nice smooth film of copper, it's a ton of very small little faceted particles of copper. I'm not sure what kind of power supply you are using or if it has an adjustment for the supplied current, but if possible you should try to crank it down.

I'm only talking from "paper experience". But this is a true story. A friend of mine in graduate school was able to vacuum impregnate a rose with some kind of conductive polymer, then cover it with a beautiful 24carot gold film. (all to impress this really gorgeous Russian girl in the physics department). He burned up untold hundreds (of his boss's money) but the trick to it ended up being the very low current. Even in pure, 24carot gold the "fast" films looked blue/black.

[fcvan]

I finally started plating about a month ago. I played with the solution, the volts and amps. It took a couple days to get things settled down. was able to plate from a thin wash to a thick jacket - so thick that when I threw it in the melting pot the lead came out and the jacket remained.

My goal is to provide a copper layer with a measure of consistency. I found that about 30-40 minutes at 1.5v and 300ma nicely plated some Lyman 225-415 boolits. I have some test loads, range report coming soon. The .45 200 RNHP looked okay but I didn't shoot them. I guess I needed a nap and so they weren't stopped at 30 minutes, hence the thick jackets in the melting pot.

Believe it or not, I started plating using a solar panel and a cigarette lighter adapter that stepped it down from 12v to like 4.5 at 250ma. That worked really good while it was overcast but when the sun came out it was too much juice. It oxidized the lead as fast as it was trying to deposit copper. It looked like the rusticles on the Titanic.

My barrel electroplating station will be constructed within the week - if I can find the right material for the plating barrel. My goal is to plate 100-150 of the little 225-415 boolits at a time, 50 or so .40 or better caliber. If I can make that work I might try building something slightly larger.

The goal of this endeavor will to run this operation using a solar panel and possibly some storage batteries. I'll be 'going green' with my eco-friendly boolits. I'm fairly certain the enviro-nazis will still have issues with the black gun I'll be launching them from. Frank

[MUSTANG]

John in WI:

Thanks for the comments and thoughts. I have used batteries, battery chargers, and a variety of computer/cell phone/toy AC to DC chargers as power supplies. Limiting the amperage further, and even lowering the voltage might be my next step. I'll have to find some variable resistors in my boxes of electronic cast offs; or stop by Radio Shack sometime in the next 1-6 months and give it another try. Bigger Hammer theory does not seem to work here if your correct.

FCVAN:

Interesting thought on the Solar Panels. I have some 27 Volt panels that are operational (12 x 17 inches) that I rescued from some dumpsters years ago, I may consider them as you have done. Rather than going directly to the panels; you might consider a lawn mower/motorcycle battery in the set up. That would provide some filtering as well as voltage stabilization independent of the Sun, and stabilizing the power as the solar cycle passes each day.

If the comments from John in WI apply to your set up (too much amperage, and potentially the voltage also) you might need to consider a resistor/potentiometer in your set up also as I will do. I understand the theory, and the electronics; just not successful on the practical application yet.


Plating Boolits is a project that I'll restart sometime in the next 6 months; first I have to get some .308/30-06/.223 Cast Boolit development completed using Surplus Powders. I'll drop by this thread on occasion, best wishes and look forward to your success.

Also FCVAN; if you have any success with the tumbler electroplating station; would love to see more information and pictures on it. When I consider the technology is 150 years old, it sure gets frustrating when we have trouble replicating the successful efforts of our grandparents, great grandparents, etc... Oh well, nothing new under the sun as my grandmother was fond of quoting. (She came to Texas in a covered Wagon and Watched men walk on the Moon - What a range of experience in a single lifespan).

Mustang

[fcvan]

When I get things dialed in there certainly be pictures and a parts list, recipes, range results. For now, I've been using things I had handy such as the variable wall wart power supply, the copper wire, and the alligator clips.

I had to buy the Zep root kill for the copper sulphate and a plastic bin from the dollar store. I might invest in a 12v cigarette lighter type variable power supply similar to the 110v version I'm currently using. I'm not sure what I will use to turn the barrel at 5 to 10 rpm but I have some ideas on how to maintain ground to the load of boolits in the barrel. Good fun! Frank

[Goatwhiskers]

Hmmm, wonder if a copper plated boolit would fool a Commiefornia game agent? GW

[Longwood]

Hmmm, wonder if a copper plated boolit would fool a Commiefornia game agent? GW

Fool a what?????

[Goatwhiskers]

California. In condor country they'll write you up if you even have lead bullets in your possession. GW

[Longwood]

California. In condor country they'll write you up if you even have lead bullets in your possession. GW

No problem,,,, it is a huge state and no where near all of it is Condor country.
I shoot sometimes three times a week and often on BLM land within hearing distance from the Hiway patrol office, the county building, the court house, and the sheriffs station.
One of the detectives is a personal friend. He has shot with us where we shoot and saw what we were shooting more than once.
No Biggie!
Most of the nonsense I see about Komifornia is posted by someone that more likely than not, does not even understand Communism or how most Californians think.

[John in WI]

I just looked up the "reduction potential" for copper ions, and they are saying Cu+2-->Cu+1 is 0.16V and Cu+1-->Cu(metal) 0.52V.

I think for growing a high quality film, I would keep the voltage low (maybe a volt?). The current required would be a function of how many boolits you were trying to electroplate. 1 boolit has a much lower surface area than 1000 boolits do, and so it would require less current (to keep the current/area equal).

I also seem to remember the electrode needs to (at a minimum) have the same area as whatever you are trying to plate.

When I would teach the electrochemisty labs, it seemed like having the metal CLEAN was the most critical part of the whole operation. We would copper plate dimes, and nickle plate pennies and you could see fingerprints very clearly on them. If the solution can't get to the metal (if the copper ions can't reach the lead), it can't get reduced from copper ions to copper metal. Finger oils would totally stop the reaction.

If I remember it right, they cleaned the coins in detergent to get the bulk crud off of them, then TSP (really good at cutting grease and oils) and finally ammonia. The ammonia helps to remove metal oxidation by making the metal amine that is water soluble and rinses away.

Again-I've never plated a boolit (although I made some electrodes to do it--they are still sitting on my bench in the lab!), but I see no reason it shouldn't work. I think most .22lrs are electroplated.

[Longwood]

A mad scientist type person I know is presently doing a lot of annodizing with home mede equipment.
The last time I was there he got a box from UPS that he said had a controlled power supply in it.
According to him, the voltage and current for anodizing has to be very carefully regulated. The same may be true for plating.
I did not hang around long enough to see it but I can check it out and report back if you guys would like me to.

[John in WI]

I think you're right about needing things carefully controlled. Where I see the problems might be are that you have a lot of variables. Some of them you can control, some you can't. You can control the surface area of whatever you are trying to plate, you can control the voltage you're applying between the cathode an anode, you can control the temperature of the solution and the concentration in the solution (for copper sulfate I think it's normally a saturated solution, fairly warm).

That parts that turn it into "black magic" are that you don't know how fast the copper ions are reaching the surface. And the current you put through the circuit is limited by that. You can't flow electrons through the actual solution. So the current is limited by how fast they are "consumed" in the reaction. And that is limited by how fast the ions get to the surface (and get deposited as the metal).

That is why the temperature of the solution is so important. In hot solutions, the ions are moving in the solution much more quickly than cold. Also, agitating or stirring the solution can really increase the rate. In both cases it breaks down the electrical double layer that forms.

Believe it or not--I'm not making that up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_layer_%28interfacial%29

[BattleRife]

When I would teach the electrochemisty labs, it seemed like having the metal CLEAN was the most critical part of the whole operation.

Copper or brass plating of cast bullets is on my list of things to experiment with some day soon, but I haven't done much with it, yet. BUT I have done research, and as part of that I have reaffirmed the age-old advice DO NOT REINVENT THE WHEEL.

Cleanliness prior to plating is everything, and for that reason there is an industry standard on how to do it. ASTM B319 describes how lead can be cleaned in preparation for electroplating, and the chemicals required are well within the reach of the average Joe (I bought mine at Home Depot). I have a copy of this spec, but I am not going to post it to the world here. Anyone who wants it may PM me with an email address, and I will gladly forward it to you.


...all to impress this really gorgeous Russian girl in the physics department).

That sounds like as good a reason as any (and better than most):grin:.

[Longwood]

That sounds like as good a reason as any (and better than most):grin:.

The best looking lady around here is a Russian from the East coast of Russia.
Her daughter is even better looking.
She looks even better than Taylor Swift or Brittney Speers did 12 years ago..

[fcvan]

I still haven't tackled the barrel electroplating as of yet but will do so in the near future.

RANGE REPORT:

I took some loads out to play today. Lyman 225-415 loaded in .223, with 14 gr of IMR 4227, right out of the Lyman #49 manual. These rounds were fired from a Ruger Mini-14 180 model, a 580 Ranch Rifle, and an AR 15 platform rifle. Some loads were gas checked and lubed with BAC, and some were Copper Electroplated, gas checked and lubed with BAC. The electroplated boolits showed tighter groups in each rifle.

I did not have the chronograph set up but the rounds are supposed to be scooting along at approx. 2250 fps. The bores looked very clean on all rifles and there did not seem to be any issues with fouling in the operating systems. I am not certain, but I believe the improved accuracy is due in part by the Cu Plating toughening the boolit. I noticed some slight nose deformation during cycling of the plain lead boolits but not with the Cu plated boolits.

I'm not looking for 300 yard accuracy with these boolits. I am looking for cheap plinkers for use in close-quarter drills from 15 to 50 yards. These rounds will stay on a paper plate while shooting on the move doing failure drills. But then again, I have shot a 12" steel plate at 200 yards using the iron sights of the AT 15 rifle, and that was with the unplated lead boolits. Good times! Frank