copperplating

[edwin41]

hello,
today i decided to give it another go at copperplating of castbullets.
i did it for experimenting with it , i usually shoot my own casts of this type sized and lubed.
i started out by sizing my 170 gr swc keith style bullet , that i cast from a lead/tin alloy to .357.
then i cleaned them with the electrolyse process , its a water and soda , i put the plus side of a adjustable powersource on the iron anode in the reservoir and the minus side to the material.
i found that an amperage of 3 ampere works good for this type of cleaning.
i rinsed them off with water , and gave them a hydrochloric acid dip , then rinse of again with water.
i put them in the reservoir filled with a plating solution , wich i made with water , coppersulfate and some batteryacid.
this time the anode is pure copper , the kathode is still the bulletmaterial.
i have a little airpump connected to the reservoir so i can get some bathmovement when the plating is going on.
the bullets that came out were somewhat dull , i buffed them up a little with a powered polishing wheel.
these bullets are real slick !
gonna give them a try in my smith&wesson .357 mag revolver.

[edwin41]

i forgot to mention that im gonna shoot these bullets without lubing them.
in the pictures you can see three bullets , two of them have been plated , one is left unplated.
i also must mention that it was a lot of work to plate these bullets , i made me a batch of 25 in one time.
the most timeconsuming was to hang them up by a string , from an electrocable.
the plating itself is a real easy step , so is the cleaning.
to be a workable process i will have to make me a sort of attachment that will hold some 50 bullets at a time .
i think the final polishing could be done in a tumbler , but for now , im just experimenting with the process.

when i can get a good enough quality my intended use would be for the .30 m1 cartridge .
my .357 mag bullets do just fine left unplated and lubed .

[somedude101]

I'm excited to see how your plated boolits work out, been thinking about trying it myself. Please share your 30 m1 results when you do that project, my buddy and I are tring to figure out if plating 308 win will work out or not.

[6mm250]

edwin41 , any chance you could post pics of your plating setup ?


Mike

[edwin41]

yes 6mm , i can post pictures of the set up , but not now as its getting late here in holland now , maby tomorrow.
ive got a simple setup by the way...
here is some pictures of a few loaded and ready to go , i will let you know how it worked out.
i did a very thin plating though , the thickness of the copper layer would be determent by the time one would have it in the solution.
my thinking would be that if i plated a thick coat the plating would easily be cracked and left particles in the barrel , with a thin coat my thinking would be that the plating would easily form itself to the barrels land and grooves , afterall , all it would take is a very fine layer between the lead and the bore.

[357maximum]

Not sure you need to copperplate for either application, but they sure are purdeee and would make a nice addition to a gunbelt. :mrgreen:

[savingprivateyang]

Wow, these look a whole lot better than my attempt. You do have a much better process than I did though.

[nhrifle]

I havd tried plating with so-so results, so I will be following this with interest. Curious to see your setup and the power supply.

[edwin41]

for the looks in a gunbelt i would also plate the casings!
ive plated some casings in the past with good results .

[GabbyM]

Very nice job of Cu plating. Not an easy thing to do.

IMHO, However:

All that Cu plating will do is copper foul your barrel.
I shoot my plain old Pb bollits with Felix lube and the bores shine up more after a shooting spree than before I fire them up. After shooting I just wipe out with Ed’s Red home made solvent. No ammonia or other corrosives necessary.

Sorry if that sounds like I’m busting your bubble. But I’ve shot Cu plated bullets.

Back when I did commercial casing a couple of my commercial re-loader customers tried to push me into Cu plating. As they new full well the copper color bullets would move off the gun show tables fast. Just could not go there from an ethical based reason. Since I view them as snake oil. Not that they will not shoot OK. But you do have to charge more as you know it’s a huge amount of work. End result boolit shoots slower due to increased friction plus you typically get a huge amount of copper fouling.

Please don’t hate me or transcend some bad karma m way.

Some of the casters here have been playing around with low % Cu alloy into there boolits. I’ve cast some of these up and will be testing. I truly think the place for Cu is alloyed into the boolit not plated on the top. Kind of a more for your money thing.

As a peace offering I can send you a box of #358429 clones cast from an NOE mould lubed with a semi hard lube. Gratis with no postage due. As a control load. They’ll give you a standard to shoot against. Side by side. Given all the work you’ve done. Potential knowledge gained by our community has a measure of value. I may even be wrong and loose this challenge. Only one way to find out.

PM me as I may miss a thread post.

[edwin41]

youre not busting my bubble at all gabby,
i know its a lot of work plating a castbullet , and i dont know if i ever get the plating workable.
im just experimenting with the process , i normally shoot this casted bullet unplated and lubed and it works great.
on the range sometime ago i saw some 9 mm bullets , were you could tear the copper of with a sharp object , clearly a factory plated bullet , and this let me on to do some further experiment on the process.
in my swedish mauser rifle i shoot a paperpatched bullet , wich is a far better solution than the plated stuff.
thank you for your offer to give me some bullets , but there is no need for them , the offering is appreciated though !
i know i can cast a harder bullet , but i dont wanna go that route , and stick with my soft alloy , a lead / tin mix .

[edwin41]

i tried to take some pictures , but they didnt came out real good .
the key thing of a succesfull plating , at least in my opinion , lies in the powersource.
it has to be a dc powersupply , but the voltage is not the issue , its the amperes.
to much amps and the plating is thick , but like a powder.
to little amps and the plating does not "grow"right to an even coat.
there is a rule of thumb for the plating current , and this is 1 ampere for every square decimetre.
i calculated that i needed like 1.1 ampere for my batch of 25 bullets .
as said , voltage is not important.
my regulator, that was given to me, came from a plating company , so its a purpose build powersupply.
it has a max output of 25 volt , 50 amperes and with a turn of the knob it increases the ampere output.

also important is to have the power on when you put the objects in the solution , if you dont do that the objects attract "contact copper"wich would not adhese to the material .
this contact copper can be easily rubbed of with a cloth.

the biggest problem in copperplating castbullets lies somewhere else though , and that is adhesion to the material , wich is lead.
i will look into something called a "nickel strike "to see if i can get a better adhesion.

[Freightman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KM_hr5eCNo
Here is a video on a set up.

[wallenba]

I tried using the Zepp root kill granules and a power supply from Radio Shack. I used an old crock pot to get some heat in it, and hung mine with copper wire strands on some copper pipe. I got dismal results from lack of proper cleaning I guess. Just a heavy coat of black muck.
When you say 'soda', do you mean just sodium bicarbonate? And where can one obtain battery acid?
I may have to resort to plating. Around here there is only one indoor range that looks the other way when I shoot cast.

[edwin41]

i watched the videolink on youtube .
first of all , you dont need to heat the bath , room temerature does just fine.
there was a pump used to pump the solution round , thats good because you want some bathmovement.
more easy would be to pick up an airpump like one uses in a pond or aquarium , with them you get some kind of stones with a lot of holes in them and a valve to control airflow.
with these items you can blow air in the tank , adjust to a light bubbling and youve got youre bathmovement.
wallenba , my thinking would be youve supplied to much amps to the bath , maby you could place a amperemeter in the plus line , and adjust with a variable resistor.
maby you did not put the power on when you put the objects in the bath and they caught contactcopper ?
im dutch so my language limits me sometimes , i did the google translation for the dutch word soda , and it translated to soda.
soda is a common household product , for cleaning .
the mentioned battery acid is obtained through automotive or hardware stores , its the liqued that one uses for filling up a carbattery , we need the sulfuric acid and batteryliqued is just sulfuric acid and water.
hope this post would help you a little on the way.

[wallenba]

[QUOTE=edwin41;2055938]wallenba , my thinking would be youve supplied to much amps to the bath , maby you could place a amperemeter in the plus line , and adjust with a variable resistor.

My power supply is a steady 3amp, and I used a 12v automotive stop light bulb to drop it down some. I will try again someday, next time I'll use the soda wash and the acid.

[edwin41]

you can also try a penlight battery of 1.5 volts , if you put in like 10 bullets or so.

[edwin41]

hello,
i found out that a german compagnie called h&n sports sells bullets for the .30m1 carbine , that are leadcores with a thin copperplating . they also have their own reload table for it.
i think its a reduced load , but they mention 12 gr of vithavouri n110.
these bullets seems to be good shooters though , i thought i try some , but they are in backorder for about 3 months now.
it seems to me that this caliber is getting harder to obtain in holland , so im diving in to make my own...
i ordered out for a lyman mould , but i still havent gotten it.
so now i placed another order containing the lyman bulletmould and the sizingdie , i decided on the non gascheck 110 gr roundnose bullet.
my thinking would be that i will cast them soft , size them to .308 , copperplate them , and then again through the sizer with lube , seems to be the best of both worlds.
for now i will have to wait for the mould to come in , but this copperplating thing intriges me , and yes , i will get it under control
it just takes some time and a lot of experiments i think...but hey , if the germans can, i can.

[mactool]

Hi You can by copperpated us carbine bullet here http://egun.de/market/item.php?id=4247120
It not that far away from you

[edwin41]

thats a nice offer right there...
it also shows that it can be done.
i found that the hafting difficultys to the lead maby could be cured by a "copperstrike".
one would need a solution that contains:
cucn [coppercyanide] 42 gram / litre
nacn [sodiumcyanide] 50 gram / litre
sodiumcarbonate 30 gram / litre
potassium sodium tartrate 60 gram / litre
the temerature of the solution should be 38 to 54 degrees celcius.
current for a short time some 25 mA / square centimetre
a longer period about half the current.
then rinse of with water and copperplate the usual way

this would be a solution containing :
coppersulfate 200 gram / litre
sulfuric acid 80 gram / litre
this solution at about 10 degrees celcius
current 20 mA per square centimetre.

[303Guy]

It's the cyanide that's the problem. Are those cyanide salts toxic? Do they potentially give of toxic fumes or produce toxic by-products? If not then where does one get them from in the quantities we would require?

On to the ranges that don't alloy cast boolits, does it matter if the plating comes off easily? It's just to get past the paranoia.

[edwin41]

i think you are right about the cyanide stuff , not sure if i wanna go that route to.
i m gonna try my batch of 25 plated bullets that are normally plated , wich is a not so hazardous way.
i expext the plating will come of easy , but also dont know if it will be a problem , because the plating will be forced between the bullet and the bore , and this bullet will only in the barrel for a few milliseconds or so. one advantage these bullets will have is a protected bottom , and if i learned something from paperpatching the 6.5x55 mm is that the bottomprotection is critical for longer range accurasy , i didnt lube these bullets to see if the plating will hold up to the friction.
hmm , will be posting my findings soon.

[edwin41]

so , today ive tried my batch of 25 bullets in my s&w .357 mag revolver.
this is defintly NOT the way to go , leading is severe , when cleaning the revolver big pieces of lead came out the barrel.
the adhesion of the plating to the bulletmaterial must be the problem i think.
hmmm... time to regroup and rethink my process .

im glad i did this experiment though .

[303Guy]

An idea has come to mind - bronze or brass plating. Can it be done? I was thinking in terms of plating case necks to improve fit to suite cast or paper patched boolits for zero neck sizing. But plating of any kind on the boolit for paper patching would for paper patching (sizing up the seating section) would not require any adhesion. Brass or bronze plating might have the strength to stay on a lubed boolit in the bore.

[edwin41]

did you mean to copperplate a casing ?
then yes , this can easily be done with the coppersulfatesolution described above.
ive done a lot of casings in the past , because its brass hafting is exellent , just clean it very well before plating and you should be okee.

[evil5826]

so , today ive tried my batch of 25 bullets in my s&w .357 mag revolver.
this is defintly NOT the way to go , leading is severe , when cleaning the revolver big pieces of lead came out the barrel.
the adhesion of the plating to the bulletmaterial must be the problem i think.
hmmm... time to regroup and rethink my process .

im glad i did this experiment though .

Plan on doing this same experiment this weekend. However after watching Spinsales video and reading around, I have come up with a few ideas.

-Fish tank aerater to agitate the water for sure.
-Don't size, plate it and then size to see how much comes off.
-Size,plate and then size again. From what I have seen...nothing usually comes off.
-Lube the groove even if its plated. Better to be safe then sorry.
-Need to come up with some sort of contraption that will contain 50 bullets but not using wire on each individual bullet. Maybe a copper or metal strip with half moon whole cut outs towards the edge so the bullets can slide in where the lube grove is and then be pulled out. Heavy copper wire tied to this strip so it can hang from the negative contact. 1.5 amps for 50 rounds or do would I need more? Pardon my MS Painting skills.
61655

-Back to the aerator. Agitation is very important. See this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eleRBbbsk_4 . Very successful very quickly. Not sure what solution he was using but it has to be the same just maybe higher potency.

These are just ideas. I haven't gotten a chance to even try it yet but I will this weekend. Pictures will follow if I remember.

Next up


Very nice job of Cu plating. Not an easy thing to do.

IMHO, However:

All that Cu plating will do is copper foul your barrel.
I shoot my plain old Pb bollits with Felix lube and the bores shine up more after a shooting spree than before I fire them up. After shooting I just wipe out with Ed’s Red home made solvent. No ammonia or other corrosives necessary.

Sorry if that sounds like I’m busting your bubble. But I’ve shot Cu plated bullets.

Back when I did commercial casing a couple of my commercial re-loader customers tried to push me into Cu plating. As they new full well the copper color bullets would move off the gun show tables fast. Just could not go there from an ethical based reason. Since I view them as snake oil. Not that they will not shoot OK. But you do have to charge more as you know it’s a huge amount of work. End result boolit shoots slower due to increased friction plus you typically get a huge amount of copper fouling.

Please don’t hate me or transcend some bad karma m way.

Some of the casters here have been playing around with low % Cu alloy into there boolits. I’ve cast some of these up and will be testing. I truly think the place for Cu is alloyed into the boolit not plated on the top. Kind of a more for your money thing.

As a peace offering I can send you a box of #358429 clones cast from an NOE mould lubed with a semi hard lube. Gratis with no postage due. As a control load. They’ll give you a standard to shoot against. Side by side. Given all the work you’ve done. Potential knowledge gained by our community has a measure of value. I may even be wrong and loose this challenge. Only one way to find out.

PM me as I may miss a thread post.

Doesn't all copper related jackets still create copper fouling? Or are you more susceptible to fouling by plating? And if so would filling the lube groove with lube on a plated bullet help prevent this along with leading? Just trying to get some ideas.

[edwin41]

i still think it can be done , but the adhesion to the bulletmaterial is the great obstacle.
i do think youll need the copperstrike as described in previos post.
i also found out that its better to use sulfuric acid [carbattery fluid] to degrease them , just hang them in for a while.

good luck !

[303Guy]

Ummm .... copper plating a boolit does not mean you don't need to lube them. You still have to lube them or you are going to get lead and copper fouling. Copper plating should simply ease boolit metal fouling of the bore. Copper jacketed bullets still foul the bore. The trick is to apply the lube without damaging the copper plating and that would mean no sizing after plating and during lubing.

[Grendel99]

That does seem pretty neat and those copper plated SWC's are sweet looking! But man, that seems like a ton of work for not very much return. It's already kind of a pain just casting! :mrgreen: You polished them to make them look all nice and pretty, but is that really necessary? Seems like you could save yourself some time.

[ridurall]

I am waiting on the group buy of the NOE 513 850Gr. for my 50 BMG and this idea intreagues me. I'm wondering if one and push this a bit faster if plated. The run on these molds is supposed to be in March and I've got everything ready to go including having a gunsmith friend turn a Lee bollit sizer up to .513 in diameter. So I'm watching this thread hoping to learn something helpful. Thanks for your input.

[303Guy]

If you've been following the copper alloy threads you might be interested in going that route for higher velocity. Not as purty as copper plated though.

[edwin41]

ive bought me some h&n copperplated bullets .
gonna look close at these cause they are a soft leadcore , with a galvanized copperplating on them.

if i ever get the adhesion down , i will make me a bulletmould , the same dimensions as these h&n bullets are...
hmm... we will see how it develops.

[fcvan]

My personal experiments with plating yielded some positive results. I plated some 225-415 boolits for .223 loads. I still needed lube and gas checks to get any accuracy. I followed the youtube videos as far as plating solution with copper sulfate and water. Warming the solution worked better than not. adjusting the volts/amps definitely had an effect on the success of the plating. Clean boolits are a must!

I had the best results with the most unlikely of combinations. I used a solar panel rated at 12v and 5w with a voltage converter that dropped volts to 1.5 and 3 volts depending upon the setting. after that, I tried wall wort power supply and was able to do 'ok' but not great.

I think if I want to do better I will need to 1) have a decent power supply, 2) have a minimalistic heat source, 3) some sort of agitation, and 4) a timer of sorts. My goal is to build a small plating barrel with flexible contacts to keep the boolits negatively charged. With a small heat source like the coffee pot element I should get heat and agitation. The barrel will be turned by a rotisserie motor and use the skewer as part of the negative side of the circuit.

Yes, it seems like a lot of work to copper plate boolits that still need lube and a check. With barrel electropating I might be able to get things going without lube or a check but that would require a different mold. Even more effort required. Why? Just to say I did it. The plated boolits I made did look purty.

[303Guy]

The trick to successful adhesion is surface cleanliness. Here's a quote from Wikipedia;


" Cleanliness is essential to successful electroplating, since molecular layers of oil can prevent adhesion of the coating. ASTM B322 is a standard guide for cleaning metals prior to electroplating. Cleaning processes include solvent cleaning, hot alkaline detergent cleaning, electro-cleaning, and acid treatment etc. The most common industrial test for cleanliness is the waterbreak test, in which the surface is thoroughly rinsed and held vertical. Hydrophobic contaminants such as oils cause the water to bead and break up, allowing the water to drain rapidly. Perfectly clean metal surfaces are hydrophilic and will retain an unbroken sheet of water that does not bead up or drain off. ASTM F22 describes a version of this test. This test does not detect hydrophilic contaminants, but the electroplating process can displace these easily since the solutions are water-based. Surfactants such as soap reduce the sensitivity of the test and must be thoroughly rinsed off. "

I found that a layer of black stuff formed on the lead surface when dipped into the solution and from what I could find, cyanide salts were required in the solution to prevent this but this requires a bit of a factory set up to handle the hazards aspect. Others on this board seem to have had success without the cyanide so there is hope it seems.


I still needed lube and gas checks to get any accuracy.I have always thought lube was still going to be needed. I don't remember why I wanted to copper plate, it may have been because I had the wrong mold and wanted to increase the bore-ride diameter. Well, the whole diameter. I sized and gas checked my boolits before I copper plated them (I only did a few) and still have one. I don't remember whether I actually fired any (that was before my 'test tube' days).

I suggested earlier to consider brass or bronze plating and it can be done.


" There are many formulas for brass plating baths, some dependent on the substance to be plated. The essential process involves dissolving copper and zinc cyanides in either sodium or potassium cyanide. Ammonia is almost always added to dissolve the precipitants of copper and zinc to help form an even plate. Other substances are often added to stabilize the solution or create specific qualities. Direct current is run through the solution after the substance to be plated is put into the bath. The zinc and copper form ions, positive electrically charged particles, that are drawn to the substance to be plated, which forms a negatively charged cathode. The substance to be plated usually remains in the bath for 10 to 25 minutes.

Read more: Homemade Brass Plating for a Bath | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/info_11414498_homemade-brass-plating-bath.html#ixzz2LeLGGc6A "

They make it sound so easy - just add cyanide!

Anyway, how about trying a zinc and copper sulphate solution and see what happens? This is actually what I did but I thought the zinc didn't get deposited but now I realize it probably did. I do remember aiming for a plating strong enough to withstand being fired in spite of zero adhesion, kinda like a jacket.

[303Guy]

Initially, a special plating deposit called a "strike" or "flash" may be used to form a very thin (typically less than 0.1 micrometer thick) plating with high quality and good adherence to the substrate. This serves as a foundation for subsequent plating processes. A strike uses a high current density and a bath with a low ion concentration. The process is slow, so more efficient plating processes are used once the desired strike thickness is obtained.Perhaps we have been neglecting this step?

I do suggest having a look at what Wikipedia has to say about copper plating. They've come a long way since their early days.

[edwin41]

i didnt overlooked this step , but it seems to me that the chemicals needed for the strike are not for us amateurs.

copperplating is fun , but not at that level i think.

[Agastar]

Here is a video of the setup I just completed for plating my bullets.
Barrel Plating in action (http://youtu.be/_IAwobxlTgQ)

and here is the website where I found the design for the barrel plater.
Plating barrel (http://www.nulltime.com/zincplating/shop_setup/plating_barrel/how_its_made/index.html)

Here is the formula that I used for the plating solution with PEG (mira-lax) instead of Coper Gleam.
Plating Solution (http://www.thinktink.com/stack/volumes/voliii/consumbl/cplatmix.htm)

Here is a PDF of a process I used as a guideline for how thick I should plate. I might even try their plating solution.
50 Cal Plated Bullets (https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.caswellplating.com/index.php%3F/Knowledgebase/Article/GetAttachment/97/6&sa=U&ei=Ah04UbfpJZT68QTa5IHwCw&ved=0CCMQFjAA&sig2=jc1G6Gyj5VWvmPniIT8rbw&usg=AFQjCNEOQ1KI1Xps-ux6TBPRrgKwdtNwxA) He suggests a .002" - .004" plating thickness.

And lastly, here is a picture of my last test runs using a hanger setup before I plated the rest of my test bullets in the barrel plater.
PlatedNineMM2mil.JPG (https://dl.dropbox.com/u/5570668/BulletPlating/PlatedNineMM2mil.JPG)

I think it is doable and I'm certainly giving it a try.

Thanks

[mactool]

Could you elaborate on your mixture. What is PEG(mira-lax), and how much did you use.

[Agastar]

PEG is Polyethylene Glycol. You can buy it at Walmart as a laxative. I used the Equate ClearLax off brand.

You want the concentration of PEG to be about 1% in your plating solution. I put in about 38 grams in my solution.

[John Allen]

Well, I do not know if they are working but they are pretty. I think you need to make keychains of these instead.

[Agastar]

Yeah that might be all they're good for. I'm not sure how good these are goint to work since I have to size these down still. I think my best bet is going to be with a custom mold and plating these up to size.