Success at first try.....

[softpoint]

Ok, I've had a HF gun and a bottle of red for a while, Yesterday the wife picked me up a roll of no stick aluminum foil and a jar of Crosman black 6mm airsoft BBs.
This morning saw me casting up some 429421's for a first try at this powder coat thing. I have read quite a few pages on it right here at Cast Boolits, so I decided to try both spraying the coating and tumbling to see what works.
The boolits were sprayed ,and then picked up with needlenose pliers and placed on the toaster oven tray that had been covered with the no-stick foil.
The tumble boolits were tumbled in the bbs and placed on the baking pan the same way. They were coated and baked twice, as the coating didn't seem to cover as well as spraying. The biggest difference I could see was the sprayed boolits were a lot "prettier" and shinier, but had no coating on the base. The tumble boolits were a rougher appearance, but did have the bases covered.
2 loads were used to try the boolits after they had been baked and sized. First I loaded up 6 with 22 grains of #2400 powder, and took these out behind the house and just "blazed away" at an old 5 gallon bucket. I just wanted to see if there was going to be any leading. None. These boolits had tested about 12bhn. on my Cabin Tree tester. The next load was a milder 9.7 grains of Unique. I put up a bullseye and shot offhand from 15yards The gun was a fairly new 3.75" Super Blackhawk. These 6 went into 1 1/8" at the target, which is about as well as I can shoot this little bugger offhand. Still not a sign of any leading or residue.
I don't know if this coating will replace all my lubed bullet shooting, but it is a cleaner alternative. (except I have a little red powder on things...) Wonder if I could get away with 1 coat tumbling them?

[a.squibload]

Nice group.
Easy, huh? You might be hooked but don't throw away the lube equipment,
you might still use it occasionally.
One coat might be OK, all it really needs is no exposed lead, the PC is pretty tough.
I've found my boolits in the berm with the PC still on 'em.

[softpoint]

One of my favorite 45/70 loads here "on the farm" is the 340 grain Lee bullet. Mold casts too small for my Marlins, so I wrap it twice with tracing paper and size to .460. I cast this boolit at about 9.5 bhn, and run about 1950 fps. I am wondering if I can powder coat this soft boolit and reach these same speeds with no leading and accuracy. I have loaded this boolit even faster, but at 9.5bhn, it starts to fail and lead the barrel even paper patched. I get good accuracy, however at 1950, and the load puts anything down that I hit with it .

[RED333]

With powder coat you can put on as many coats as you want, try it, what could it hurt?

[Beagle333]

I only tumble mine once, but you can coat em all you like! I don't know of it hurting anything. Fire away!:Fire:

Why do you want powder on the base? It is for friction protection on the driving bands as the boolit slides down the barrel. If the base is rubbin'... yer doin' it wrong. :cool:

[softpoint]

I only tumble mine once, but you can coat em all you like! I don't know of it hurting anything. Fire away!:Fire:

Why do you want powder on the base? It is for friction protection on the driving bands as the boolit slides down the barrel. If the base is rubbin'... yer doin' it wrong. :cool:
True, but would the base being covered help prevent gascutting? I guess the real question is "Will a plain base, fairly soft cast boolit fare as well powder coated as it has paper patched? I am going to cast some and find out soon...

[Beagle333]

A one thousandth of an inch layer of plastic does not protect the base. Gas cutting doesn't occur on the flat part of the base anyway. It occurs when hot gases fizzle between the boolit and the barrel because the boolit doesn't seal up the hole completely. Then you get a hot gas torch burning up along the side of the boolit, melting some of the boolit as it passes and depositing it on the barrel ahead of the boolit to be ironed into the grooves as the boolit travels on down the barrel. A gas check helps insure a good seal (fit to the bore) so the hot gases do not pass, but they are not there to protect the base from "melting". It keeps the gas "in check". Note that many jacketed bullets have a bare base and it does not melt, even in rifles at full power loadings.

If you get leading from higher power loadings with softer lead, it is more likely from stripping that cutting. The softer alloy won't take the torque that the threads want to impart onto the boolt. This why you can't just simply gas check a pure lead boolit and fire it at full power without leading.

On your other question.... I am a real newbie at paper patching, but from my understanding of it... the answer is NO, coating will not do the same thing for you. Paper patching wraps the boolit in paper along its length from ogive to base, effectively making the whole boolit grip the rifling. Your boolit will have gaps in the lube grooves and from the lead driving band forward. Wrapping it in paper essentially makes it one big continuous "threaded" boolit that meshes with the rifling and lets you push it harder and faster without stripping the rifling, since there is much more boolit in contact and riding the grooves. Or that is my understanding of it. Powdercoating only provides a nice slippery ride along the barrel and does not increase "grip" on the rifling.

This thread is a really good read on what does and doesn't melt the base.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?41033-The-real-story-on-Gas-Checks

[softpoint]

Pretty much my conclusion, too, except...Paper tears easily, and I am paper patching grease groove boolits, not the special slick sided or knurled sided boolits.. and I only patch to the front driving band for the lever actions. Wouldn't the powder coating have at least some resistance to stripping in the rifling? While I might not reach the same velocity as the paper patch, would I see an increase over a similar soft boolit that was just gaschecked? I have had excellent results with paper patching, but patching a quantity of boolits is way more effort than powder coating, while gaschecking and lubing isn't much more trouble, the powder coat is just cleaner.

[Garyshome]

Well hooked another one!

[Beagle333]

Wouldn't the powder coating have at least some resistance to stripping in the rifling? While I might not reach the same velocity as the paper patch, would I see an increase over a similar soft boolit that was just gaschecked?

Here, I don't know. I can shoot softer stuff faster with coating than without, but I had thought it was due to the coated boolit having less lead friction against the barrel (zero) than a lubed boolit (which has greasy lead, but it is still touching the barrel). So.... yes, coated will allow shooting them faster than lubed boolits, without leading. Why.... it's still too new for me to know. As to velocities.... my coated boolits are just a little slower than my plain based ones with the same loading. I was attributing the slightly slower chrony speed to not having as tight a crimp on the boolit (to prevent damaging the coating) and also less friction on the boolit as it moves, allowing it to start its trip down the barrel sooner and as such, build up less pressure behind it. This is just theory.
In my .357, my coated boolits go about 40-45 fps slower than plain based at 1200± fps, and in my big heavy 45 boolits, it is only 4-5 fps slower at 850± fps.
I haven't chronied any GC boolits yet.

[softpoint]

Makes my head hurt..:holysheepMore tomorrow, and I will set the chronograph up. Still things for me to learn about this powder coat process.....

[softpoint]

The weather hasn't been too cooperative for chrono'ing today, but I did get a chance to try some powder coated 45/70 loads. and have more to try. The 340 Lee boolit cast at 9.5 bhn with powder coat at 1950 fps. did not lead. I had two fliers out of a 5 shot group that opened the group at 50 yards to about 2 1/4 inches. 3 of those five went into just a little over 1/2 inch. Maybe this is right at the point where the boolit begins to "skip" the rifling? No leading though. I then cast a quantity of 330 grain Lyman hollowpoint boolits, but this time stiffened the alloy to about 12 bhn. Powder coated 10, paper patched 10. Used the same powder and charge weight, so these should have been going at least 1950fps. First 5 powder coated boolits went into a bit over one inch at 50 yards. Nothing left in the barrel . I have not loaded the paper patched ones yet, but if I can get almost 2000 fps with a plain base 12 bhn. boolit with powder coating, and normal accuracy, I may do less paper patching in the future...

[softpoint]

A pic of a 45/70 loaded with the 330 gr. "Gould" hollowpoint that has been tumble coated.

[softpoint]

Beagle the mould and PC. Attempted PP one evening, gave up. You may loose some fps vs greased PP but the accuracy and ease made the choice for me.
Paper patch has delivered excellent results for me. If I can equal the performance, or even close, with Powder, though I will change some of my loads up. Powder is MUCH faster for me than paper patch. Since my last post, I have loaded and fired some of the same boolits paper patched and sized through a .460 die. They actually grouped about 1/4" tighter at 50 yards than the powder coat. But we are only comparing 2 five shot groups here, so more shooting will have to be done.