Another HF powder coat gun question

[cheese1566]

I have tried tumble coating using air soft bb's and it's ok. I just don't care for the small handful of boolits done per shake and spin, then tedious placing on the cookie sheet. I have a pound of gloss black and clear from smoke.

I am looking at the HF gun as its on sale for $65, minus an extra 20% off with coupon. I don't want to spend $50 on a gamble.

is a powder coat gun the way to go? Place them on the nsf sheet, spray, then bake

how much waste is there with a gun?

Will the HF powder ( flat black) work ok on boolits?

[bangerjim]

HF black is one of my standard ESPC powders. And it mixes great with red to make my "Bing Cherry Red" or "Hershey's Chocolate Brown" colors! And just about any other powder to get cool colors.

With ESPC, you WILL definitely use more powder. How much more depends on your technique and how you adjust the gun and air pressure/flow. If you are trying to pinch pennies on powder, ESPC is NOT for you. That is why I use HF powders a lot. Very inexpensive and give excellent results with ESPC ( not so much with BBDT......in gloss only!)

You will get 1-2 sprays on the NSAF B4 flash builds up VERY badly. I have started using a sheet only ONE time. Get your NSAF at WalMart.......very inexpensive!

You still need to sit and arrange your bare boolits (3/4 to 1" spacing) on your rack. That means a whole lot less boolits per rack. Otherwise you will get very poor coats at the base. The static-charged powder cannot get down in teeny tiny canyons between closely-spaced boolits.

I use ESPC as my go-to standard. Some don't give a carp as to what their boolits look like. Fine....it that meets their needs. But I am a perfectionist and to things that way. They say rough, poorly coated boolits shoot just as good. Mabe so, but I like perrrrrrdy boolits! Good for bragging rights at the ranges!

You will enjoy the finish and speed of ESPC. Just plan on using a bunch more powder. I never try it recover it...waste of time for a tablespoon or so for several hundred boolits!

banger

[mozeppa]

WHAT bangerjim says...

spot on.

[Beagle333]

ESPC is the way for perfect boolits. It will use more powder than dry tumble.... probably 3 or 4 times more! :shock: But don't let that statistic dissuade you from using ESPC. I have sprayed nearly everything I have cast for a couple of years and am keeping 4 people in painted boolits and I have used very few pounds of any color! That stuff lasts forever, even if you are "wasting" it. There is so little that is actually on the foil, compared to how much of it makes up a pound, that you will get bored with measuring it and worrying about it before you figure out how many trays of spraying it takes to "waste" a $5 pound of the stuff. Spray away and enjoy! :D

(or tumble away and enjoy. They shoot the same!);)

[Maximumbob54]

The very last time I sprayed I shot the bullets while in a cardboard box. I'm pretty sure I could still sweep most of it out to collect it up again for reuse. I'm betting if you used a plastic bin then it would be even easier.

[Dragonheart]

Good advice from all.

For my spray table, I have a good size piece of 16 gauge sheet steel I cover with aluminum foil for a better ground. It is on a roller bearing plate (lazy susan) so I can easily turn it for better access. I spray outside, so I have a windscreen to keep the powder from blowing. I use an inexpensive (cheap) HF gun. The HF gun is not great, but it works well enough and it gets you started as inexpensive as you can get, assuming you already have an air compressor. You will also need a regulator to control the airflow and a better air filter/dryer unless you live in the dessert. The gun comes with a poor quality filter and gate type air control, but if you intend to spray much you need to keep the air as dry for obvious reason and have a regulator with a pressure gauge.

As Beagle says, you will use 3-4 time more powder as opposed to tumbling, but there are pros and cons to both processes. Spraying without a doubt gives the most even coverage if done properly, but the bottom of the bullet is not covered, so you still have exposed lead. I always check the Prismatic Powder site for their discontinued and overstock powders for deals, so I have ended up some powders that will not tumble coat, but spray beautifully. However, if you get a $3 a pound deal on the powder you can afford to waste some powder, but the powder cost is not that great to begin with.

I spray hundreds of bullets at a time so I move my bullets from the spray table to multiple cooking sheets. I can then easily recover whatever powder that is on the foil, which is quite a bit, by a using a paintbrush to brush the powder it into a funnel with a fine screen that goes back into a spray bottle. I reuse this powder by adding a small amount of fresh powder to it.

If you like the tumbling process, as I do, maybe you should consider putting together a tumbler for less money than a gun. I tumble coat 5+ pounds of bullets at a time in just a few minutes and cook 1000+ bullets at a time. I still use a tupperware container to shake and bake a handfull of bullets when testing a new powder but the only reason I can see to continue with this process is if you really don't shoot much. (See photo of my tumbler)
150958

[fcvan]

I have both the HF gun and the craftsman style Chinese knock off. Both work great with any powder. However, really good powder sticks better and so gets thicker at the nose of rifle boolits which can cause problems with getting inconsistent thicknesses of boolits. The powder that gave me the most consistent thickness was HF black because only so much powder will stick.

i spray out doors with a card board box wind screen. The excess powder got swept up with a paint brush and reused. I haven't ESPCd in quite a while because I had a stockpile of 22 and 30 caliber rifle boolits. I use the HF gun for HF black, and the blow drier gun for my copper colored mix. Most of the time I ASBBDT with solid colors from Prismatic Powders like zombie green, Barbie pink, Barney purple, and gloss black. I have some other colors I mix to get copper, but use the heck out of gloss black. When I do ESPC with gloss black the boolits are just purty:)

[Bzcraig]

The HF gun is worth the money. The only time I use it is when I make a day out of coating.

[Beagle333]

I save up bags and cans of boolits and make a day of it as well. But then, I do it outside and have to drag all my equipment out and set it up. It's worth it for 3 trays or more, but I'm not going to go out there and set up for one tray. :cool:

[bangerjim]

That is the nice thing about that Amazon gun (when they had them!). Plug in the transformer and spray away. No junk to haul out, even though I have a 100# dry air line at the side of my back shed from the compressor inside. No hoses, regulators or big bulky electronics boxes. I still do not know if the rather expensive (obsolete) Craftsman gun is the same or not. I know this one I have gives me smooth even quick one pass coats like the HF gun does. And I can do only 1 or 2 trays in a jiffy. If I am spraying a gob of trays, I will get out the HF stuff.

[Beagle333]

I usually dedicate a whole day to casting and then plan one for later for coating only, so that's sort of my schedule anyway. I have to drag about the same amount of junk out there to cast too. :roll:

[Dragonheart]

Spraying is a hassle and it is slower that tumble coating if you want volume. But spraying does lay on a more even coat and you can be a little more creative if you just want to play with the colors. If you enjoy casting, after a while you have more bullets than you are going to shoot for a long time, so playing with the process can be a lot of fun.