PC Gun Died - Opinions?

[jwber]

So last Thursday I went to PC some bullets for this upcoming weekend (ya I'm that far behind...shame on me no USPSA match for me now :sad: ) and my Craftsman/Amazon PC gun bit the dust. The grip had already cracked on it awhile back and now the part that electrifies the powder bit the dust. Powder was just blowing past the bullets on the tray.

So now I'm wondering where to go from here...pickup a Harbor Freight PC gun or try the powdered Hi-Tek. I shoot approx 800-1000 9mm bullets a month. While ESPC hasn't been the slowest process it's not the fastest (limited baking capacity doing one sheet at a time).

From what I'm reading it seems like Hi-Tek can have a good bit of voodoo luck with it too like shake and bake (which never really worked that well for me without multiple coats). I tried doing this again last week after the gun died to at least get me 200 bullets for the match..but no luck.

[flyingmonkey35]

Do you care how pretty the Boolits are?

If not I've been using fourtencookie45lc method with great success.


Put all the bullets in a tumbler with powder coat 10 minuts s. Drop then aon a strainer. Shake off the excess powder then bake in a pile.

Give a extra 5 min on bake time.

Let cool for about 3 minute then drop the pile on a hard surface and to the bullets around till there all broken apart.

Then size if you want.

I have done 500 .452 at once with this method and they turned out great.


http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160216/0c9910155db81babe7d60585c32b7cca.jpg

[jwber]

I really don't...I just don't want to deal with smoke during matches and gunky dies anymore.

You know I love watching his videos, I cleaned out my Lyman and tried this the same night too. The problem I have is I have one of the Autoflo models and it was just spitting out powder out of the drain plug like crazy cause it's so fine. I could probably ducktape it and keep more of it in.

I ran it for about 15 mins and I wasn't getting very good coverage using HF Red powder. I eventually dumped them into a #5 bowel and shook for a bit and got okay coverage.

Granted it was probably about 30-35* in my garage when I was doing this so I might try it again when it warms up. The bullet had been in my basement which is about 60* before being brought out into the garage to coat them.

[rototerrier]

I put about 500 9mm in a RCBS tumbler filled maybe half with black air soft BB's and a generous amount of powder. Let it run maybe 5 minutes. Dump out into a media sifter, the cheap black on that looks like something you'd use to pan for gold, to separate the coated bullets from BBs. BB's and powder fall through into a bucket below and smooth coated bullets remain in the sifter. Using Harbor Freight blue neoprene gloves with a liberal coating of powder on the finger tips, I pick up the bullets and place them on the baking sheet. If the gloves have lots of powder on the fingers, no PC comes off during the transfer. They look perfect once baked.

Fast and pretty. With 3 baking sheets and using a small little oven I can fill a sheet, bake a sheet and cool a sheet in constant rotation. I really can't go any faster using this method. I can coat and size 1000 9mm in very short order. If I do happen to get ahead of myself, I'll start sizing some of the ones that have cooled while a wait for a bake cycle to complete.

I actually baked up about 500 last night and wish I would have taken I photo. I use mostly PBTP Super Durable Wet Black but this method also works with smokes. My coverage is thick and perfect. I do it in my basement where the humidity is currently 45% and the temp is 68 degrees. It's a temperature controlled environment and that could have a lot to do with my success.

[rototerrier]

Here's my tools and the results of my most recent 357 magnum PC session.

161102161103161104

[popper]

Go for the HiTek. Experiment with small batches to get a good feel for it. Fast and easy for bulk coating. 130 gr. in XDs9 offhand from an old guy. NO leading. A LOT of holes (~30?) in the main group.
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[DerekP Houston]

For bulk handgun ammo hi-tek has been much less labor intensive for me vs tumble coat PC. It does take 2-3 coats though vs the 1 single PC coat.

[hickfu]

I guess I am just real OCD, I cant bring myself to do it the way fortunecookie does it... I have to run maybe 30 to 40 boolits in my #5 bowl, tap off the excess and stand them up so they turn out looking nice... but hey, to each their own.
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[RP]

A little more trouble but if your spraying and your boolits on standing on a tray just pop them into the oven and heat them up first. When you pull them out shoot them with the PC gun the powder will stick to the hot boolits then pop them back in the oven. I have tried this on some metal items and seems to work fine.

[jwber]

I still haven't decided entirely what I'm going to do. I think I'm going to revisit tumble lubing with 45/45/10 and now BLL (found some of the wax last night) while I figure it out.

I am not going to give up on coatings and still going to use them for matches, but for practice and plinking I might just use lubed cause I don't care as much about smoke and my barrel being spotless after 250 rounds.

Leaning more towards getting another ESPC gun cause I know it works and there really isn't any voodoo/luck involved. It's just simple (albeit not the fastest).

[Beagle333]

Get a new gun. Spraying is the way it was meant to be applied. No voodoo. :bigsmyl2:

[popper]

You might find another HV module on flea bay cheap.