Echd
04-17-2016, 06:05 PM
I'm know I'm not the first person to do this, but I have been loading in very large quantities lately, and the bottleneck in the whole procedure is putting 30-40 bullets in a ziploc tub and rattling them around. That makes things pretty slow, and lubesizing or tumble lube isn't an option for me (using bullet feeders and suppressors) I would shake them up for a good 30-45 seconds per load, and then meticulously pick them out (I did away with the hemostats so many here like and use nitrile gloves to pick my bullets up... dusted with powder, they do not leave any marks on bullets picked up) and place them right side up in pretty little rows to be baked. I was finding that the speed of the process was fine when I was loading 200-300 bullets, but left a lot to be desired when I was loading thousands.
I was trying some of the white and silver powder from smokes, and was finding my results not quite up to par (but about what I expected from light colored powders). I don't really care that much how they look, but the coating didn't look nearly as full as it did for many other colors, which come out picture perfect. After shaking like a madman and still getting middling results, I threw a bunch of BBs and powder in my old vibratory tumbler which I never use.
I put in about 250 bullets, and ran the tumbler for about 1 minute. I lifted the bullets with nitrile gloves and just threw them on a pan on some parchment paper, letting them touch and not paying much mind to making them nice and orderly. It's also faster to unload these big containers than rooting around in a little ziploc tub- I could run both hands through, grab a handful, let the BBs fall out through my fingers, and put the bullets on the oven tray. Unloading the ~250 only took a couple of minutes and I was ready to bake!
The results were better than I expected- I assumed that the plastic the tub of the tumbler was made of would be insufficient, but either it just happens to work or the BBs make up for it. My tumbler is a plain harbor freight vibratory, nothing special.
http://i.imgur.com/3AXkLQU.jpg
left was vibratory coated, right is hand shaken (both have been sized). With a darker color like blue, green, or red they would look flawless either way- but the speed the vibratory affords over hand shaking, I can't see why I would use any more of the ziploc containers, and it makes up for deficiencies with the colors that are harder to make look pretty.
So toss out those ziploc tubs and bags- just use your old tumbler, loaded up with BBs and powder! Less chance of spillage, many times faster, and a better coat than you get shaking your ziploc maracas around!
I went ahead and threw in a bunch of other powders, because screw using those little cups anymore.
http://i.imgur.com/iH0E7De.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/2shJ358.jpg
I was trying some of the white and silver powder from smokes, and was finding my results not quite up to par (but about what I expected from light colored powders). I don't really care that much how they look, but the coating didn't look nearly as full as it did for many other colors, which come out picture perfect. After shaking like a madman and still getting middling results, I threw a bunch of BBs and powder in my old vibratory tumbler which I never use.
I put in about 250 bullets, and ran the tumbler for about 1 minute. I lifted the bullets with nitrile gloves and just threw them on a pan on some parchment paper, letting them touch and not paying much mind to making them nice and orderly. It's also faster to unload these big containers than rooting around in a little ziploc tub- I could run both hands through, grab a handful, let the BBs fall out through my fingers, and put the bullets on the oven tray. Unloading the ~250 only took a couple of minutes and I was ready to bake!
The results were better than I expected- I assumed that the plastic the tub of the tumbler was made of would be insufficient, but either it just happens to work or the BBs make up for it. My tumbler is a plain harbor freight vibratory, nothing special.
http://i.imgur.com/3AXkLQU.jpg
left was vibratory coated, right is hand shaken (both have been sized). With a darker color like blue, green, or red they would look flawless either way- but the speed the vibratory affords over hand shaking, I can't see why I would use any more of the ziploc containers, and it makes up for deficiencies with the colors that are harder to make look pretty.
So toss out those ziploc tubs and bags- just use your old tumbler, loaded up with BBs and powder! Less chance of spillage, many times faster, and a better coat than you get shaking your ziploc maracas around!
I went ahead and threw in a bunch of other powders, because screw using those little cups anymore.
http://i.imgur.com/iH0E7De.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/2shJ358.jpg