Powder Coating 300 BLK BTHP Boolits

[Phantom30]

Last post on 300 BLK powder coating design I could find was a thread active in 2014, so I thought maybe there is a discussion of newer stuff. I starter out with the Lee TL309-230-5R number 90307 mold, which has been reported to have insufficient rifling contact to be stable. So I started looking for powder coating specific mold. I found two from Accurate Molds. The 31-215E and the 31-240A. These molds where designed for powder coating. But even better you can send them off to Ohlen LLC aka erik@hollowpointmold.com and get them modified into BTHP molds. At Ohlen you can also have jig spikes made which match your HP design, which really helps in getting a solid ES coating. The spikes are mounted on a board covered with foil. However, wiring the spikes together on the back side of the board increases connectivity. These boolits come out really nice. When loaded you can get a solid performing subsonic round with 9.5gr of H-110 from a 10.5" barrel, or you can juice it up with 12.8gr to 1550 fps plus from a 16" barrel without any need for a gas check. The design data is attached. Anybody find anything better? This is my SHTF war reserve material approach to long term boolit production. Good for hunting and self defense. Cost per round not counting sunk cost of capital equipment 7.5 cents per round as long as the powder and primers last.

[ryokox3]

Ohlen LLC aka erik@hollowpointmold.com

Did not know about them, thank you for the resource.

Have you shot these or still considering buying them. If you shot them do you have an accuracy report? I'll have to google a bit to see if there are any others who posted results on these.


Edit, reread the post and see you did shoot them. Can you elaborate on 'solid performing' ? My brain works better with x inches at y yards.

-Ry

[Phantom30]

Solid performance is may be too strong at this time. I have been shooting powder load determinations at 30 yards. Looking for signs of tumbling etc. Currently, they cut paper right where I have been aiming them. Nice clean holes. Since I am looking for other effects I have not been shooting 100 yard groups. Been solving velocity for various barrel lengths and configurations looking for a subsonic load that will cycle in several gas systems. The 31-215E supersonic loads start to leave ejector impressions on the casing at about 13gr of H-110 but no evidence of primer flattening or firing pin strike melt. These run out at 1600 fps in a 16" barrel with long flash hider, that is good energy on target. To date, the 31-240A has been fired subsonic only and has difficulty cycling in the carbine gas system, works ok in the pistol gas system and 10.5" barrel with long flash hider. I was going to try the 240 with a light load in a 300 WIN MAG to see if a powder coated no gas check boolit will hold together under these conditions. The alloy is 97% PB 3% SN with harbor freight red coating. Have not recovered boolits to examine HP expansion and coating retention yet. Dug out 4 to 5 feet of berm and still could find any.

[warf73]

Phantom30,

That's a nasty looking boolit for some serious wet work in the 300blk @ subsonic speed.

[ryokox3]

To date, the 31-240A has been fired subsonic only and has difficulty cycling in the carbine gas system

I'll assume that was unsupressed?

[Phantom30]

Well it has a long flash hider that looks a lot like one but is not. If it was fully suppressed that would slightly add to the velocity in general

[Jupiter7]

Well it has a long flash hider that looks a lot like one but is not. If it was fully suppressed that would slightly add to the velocity in general
I believe he's referring to the increased back pressure induced by supressor. I've gotten 150's to cycle supressed(barely).

[Phantom30]

Yes but then I'd have a suppressor not a long flash hider

[ryokox3]

Yes I was referring to the backpressure it would give. I know you said the long flash hider but did not know if you swapped it out for a can, that's why I asked. I'm going to be working on subsonic loads in almost that exact configuration (16 inch with carbine gas) while I wait for my first can to be released from NFA-jail. I do appreciate the info you are providing as I do like that boolit and am seriously considering it.

[mto7464]

I got some of these, sans the HP, form a fellow member and had trouble with them feeding. What is your overall length?

Just saw your images. I assume that is the OAL you used?? I will PC some tonight and give it another try.

[Phantom30]

The COAL I am using is 2.11. The long flash hider is a can without guts and end cap so no added back pressure. I have been having a lot of trouble with sizing, right now the mold produces alloy at .310 (+0.002/-0.000), so I am sizing down from .314+ a real drag. I am going back to Accurate Molds and get the design's maximum diameter cut down to .306, PC adds about 0.002 thickness. So if I start with .306 alloy, I expect to have to size back down from .310 (+0.002/-0.000). I would like to size once before PC to make sure its round, acetone wash, and then size after PC again. It will take another 6 six weeks before the new mold design will be producing.

[mto7464]

I went home after reading this thread and gave it a try again. I still can't get them to feed. I have to seat the boolit too far in and they end up nosing up. See if they could release the metplat a tad as well.

[Phantom30]

OK since I have a 458 SOCOM in my inventory most of my 30rd magazines are Mil surplus metal or Israeli plastic, both rely on the chamber feeds ramps. These magazines have there characteristics a typical PMAG doesn't: 1) the sides of the magazine do not taper in toward the nose, 2) There is no nose partition guide, 3) the feed lips are short. Assuming your are loading 300 BLK with a fat nose boolit and a short COAL around 2.11, then you need these three characteristics working for you. If the feed lips are two long they will trap the round on top of the magazine and the bolt fins will disengage and slide over it. If you COAL is shorter than 2.10 you might have a problem there, although SAAMI allows <2" for 300 BLK I would not do that in an AR frame. My military loads are 2.15 and feed high speed automatic with no problem, but those are FMJ shaped bullets.

[mto7464]

I have loaded the Lee boolit, pc'ed, and shot it fine with my gen2 and gen 3 pmags. Using the above boolits I have to seat them deep after pc'ing them to get them to chamber. Even with doing them with Hi-tec and seating them longer I can't get them to function but even if I did I do not want to using hi-tek since I've gotten some leading thru the gas system before with the NOE design. The noe design has a slightly smaller metplat which makes me think that is why I have problems with these. I have not tried any "GI" mags to see if they work. I will try some tonite if I have time.

Your rifle must have a longer throat then mine. Even with hitek coating I can only get an OAL of 2.05. Any longer and it jams the boolit into the rifling making extraction difficult. I loaded some up last night with the hitec coating to try a function test but ran out of time to test them.
For pc'ing them I would want the entire boolit to drop about .004 smaller on the nose section and about .003 on the lower half. Also mine seem to be dropping just slightly smaller then your, .308-9.

[mto7464]

Got to shoot the ones I hitec coated. They will not feed. The big *** metplat kicks the nose of the shell up as it hits the feed ramps and gets jammed there. Tried both my pmags and two others with the same results. This boolit design is a no go for me.

[Phantom30]

First are you casting the Lee TL-309-230-5R mold. Second are you using a rifle with a 300 BLK SAAMI chamber? The SAAMI chamber distance to the start of the throat is 1.391 from the breech face and runs to 1.5650 at 0.309" then the jump runs from there to 1.7368 tapering to the bore at .300" So your boolit should be at or less than .300 from the 1.7368 point on. The Lee boolit design has a band from the crimp point forward of the base .483 and .305 and the a longer band at .300 which ends .551 from the tip or a run from the crimp point of .326, since the casing length nominally 1.368 then your boolit loaded at the crimp point would have the .300 band stopping at 1.694 which is within the chamber design for throat and jump. But we haven't accounted for the PC change in diameter. which is the problem.

[Phantom30]

168519168512This is the seating analysis for the Lee TL309-230-5R, Why I went to custom mold

[mto7464]

I am using both the Lee and the Accurate boolit designed for powder coating. I have good success with the lee since it is so undersized and often will put two coats of PC on them. My upper is from Palmetto, 8.5"sbr.
I determine my over all length by testing fit in the chamber. I get them to where they will extract easily, not jamming into the rifling which can be a major PITA.
I seated the accurate boolit, hi tek coated, with just a little bit of the body of the boolit above the case mouth and got them to chamber well but they do not feed. Perhaps my chamber is out of spec??

[gpidaho]

I find that most of my 30cal. moulds (I have eight) are too long in the nose to chamber in my AR upper either jamming into the rifling or seating deeper in the case than I would like. The two that do cycle reliably are the Lee TL309-230-5R and the Lee C312-155-2R both sized to .309. The C312-155-2R does the best but has to be seated to 1.995 which just touches the rifling in my carbine upper. Being new to the 300 Blackout myself, it's been good to have a Handi Rifle in that chambering to shoot up the rounds that won't feed in the AR. The Handi has a much more forgiving throat. I've been looking for a 30cal. mould made for short necked cases like the 300 Savage or such but haven't seen the one I want yet. Suggestions? Thanks Gp

[mto7464]

168519168512This is the seating analysis for the Lee TL309-230-5R, Why I went to custom mold

However, I still find this boolit the better "fit". Using 1 or 2 coats of PC. My OAL is 2.129 (IIRC). THey function great, they are stable in my SBR. If only I could find someone that could machine the mold to get rid of the boatail and make the entire mold up to the crimp grove the same diameter, getting rid of the tumble lube grooves.

[Phantom30]

What is your objective for the 30 cal AR round? Target accuracy, lethality,...as per above the lee TL309-230-5R is limited in how you load it PC. Further there have been reports that the raw alloy round is a tumbler because of the part that makes contact with the rifling is so far behind the CG and contact area is small. A .002 thick PC fixes some of that because it brings the band in front of the crimp pocket into contact.

[Wreck-n-Crew]

Not totally related but how much longer does it take to cast hallow points over regular bullets?



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[ryokox3]

What is your objective for the 30 cal AR round? Target accuracy, lethality,...as per above the lee TL309-230-5R is limited in how you load it PC. Further there have been reports that the raw alloy round is a tumbler because of the part that makes contact with the rifling is so far behind the CG and contact area is small. A .002 thick PC fixes some of that because it brings the band in front of the crimp pocket into contact.

I did a load test today with that boolit, though I reamed out the gas check shanks. Both hi-tek coated and PC. No sign of tumblers through my 16" blackout AR. Used lil gun, h110 and reloader 7. Overall reloader 7 worked the best function wise.

I know you said raw alloy, and not coated, but I wanted to share my results with that boolit. Maybe reaming it out gave enough extra contact area with the coating to stabilize it.

[Phantom30]

wreck-n-crew less than a second difference to cast on average. Open mold tap, close mold maybe slight slower

Ryokox3 The chart had both raw and PC on it with two thickness of PC for comparison. Actually the .002 thick PC works best

[Hickok]

Those boolits look flat-out wicked!

[Wreck-n-Crew]

wreck-n-crew less than a second difference to cast on average. Open mold tap, close mold maybe slight slower

Ryokox3 The chart had both raw and PC on it with two thickness of PC for comparison. Actually the .002 thick PC works best
Thanks....that's what i thought.

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[Phantom30]

168722OK people have been commenting about the metplat being too wide to feed properly in an AR and that the limit should be 0.18" with a COAL in the 2.1 neighborhood. So I looked at the accurate design and the 31-215F has a 4R ogive instead of a 5R which brings gets better rifling clearance, and has adequate separation for even thick PC. It also reduces the sizing efforts when you start with a 0.307 OD boolit. Casting the HP cavity maybe to large for the tip but you can always just shift the design to increase the tip thickness. When you use the spike mount for PC, you get PC to the tip but not on it, so you could still end up to fat again.

[Phantom30]

The design above has a potential for feed jams in some weapons so with the help of mto7464, some testing was conducted and it indicated that the metplat or tip should have a max diameter of 0.18" with an averge3 COAL of 2.117". So in order to PC the boolit the casting would need a 0.16" tip diameter. Therefore, the design was modified to achieve this result. 168988

The issue of sizing is reduced with the main boolit body reduced to .307". I think we have converged on a design that is robust for general applications. I anybody has any further advise please sound off. Or we are going to move to production and accuracy testing.

[popper]

Might consider putting a couple thin shallow bands in the drive area. Would collect some PB and allow tumble lubers some space for BLL. I run the 31-142C (~3R nose) to 2100 with H110, haven't tried faster. Did several versions - you can go a little larger than 0.18 but a 2R nose gets in the way (feed problems). Your BB will get wiped out with soft alloy when sized, unless you have a nose punch. The chamber on this barrel is pretty tight but the other will take 311 sized. Point being, if ordered 312 and sized 311 (or smaller) how does the nose/drive area get effected, i.e. the 'seat' area goes away? I use the 31-165C in 308, thinking of removing the GC for 170gr but maybe shortening your design would work better?

[Phantom30]

We are still adjusting it, more later, trying to incorporate a lot of suggestions include popper's ideas and making it compatible with HiTek Coatings

[Phantom30]

Update. The HiTek guys want a more usable round so the rider band should be at 308 instead of 307 so that they can coat and still size properly.

Tried Elvis Ammo's PC technique, wasted 6 pounds of pistol boolits still haven't gotten it to work. Moving on to HiTek Zombie green R good.

Guy at work said that opening the feed ramps solves a lot of boolit jamming issues with fat boolits. Going to ask him to post his DIY jig design. mto7464 has confirmed that by testing

[popper]

Pmags don't feed fat noses well but Lancers do. Making the feed ramps almost square helps a lot.

[mto7464]

Pmags don't feed fat noses well but Lancers do. Making the feed ramps almost square helps a lot.
My new barrel from Ballistic Advantage has wider ramps then my barrel from PSA. It feeds the flat nosed boolits great where my PSA barrel would only feed up to .16 metplat. FYI all my mags are pmags.

[Phantom30]

170417170369OK here are the results of all the suggestions. The lower one is for those without feed ramp issues and the upper if you have problems there. The drive band diameter is set to 307 so you can PC or multi coat HiTek to get it up to but not beyond .3085, popper has advised that is the limit for BLK without risking a chamber pressure spike with an over stuffed barrel throat. So sizing to 308 is desired after PC. The lube bands were added for two reasons, first to give the tumblers a place with the design and two to ease the sizing, the long uninterrupted drive band is a real .... to size, it will lead your dies before PC and or jam in either case it is not what you want. Therefore, the lube bands make sizing easier and makes a place for the lead to flow. The drive bands can range from .310 to 307 or even 306, you can also deepen the grooves to about .29 as designed. I set them at .300 and 307 to make the design be as universal an application as I could come up with. The boat tail might also support the use of GC prior to PC. The only reliable method for PC on large long boolits, that I have found, is to ESPC and the HP makes that work well because you can use the HP as a mount fixture with spike boards. You also get a real good boolit base coat where you need it in supersonic loads. Of course all this is good science fiction until you spend the $250 for a mold, validate powder loads and muzzle velocities and then do the accuracy testing. All will be well when you show the nice tight grouping on target paper, QED. Well not so fast, Erik Called and said long boolit design doesn't leave enough metal in mold to insert hollow point so reworked again current picture as of 17 Jun 5pm CDT. Erik also said that he does support group buy pricing whatever that means.
PS just got a message from a collaborator, he coated and fired some of the 31-240A boolits and recorded a single hole grouping at 50 yards.

[Phantom30]

170466Well the last one worked well in the barrel but the support in the case neck needed help so this is the Mohican design attempt for lee lube, PC and HiTek application in a 30 Cal. The barrel specifics are 300 BLK assuming typical M4 feed ramps. There are custom features shown in the design. The red outlines are for the drive band max limit of .311 for those who need it. The cyan notch example is for the lubers. The standard blue is for PC and HiTek. The HP is optional, I prefer it for ESPC and impact performance.

[Dutchninja]

4 shot group with the 240 hp. Boolit was bb tumbled sized twice. Powder was 5744. Range 50 yds. One little flier was likely me.

170489

[Phantom30]

170575Well here is the final version for those without feed ramp issues. Its now available from Accurate Molds as design 31-215G. The provider has tooling limitations, the meplate is limited to .180" flat, which is OK for the larger HP modification which takes place at Hollowpointmolds.com The boat tail is also limited to a length of 0.06", which makes the base drag a little higher and slightly reduces the BC. The 0.3XX drive band is to allow anything between .306 and .311 as your option depending on weapon chamber, alloy, and lubrication choice. AK tumblers with Lee Lube might want .311, while HiTek 300 BLK users might want .308, and ESPC folks might go for the .306 given the propensity to generate a heavier coating. As it turns out this design is not so far off the original Lee design which started this thread, only a long educational process in between. Thanks for all the comments and contributions. The previous 3R small tip design can not be produced by Accurate Molds so it is up to those with M4 feed ramp issues to find a producer if you need the narrow tip.

[Phantom30]

Please comment on the above 31-215G design, if there are no issues I am going to buy it tomorrow. Plan to get 306 and ESPC for 300 BLK

[popper]

Moto - found the pmag lip to be too long by a tad, caused a 3 point jam for long OAL. Noses up and hits the top of the chamber. Ground the lips back a bit so the base can pop out before the jam occurs.

[Phantom30]

173201Well finally got boolits loaded for the Accurate HP converted 31-215G mold, and I am getting this nose indentation from the seating die. The die uses a Lee 'custom bullet seating plug'; fit for the 31-215E which has a 5R nose the G has a 4R nose. Just too much force or what? I am sure this is going to effect the ballistics but.... Its not the HP crushing in because the indentation is below the bottom of the HP. Although the 6% SN alloy makes for a smooth boolit and good ESPC.

[popper]

6% SN ?? for expansion? I use 3% Sb - 0.5% Sn. I get that sometimes if I don't allow age hardening before loading.

[Phantom30]

contraction

[mto7464]

What are you sizing them too? Might need a slightly larger expander or size them a little smaller.

[Dutchninja]

I have done some initial testing on Phantom30's 240g HP. This has been for 300 blackout sub-sonic suppressed in the AR platform. I've shot it though both my 9.5 sbr and 16.5 carbine. Coating processes can be found here (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?312836-Powder-Coating-My-Pistol-amp-Rifle-Methods). I had some feeding issues the other day but found that it was the Magpul 30 round mags that did not like the A1680 powder for whatever reason. I've loaded this boolit with A5744 and H110 as well. Accuracy is good at 40 and will test it at a bit longer range when I can but the results below are promising. That is a 20 round group as I messing around with changing out buffer weights, bolt carriers, and mag to troubleshoot the function issues with the A1680. I also was able to dig into the tire chip berm and found a few of the boolits. The PC held and did not wear down to the lead, which was another item I was curious about. However, the rounds did not mushroom out like I had hoped, but it is hitting a berm chocked full of boolits so i'm not expecting a lot. I will try to do some other type of expansion testing, but don't have the $$ for ballistic gel.

Keep in mind this is a round I plan on only shooting at less than maybe 60-70 max for hunting, if expansion proves better in another medium. If that doesn't work, it is still a highly cost effective round for sub plinking as opposed to 220 SMK.

174253
A1680 powder

174254

[Zthomps]

I'll have to check them out