First attempt

[gnappi]

Yesterday I made up a couple of dozen 150 grain hard cast 9mm's. I bought a couple of colors / pounds of powder by a company named HB Fuller, an industrial coating source.

The paint (translucent gold mirage) set nicely, proven by the completely cured flakes which fell off of my tweezers onto the parchment paper. The finish is translucent with white looking spots in/under the PC. The PC'd samples were coated as cast, not polished, buffed, or cleaned.

I tumbled them with black airsoft beads in my air conditioned house and baked them on my patio. Adhesion seemed to be thin, and the powder settled to a sort of hard consistency on the bottom of my quart #5 container... humidity caused or normal? I wound up coating and baking them twice.

I have several other paint samples on the way but have a few Q's on what I experimented with so far.

Can I size these and recoat with the new paints I get? Or should I test fire them and start a new batch? I have plenty of cast 150's.

Does the coating in the pic look abnormal? What may be the cause(s) if so?

PS, the cured paint flakes on the parchment have similar white flecks in them is it just junk / old paint?


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[TjB101]

If you want to do another coat I would do so prior to resizing. Hard to tell quality of coverage from your pic. Try taking one and smashing it with a sledgehammer. Should retain its coating.

I’m not familiar with the vendor you mentioned. Eastwood ford light blue is really the best and has never let me down regarding coverage and coating.

[gnappi]

Good idea, being new I forgot to test them this way. Well I smashed a few and none of the coating came off.

I went to the Eastwood Ebay and Amazon stores and their prices include shipping. Thx for the tips.

But, that creates another question... What are their "Impact resistant" paints like?

[remy3424]

Keep your powder dry. I keep mine double bagged in freezer zip lock bags and in a sealed ammo box. There shouldn't be much powder left in the bottom of your container, use less. Looks like you have good coverage, the results might be normal for that powder. I would say to order some powder from Smoke here, but if you already have "pounds" on hand, you should try to make that work and get it on some boolits, not sure what the shelf life is, but it will be longer the dryier it is kept. I would not waste the effort to try to re-coat any, just re-cast anything at you aren't happy with and try again. If the first coverage isn't right, why would the next coat be any better. I handle the cast bullets as little as possible before coating to get the best adhesion possible, no need to clean or buff anything you have cast. You mensioned "hard cast", likely don't need to be too hard, but I am guessing you know what the barrel likes already. You are new here, keep reading the threads in this section, so much good information! You will be shooting more and cleaning less (much less smoke also) with these coated boolits. Good luck, you will get this, heck, what you have might be fine, try a shooting some and see.

[DHDeal]

Not sure why you buffed the bullets. As I'm shaking bullets in the powder BB slurry, the surface of the bullets are going to dull up anyway. I'll do some extra steps from time to time, but that's a new one on me.

I'd start with a darker color so you can see the coating. No guessing with the solid darker colors. Not necessarily black, but even the Furd Blue mentioned will show very well.

For me, a high gloss powder coats best and that's all I use. Some translucent powders don't show a lot of color either and the one you used is a case in point.

Not exactly sure what you're referring to about flaking powder, but I think you're describing cured PC on the parchment paper after you've removed the bullets?

[gnappi]

Not sure why you buffed the bullets. As I'm shaking bullets in the powder BB slurry, the surface of the bullets are going to dull up anyway. I'll do some extra steps from time to time, but that's a new one on me.

I'd start with a darker color so you can see the coating. No guessing with the solid darker colors. Not necessarily black, but even the Furd Blue mentioned will show very well.

For me, a high gloss powder coats best and that's all I use. Some translucent powders don't show a lot of color either and the one you used is a case in point.

Not exactly sure what you're referring to about flaking powder, but I think you're describing cured PC on the parchment paper after you've removed the bullets?


I did not buff the ones I coated, Not knowing if the surface of the ogive could be an issue, I showed the buffed one to illustrate the difference between them and those as they came out of the mold.

Yes, I was describing powder left on the parchment after baking. These flakes had fallen off of my tweezers before baking they showed the same white splotches you see on the bumps on the finished 150's.

I've read that the speckled bumps, dimples or pimples? are no detriment to accuracy on the ogive or tip, and they're removed on the sides by sizing. What moderately bothered me is the cause of the whitish discoloration or even if it's a concern. I have two pounds of this stuff (RUBY red and the trans gold) and I get some other paint I'll see if this stuff mixes with Eastwood or whatever paint I wind up with to see if I can make them as purdy as some of you folks have :-)

[gnappi]

Another thought, I've verified the oven timer is spot on at 20 minutes, and as long as I don't have another batch waiting to keep the oven hot, there's no reason to take them out right away and let them cool with the oven is there?

[Conditor22]

translucent gold mirage yellows and whites don't coat well
Don't buff the boolits before PCing. not needed and too big a chance of contaminating them
Check the oven to make sure is reaching 400 ° put a thermometer on the bake shelf and adjust the oven setting.
read manufacturers baking instructions xx minutes at xxx° AFTER either (1) the alloy reaches xxx° or (2) the PC flows on the boolit.
I go 25 min in a preheated oven to ensure I get a full cure

try adding a little red to the gold and see what happens

[DHDeal]

I bake/cure for 30 minutes if the oven isn't hot and 25 if it's already been used for a batch. I'll pull one batch out and stick the next one in. If you're doing just one batch, you can leave them in there, but just up your time some and call it good.

I use a silicone baking mat that's cut to fit my pans and any extra PC just blends in with the last session. In my case it doesnt hurt and tends to give me a complete coat on the base.

Try your red color next and you should see a better example of your coating process.

[gnappi]

Is there a FAQ on pc?

I read not to recoat but if do not like results and you size after coating re coating will mostly be cosmetic on the tip and coat over what is left on the bearing surface?

[DHDeal]

You can do a double coat. It gets thick and the grooves will fill, but try it if you want.

I use a lot of clear PC for mixing with my solids and it makes the colors more translucent. I personally like the effect, but it's done more because clear coats so easy for me and I like color. I've got some translucent copper that I'm not a fan of and prefer to use a solid with about 25% clear. You can still see that it's a full coat, but the translucent copper just looks washed out.

In truth, as long as you have a full coating with a single coat, the only thing another coat will do is make the color more filled out or a fatter bullet. If you want a more solid color, get that color in a solid. Prismatic Powders has the biggest selection I've seen of colors, you'll have the order in a few days, and they work. As I mentioned before, a high gloss coats better for me than a matte or flat. YMMV....

Try the red you mentioned having and see what you get.

[bangerjim]

Full color coverage does NOT indicate poor PC coverage. Light colors from different sources do not pigment flow well. That does not mean the clear PC resin is not there. Check out the thin areas. If applied and baked properly, there will be resin there.The color is just cosmetic. I like colors! That's why I never use clear powered.

The "hammer test" is the real only way to test your baked final product. You pound a boolit into at little cube with a heavy hammer. If the PC is still stuck all around, you did well.

Yes, there are MANY long winding threads on PC'ing on here. I and several others on here worked on this PC thing starting back in 2014, or there abouts, and came up with what works and does not work for most people using tumble coating.

Today I ESPC everything because I get perfect coats regardless of the powder, the temp. the weather, the phase of the moon and, what I had for breakfast. Yes.......tumble coating is a voodoo black magic process that you have to personally perfect. ESPC is the way powder in applied industrially and works flawlessly. The powders are engineered to by sprayed on with a high voltage coronal discharge electrostatic gun and not shaken in a #5 plastic tub with black ASBB's.

Good luck on your journey to PC nirvana!

bangerjim

[gnappi]

Thanks all very much, the garnet red came in, and I'm happy with the results. I also re-sized and re-coated the gold mirage bullets and they came out as good as the first time garnet red did.

My main concern with double coat was filling the grooves which if filled much would change the bullet's bore bearing sumrface and increase pressure. As they are the grooves did not fill out much if at all. I'm probably making more work than necessary, but my bullets come out cast .356-.357 so I'm sizing them down to .355" before I PC them, and after pc they're ~.357 and I'll size them again to .355"

Here's a pic of the two loads I've done so far. The color is actually less pink and more of a maroon. Now I can do all I have, finish them and start the .40's when my Magma die comes in.

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[cstrickland]

I am not sure if many , if anybody sizes prior to PC and then again after. the sizing typically burnishes the lead, and could cause adhesion issues on the driving bands. I only size after PC and have never had any issues with only one size operation.

[bangerjim]

I am not sure if many , if anybody sizes prior to PC and then again after. the sizing typically burnishes the lead, and could cause adhesion issues on the driving bands. I only size after PC and have never had any issues with only one size operation.

DEpends on the mold and the gun. I have a couple barrels that love sizing/PC/Sizing. You have to play around and see what works best for your guns.

And I have NEVER had any PC come off due to burnishing of the Pb before PC'ing. The stuff sticks to just about anything when baked properly.

If PC will stick to your glass oven door and have to be scraped off with a razor blade and acetone, it will sure stick to a Pb boolit with shiny sides. But that is why I like frosted boolits.....lots of surface for the magic powder to cling to!!!!!!

banger

[gnappi]

I am not sure if many , if anybody sizes prior to PC and then again after. the sizing typically burnishes the lead, and could cause adhesion issues on the driving bands. I only size after PC and have never had any issues with only one size operation.

You're probably right, but as of now I'm just fortunate that the stars all aligned and have had zero problems with adhesion I've read about. I guess my main concern was sizing them from as cast .357 and with the PC on I mic up to .3585 whether the PC will get spotted stripping after sizing to the finished size. The samples I sized/coated/sized mic .355" spot on without any stripping of the PC.

I would really prefer to not size twice and one of my batches before I get to reload I will just bake and size to see if the PC strips off during sizing.

I'm still fleshing out the production issues before I can get to casting when the weather cools down.

[FLINTNFIRE]

I cast my bullets as I would any time , frosted is not needed , shake and bake works for me here in the pacific northwest rain or shine , I do use the airsft bb and the number 5 containers , bought my powder from smoke , first off he is a vendor sponsor here and second he has tested his powders for shake and bake , I use a thermometer and bring oven and load up to temp or slightly above then adjust timer and drop temp to 400 and glance at it while I load my next trays .

I do not resize between coats , why would you ? size after second coat if you want or need them sized , keep it simple , Dragonrider has been doing this for quite awhile and he has the best observations I have read , see what works for you and if you find a newer better time saving tip be sure to share it .

[bangerjim]

I cast my bullets as I would any time , frosted is not needed , shake and bake works for me here in the pacific northwest rain or shine , I do use the airsft bb and the number 5 containers , bought my powder from smoke , first off he is a vendor sponsor here and second he has tested his powders for shake and bake , I use a thermometer and bring oven and load up to temp or slightly above then adjust timer and drop temp to 400 and glance at it while I load my next trays .

I do not resize between coats , why would you ? size after second coat if you want or need them sized , keep it simple , Dragonrider has been doing this for quite awhile and he has the best observations I have read , see what works for you and if you find a newer better time saving tip be sure to share it .

Time-saving tip: do not do 2 coats! It is not needed. I and a bunch on here developed this tumble technique several years ago (2014 or so) and not needing multiple coatings was one of the parameters I adhered to. If you do it right, only once is more than enough.

The very rare times I do two coats is if I need to make the boolit a couple thou larger than my standard one coat give it. Again that is strictly between you and your guns! And this is where the rainbow of colors comes in...you can color code "special" boolits to tell them from your normal ones of the same cal.

As I stated, I have some molds/guns that need a sizing B4 the one AND ONLY PC application. Most do not need it. But you do what your guns like. Only you can determine that. One rule does not fit all casters on here.

I now ESPC everything because it is much easier, faster and more accurate. And it works no matter what kind of powder, how I hold my mouth, the weather, the temp, or the phase of the moon.

banger

[OS OK]

Is there a FAQ on pc?

I read not to recoat but if do not like results and you size after coating re coating will mostly be cosmetic on the tip and coat over what is left on the bearing surface?

Here's just about every question you can think of asking...

...The Devil's in the Details>>>>>PC Coatings<<<<<
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?326134-(2)-The-Devil-s-in-the-Details-gt-gt-gt-gt-gt-PC-Coatings-lt-lt-lt-lt-lt

[FLINTNFIRE]

I read the posts when this started and there were a lot of people in on the ground floor , and some who joined in later and I do not hear them beating their drums and proclaiming in every post about it .

I size nothing before coating , if I am going to size it is after , I can color code if I want that is a no brainer , or I can coat however I want and shoot the caliber out of marked with all data boxes .

Keep it simple , and like I said see what works for you , do not need to ESPC if you do not want to invest more , is not needed , as to 2 coats , that is your choice for how or what you are doing , I see where he states only 1 and then says 2 , says coat size coat , I see where this gets confusing , but it does not have to be .

[bangerjim]

NO brag..............just the FACTS, jack.

banger

[FLINTNFIRE]

No you brag , and you contradict yourself , give clear advise , and if I am jack you are jill .