Cleaning before PC

[Cast10]

New guy mistake…..I forgot to leave gloves on and touched each bullet after casting. Should I clean before PC, and if so, with what.

THANKS!

[Daekar]

Looking forward to the answers on this one. I haven't ever used gloves when handling boolits under any circumstances, PC or not, and I haven't had any adhesion issues that I know of, but if others have better accuracy or something as a result of precautions then I might give it a shot.

[oley55]

Unless you had some solvent or grease on your hands, miniscule skin oils are not a concern, IMO. I don't wear gloves at any stage of my bullet handling before or during PCing.

[Minerat]

I use oderless mineral spirits to clean sizing lube off but don't worry about finger prints.

[358429]

New guy mistake…..I forgot to leave gloves on and touched each bullet after casting. Should I clean before PC, and if so, with what.

THANKS!Hello cast 10.

If your hands are clean and dry when you touch the bullets should be no problems.

Put some clean nitrile gloves on and it'll save you time to clean your hands later when you decide to eat or smoke cigarettes or drink.

If your hands are dirty from repacking wheel bearings and making a finger painting masterpiece, then you touch the bullets there may be some problems with powder coat adhesion.

If you are eating chicken drumsticks while you are inspecting the bullets...[emoji39]

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[Cast10]

Thanks all! Hands were clean, was just inspecting boolits after casting. I’ll move ahead with PC!

[358429]

Thanks all! Hands were clean, was just inspecting boolits after casting. I’ll move ahead with PC!You forgot pictures!![emoji41]

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[Cast10]

You forgot pictures!![emoji41]

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I hope you didn’t mean My Hands! LOL

https://imgur.com/a/gxvkdhK

[cwlongshot]

Cleanliness is quite important with PC. Everyones hands and the amount if oils produced or present changes. This is the reason its generally accepted that we NOT tough our PC bullets.

I use a table spoon and cotton towels on all surfaces. Then metal baskets to warm, transport & sift off excess powder. Even contaminates quench water can cause issues. So use clean containers and new water for each batch.

I have had luck cleaning off lube from bullets using a few solvents. Always followed with hot soapy water and multiple flushes with clean water.

Best course is not to contaminate in the first place.

Good luck

CW

[Walks]

I'll add that I use fresh nitrile gloves with each
PC batch. Each casting session starts with a clean towel to drop bullets onto.

[tankgunner59]

I don't wear any gloves to PC my pills. I just make sure my area is clean and clear of anything that could contaminate the boolits. I have never had any problem with adhesion or leading.

[Cast10]

All good advice! My first two PC sessions, I wore gloves and they came out good. Today, well, not so good. It coated, but thin. I was not pleased. I stopped at 80 bullets with the last 20 coming out acceptable. I’ll check them tomorrow and see what I’m gonna keep. Plenty more to PC.

[bangerjim]

Unless you just a Philly cheese-steak sandwich and did NOT wash your hands, the small amount of body oils on clean hands will not cause you much problems. I have handled pre-baked slugs many times with no problems.

Depends on your body chemistry!

Just use forceps in the future like I normally do.

[Cast10]

Thanks Jim!

I don’t know what the issue was. Looked over all the boolits this morning and about 14 were unusable. 66 good.
It’s kind weird that powder was kinda klumpy on the boolits. Light and dark coverage. When it was baking (20min at 400) they looked good. When I went up to 30 minutes it was much better.

9mm boolits; I did 30 in a batch, 30 in a batch, and 20 in a batch. Smokes suggested TwistLoc containers.

I may have put too much powder in…..not sure. The boolits that I deemed good enough to shoot were almost a transparent coating. I could see spots of lead but it had a seal over it, if that makes sense. I couldn’t scrape any off and the hammer test passed fine. It was Smokes Green Yellow. My first go with that color.

[reddog81]

I generally try and avoid touching lead but it happens occasionally without any detriment.

I saw a couple of posts years ago with people blaming contaminants so I started a thread awhile ago about the wide variety contaminants I tested while doing shake and bake PC. Rinsing in river water, salt water, saliva, rolling in dirt all had no effect on PC adhering. I’m still using the same oil stained rag mentioned in the thread to drop bullets on when casting.

Humidity can have an impact when using some of the cheap PCs out there.

[Cast10]

Thanks red!

[charlie b]

I have had problems with powder sticking if I handle the bullets too much before coating, especially on the hot summer days out here. For reference I handle the rifle bullets quite a bit before PC. Inspection (sometimes weighing), nose size, seat gas check, body size then PC.

My solution is to put them in a container with some acetone and roll it around a bit.

FWIW, I do not cast tons at a time, maybe a couple hundred. Small batches compared to some of the pistol shooters.

[GregLaROCHE]

Be careful to keep humidity from getting to your powder. Squeeze all air out of plastic bags before tying off. I always double bag. Desiccant bags added to powder are a plus. The amount of care needed to keep the powder dry depends on where you are and the average humidity. No reason to take a chance, even with high quality powders, humidity has negative effects.

[Cast10]

Be careful to keep humidity from getting to your powder. Squeeze all air out of plastic bags before tying off. I always double bag. Desiccant bags added to powder are a plus. The amount of care needed to keep the powder dry depends on where you are and the average humidity. No reason to take a chance, even with high quality powders, humidity has negative effects.
Yessir! I do and store in the house. I’m believing my problems were high humidity and possibly too much powder.

[cwlongshot]

Now your gettin it!! ;)

About humidity, definitely a factor but mot just because there is "humidity". I have coated perfect bullets @ 100 plus degrees and in down pours!! BUT, as repeatedly mentioned and its very important. Remove all extra air from the storage bags and DOUBLE bag the raw powder.
Use MINIMAL
POWDER, and think of it as a consumable. If you save it in the mixing container and see issues. Dump and clean container and try over. This should "fix" the issues.

Warming the bullets ontop of the oven is one last tip I use and one I feel helps allot.

Good luck guys

CW

[Petander]

Warming the bullets ontop of the oven is one last tip I use and one I feel helps allot.


CW

Yes, this is a good practise. I also warm the swirling container.

Having a wildly varying climate, I feel it's good to keep things the same all year round.

[762 shooter]

When I shake and bake, I add a small amount of powder at first then shake. If there is not enough powder on the bullets I add a little more powder and shake. I keep doing this until I have coverage I like.

I just use clean hands pre shake and forceps post shake. Works for me.

762

[Cast10]

Thanks guys. I’ve learned a lot here!

[cwlongshot]

I did parts of this videos for some folks asking me questions in comments. Many same comments made here... Maybe this can explain how and what I do and dont have issues.

https://youtu.be/Iu533kDMYJY