PCing HP Cast bullets

[BJung]

How are you powder coating your hollow point cast bullets and leaving the hollow portion clean of paint?

[ryanmattes]

I use HiTek to coat. Sometimes the hollow point gets coated, and sometimes it doesn't. I don't worry about it, I don't think it affects the performance any.


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[Smoke4320]

Really no need to keep clean unless you just want to. It will not effect expansion or stability

[Retumbo]

My old thread...other things you may have to worry about. 400 grain bullets for 45/70

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?357996-Good-thing-or-bad-thing

[BJung]

Did those bullets expand with the plastic bb in the hollow point?

[Castloader]

I know some of the answers above, while accurate in and of themselves, are not very satisfying but the answer here is actually pretty simple. Don't tumble with too much powder. Folks use various different tumblers including manual tumbling in old plastic jugs etc. I use a Frankford Arsenal vibratory tumbler. I dump in the boolits, then throw about 1 tablespoon of powder per 100 boolits and turn it on for 5 minutes. I can tell after that much time if I need a little more powder or not, if so I add some sprinkling it over the boolits. All together I tumble for 10 minutes. Boolits come out with powder sticking to the sides all over, but very little in the cavity, and very little in the bowl. It's the excess that causes problems, so don't give it any excess. I put on nitrile gloves and coat the relevant fingers with powder before touching the boolits to ensure I don't rub the coating off, then I place into an old ammo tray nose down. A couple more shakes in the tray to kick off any excess, then invert the tray onto some aluminum foil and pop into the oven. This is a batch I did just this afternoon in fact. Boolit is HP mold "9 Or 38, 147-154, Bevel Base,HP, NO Lube Groove Mold (Multi Choice)" Casts at about 150gr before coating. PC is Smokes Flame Red. Normally I do batches of 200, but this was a test with new powder and a new mold.
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[Retumbo]

Did those bullets expand with the plastic bb in the hollow point?

Never did shoot them like that

[pmer]

If you wanted to spray them... what I did was using an old piece sheet metal, cookie sheet etc, drill self tapping sheet metal screws into the sheet and place the boolits upside down on the screws.
They should be inch or more apart otherwise some electrical affect kicks in and messes with the coverage. It might be the Faraday effect.

[Dragonheart]

If you look at any of the hollow point ballistic tests, the problem with a hollow point bullet design is when the cavity is plugged, the bullet stops expanding any more than a solid projectile would. So purposely filling the cavity with a hard polymer or anything else is not going to aid in expansion.

I designed a "Bed of Nails" for the purpose of keeping the cavity free of PC. The bad news is you have to spray, but the good news is it is a good reason to buy a PC gun. Spraying hollow points is a lot faster and the results are excellent! I press parchment paper down over the nails. I do a 300° preheat and then spray. I can see my coverage as the PC hits the bullets and starts to flow. The parchment tends stay relatively clean and appears to help the powder find its target. Then the tray goes into the oven for full cure. HP cavities remain uncoated.
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[Tripplebeards]

Did those bullets expand with the plastic bb in the hollow point?

I tried cast boolits with plastic a plastic BB inserted and never got good expansion. I even pressed with my seater die and melted a few into place. Thought I was going to get fancy and reinvent the wheel. Lol. It acted more like a FMJ than a rapidly expanding boolit as one might think. I used 7.5 and 10.4 BH alloys. I just stick to extremely soft malleable alloys with PCd HPs and get great expansion. I tumble coat so my HP cavity is PCd. Makes no difference IMO wether they have PC in them or bare.

[ryanmattes]

HiTek is liquid, so only ever creates a micro-thin layer. It's not making any measurable difference in expansion.

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[BJung]

Thanks for your photo and idea. It looks to me that you took roofing nails and hammered them through sheet metal. A Dollar store aluminum cookie tray or non stick wax paper could be pushed over this to line the surface if desired. How much money do you have in your PC sprayer unit? I'm using orange pc but with the lead base, the orange dark. I plant mix 50/50 orange/white paint to lighten the orange PC color and later mix 50/50 red/white (because the red is like the Smokes Flame Red above) so I can lighten and brighten the red. I was thinking of swabbing the inside of the hollow point cavity with vaseline or filling it with cotton. Any opinions about that idea beside having a mini fire in my toaster oven?

[BJung]

Didn't this Elvis fellow one youtube fill his hp cavity with white caulk and got expansion?

[pmer]

HiTek is liquid, so only ever creates a micro-thin layer. It's not making any measurable difference in expansion.

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I haven't tried Hi Tek but occasionally bought some Hi Tek coated boolits. HiTek shouldn't come off very easy? This winter I shot some HiTek coated 9mm boolits into a snow bank used as a bullet stop. When the snow melts I pick them up for recycling and noticed the coating came off the bearing surface on some of the boolits. Is that normal for Hitek? The barrels of a pistol and a carbine looked fine.

PC doesn't come off but it gets discolored from what I seen.

[ryanmattes]

Can't upload photos, must've hit some kind of limit.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/t7ST8bxiPMcNPM9i9

https://photos.app.goo.gl/CdgizSckF9vqux1K6

These were shot through a paper target into a dirt berm. You can see the rifling did take some off the 9mm, but the coating is still fully bonded to the surfaces.

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[triggerhappynme]

I shake and baked hollow points from a mp-mold and some had pretty significant fill in the point.
I shot them into milk jugs and had great expansion on all the bullets. No issue with powder in the hollow. I looked at it like this: Hornady critical defense ammo has a polymer like fill in the hollow to help prevent clogging. If that works I feel no need to worry about powder coat.

[Tripplebeards]

If you go to my home page and look at my photos I have expanded Lyman devastators with several different alloys. I used milk jugs and water filled totes to shoot into for expansion tests. All mine are tumble coated with Smoke’s PC. Choosing a softer alloy will do everything you will want to do VS trying to fill the HP area imo.

[pmer]

Can't upload photos, must've hit some kind of limit.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/t7ST8bxiPMcNPM9i9

https://photos.app.goo.gl/CdgizSckF9vqux1K6

These were shot through a paper target into a dirt berm. You can see the rifling did take some off the 9mm, but the coating is still fully bonded to the surfaces.

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Thanks, that's about what mine look like.

[pmer]

Thanks for your photo and idea. It looks to me that you took roofing nails and hammered them through sheet metal. A Dollar store aluminum cookie tray or non stick wax paper could be pushed over this to line the surface if desired. How much money do you have in your PC sprayer unit? I'm using orange pc but with the lead base, the orange dark. I plant mix 50/50 orange/white paint to lighten the orange PC color and later mix 50/50 red/white (because the red is like the Smokes Flame Red above) so I can lighten and brighten the red. I was thinking of swabbing the inside of the hollow point cavity with vaseline or filling it with cotton. Any opinions about that idea beside having a mini fire in my toaster oven?

I think Harbor Freight has sprayers for around 80 dollars. You might have other uses for a sprayer, I've coated my old mail box and engine brackets etc.

[Dragonheart]

Thanks for your photo and idea. It looks to me that you took roofing nails and hammered them through sheet metal. A Dollar store aluminum cookie tray or non stick wax paper could be pushed over this to line the surface if desired. How much money do you have in your PC sprayer unit? I'm using orange pc but with the lead base, the orange dark. I plant mix 50/50 orange/white paint to lighten the orange PC color and later mix 50/50 red/white (because the red is like the Smokes Flame Red above) so I can lighten and brighten the red. I was thinking of swabbing the inside of the hollow point cavity with vaseline or filling it with cotton. Any opinions about that idea beside having a mini fire in my toaster oven?

Actually that is a half size aluminum bakers sheet pan as I am using a 30" oven, capable of cooking thousands of bullets at a time.
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The nails are 3/4" hardened concrete nails typically used to install carpet tack strip. There is a cut to size piece of sheet metal layered over the bottom of th pan, which holds the nails in place. I used numerous blind rivets to tightly secure the sheetmetal to the pan.

Parchment paper works the best pressed doom over the nails to protect the pan from PC buildup. When sprayed the parchment assists in providing s very even cosaing, notice almost no powder adhering to the paper. Since the hollow bullet cavity is covering the nail point, no PC build up in the nail point and no PC in the bullet cavity. Simply place the bullets nose down on the nails, spray and put the tray into the oven. Fast and simple.

I use and recommend the Eastwood Dual Voltage Gun.

[BJung]

Will the single Voltage Eastwood gun work instead of the dual voltage? I want to keep my costs down.

[BJung]

The HF price is very attractive but of the Eastwood sprayer is significantly better, I'll wait. Has anyone tried both? How does PC used through a vibrator vs this spray system compare?