Smokes is a quality powder!
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Smokes is a quality powder!
I thought I had this down.........I used hf red in my dry tumbler. Put them in the tumbler for a few minutes while the oven preheated......., Sift, then dump on a pan with parchment paper......it was beautiful! Now a few months later.......2 coats are almost not enough. I hope my powder just got old or moisture in it. I did just leave it in the tumbler for a few months.
Powder needs to be kept completely dry with as little air as possible when stored. Your powder picked up moisture, just dump it and start again with fresh powder.
DO NOT TRY TO DRY IT OUT IN THE OVEN sorry I could not help myself. I will go back to PC soon I am kind of worried all my powders have gone bad on me.I think next time I will vac seal them.
Vac seal sounds like a good idea and I use it on many things, like my molds, ammo, seldom used tools, etc. but trying to get a fluffy fine powder where it will not be picked up by the vacuum tube is something I have not figured out.
Moisture and heat are the big problems with powder storage. For years I have stored my powders in airtight canisters and the canisters are stored in the garage fridge. I let the canister come up to room temp before opening. So far they all continue to work and some powders are several years old.
I was thinking a ziplock bag then vac seal the ziplock should keep the powder in check I just want to seal it. Heck just drawing some air out and then sealing would keep moisture out a vacuum is not a must.
must be the type of pc your using. I use smokes black and got much better results with my vibrating tumbler then I did a plastic bowl. I tried plastic bbs and lead buckshot with the bullets in it but found it works just fine with just the bullets. I have Frankfort arsenal cheap tumbler I keep just for pc coating. 15 minutes in the tumbler then I dump them in a strainer to get the powder out and just dump them on a cookie sheat with non stick aluminum foil and bake and it get perfectly coated bullets. No need at all for a second coat.
I agree a tumbler will set powder when a coolwhip container won't. Problem is most tumblers are too aggressive and have too small of a bowl. That is the reason I used a tumbler base; removed the bowl and replaced it with a 5 gallon #5 plastic bucket. It is secured to a plywood base using two allthread rods, which allow me to adjust the tension and the vibration of the tumbler. This allows me to coat 300+ bullets at a time.