Yeah, me too: I use my original wire 'grids' much more than the trivets.
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Yeah, me too: I use my original wire 'grids' much more than the trivets.
These are 6.5mm boolits on a 1/2" thick aluminum plate drilled to fit the gas check shank and covered with non stick aluminum foil.
The other side of the plate fits the GC shanks of 30 cal. boolits.
Oven liner has most everything beat. cheap. nothing sticks lasts just shy of forever. Have tried foil but it is not in same league Can pick up corners and drop directly into ice water. Oven liner can be replaced with grill vegetable liner. it is liner used on grillsThese solve problems which makes the process a lot more uniform
Hi, TYVM for this info! Am always looking for something that will work or possibly outshine other methods for me.
I also tried the silicone hexagonal divots (HABCAN mentioned) for some 30/30's and they did work very good for me . but...... the boolits were already GCed so they were contained well in the divots and did not fall over.
SharuLady
Jim,
This may be a stupid question...do you just use the diffuser to stand the bullets upright until you put it in the oven then pull it out, or do you bake with it still in in the pan? I'd think that plastic would not withstand the 400°F baking for 20 minutes without warping or burning. Ed
No question is stupid, but yes the plastic egg crate light diffuses would melt. But have you priced these diffusers? they are not just a couple of dollars. In the $10+ neighborhood you can acquire a baker's cooking rack, which is a grid made of stainless wire. The spacing varies on the grid so it may take some looking to find the grid spacing you want.
But I still remove mine before cooking as I don't want any marks on my bullets.
Which returns us to the original Post #1.............LOL. Thanks, Dragonheart!
I had build up the other day as well around the bases using a baking sheet. I had to lightly tap GC on with a ball pine hammer before sizing with my Lee sizer to get the extra PC build up off. If I set my boolits on a wire basket I picked up from Walmart for $4 the paint drips off under the basket giving a thin coat so my GC snaps on.
When it comes to PC Gas Check bullets this is the only method that has worked well for me. I put the gas check base into the holes that were reamed to size in a scrap sheetmetal tray. I spray the bullets then using self closing tweezers I transfer the bullets to my silicon covered oven trays. The gas check base is left bare so I have no issues seating the check.
Attachment 225419Attachment 225420Attachment 225421
I have done the spray-then-transfer thing, but I had to move mine to a tray already in the oven. I'm not steady enough to move a tray of rifle boolits once it is loaded. 8-)
I understand completely because you are looking at 70 year old hands in the photos.
The silicon mats help a lot to keep them from sliding. Unfortunately a spray coating is fragile, so a dropped or toppled bullet needs to be culled. When I tumble coat the coating is less susceptible to damage. When I preheat before tumble coating the coating is even less likely to be damaged.
Now if I could come up with a way to spray and go directly into the oven and not have excess coating stuck to the bullets to contend with, that would be the best of all worlds.
Standing up rifle boolits when cooking - found this works real well.
1) Tried plastic ammo tray, pick up by nose and drop in one, fill then flip onto another. Place on cooking tray and flip. Into oven, remove ammo tray.
2) Pick up nose, drop base down in reamed out 45acp ammo tray. Move & remove plastic tray. Cook.
3) Pick up by base (hemostats), drop nose first into rifle ammo tray. Flip with cooking tray and move. Remove plastic tray and cook. No evidence of PC powder scraping off in any method. Did ~400 of these this afternoon, lazily - may be 1 hr effective time.
Attachment 234078
Attachment 234079
A wire grid baker's cooling rack serves the same purpose to act as a spacer and to keep the bullets from toppling and come is various sizes. A large one will cover up to a half sheet bakers pan.
Attachment 234121
I would suggest self closing tweezers instead of a hemostat. The tweezers actually lock so that the bullet can be picked up in any position and maneuvered into position without having to hold tension on the bullet like using hemostats or pliers. The tweezers can be found in various lengths and tip configurations.
Attachment 234120
https://i.imgur.com/d1xS5UO.jpg
Left the wire in for the bake cycle and kept the boolits off each other (for the most part) they did not stick to anything.
https://i.imgur.com/p2TbwCh.jpg
the speckles are intentional
What caused them to topple,Thermal expansion or an earthquake tremor? Might try a silicone mat to reduce sliding.
Attachment 244509
This is cheap and works fine. Sand or remove the bottom of ammo trays and just drop them in. Pull off tray to cook.
the boolits had Too much to drink
boolits top heavy, the wire wasn't well anchored and moved, I'm not as graceful as I used to be.
I put them in the oven that way. the wire didn't leave any marks on the boolits
https://i.imgur.com/9QiOuSF.png
the boolits are supposed to be speckled. They are just less speckled than these
https://i.imgur.com/FsW3OUo.jpg
next batch I will have the wire rack taller and secure it better. I do have bake mats, just couldn't find them easily. [really need to do some cleaning ]
some of the parchment paper stuck to the boolits
On the first go around, the tray they were on wasn't strong enough, the tray twisted and the boolits all fell through the wire [smilie=b:
https://i.imgur.com/XnAmOaf.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/G8NXstJ.jpg
hopefully, people can learn from my mistakes.
popper, that works well for standing them up
the 311-247 grn boolits need support in the oven
I turn the wire over and use it to line up boolits
https://i.imgur.com/490blSq.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/lvIfMCw.jpg
some slid on the baking sheet coming out of the oven and the wire wasn't big enough for the whole tray so the back ones I free-handed