That light ford blue paint he used from Eastwood is the best paint I have used. No need for BBs or preheat.
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el34,
I just recently have gotten into PCing my 9mm boolits, as I was having trouble with leading in my barrel. Anyways, fast forward to batch #2 or 3 of my experiment and learning process and I had the grand ole idea of trying a heat gun. My buddy whom I also cast with, had a dewalt heat gun for me to borrow and boy does it get HOT. At first I was worried about the force of the blower blowing away the PC that was on the boolits after dry tumbling in ASBB (that I think were the wrong kind, coating was ok but could be better), but low and behold it got hot enough to melt the PC to the boolits. Now, I couldn't tell you what temp it got to, but I hovered fairly close over the top of them and 5-10 minutes later they were all coated nice enough to shoot. Now, that was just trial and maybe some error too, but it melted the PC to the boolit. Still not as pretty as some of these other BBDT boolits I've seen in this thread, but maybe effective enough to shoot and not get leading? Hope so.
Banger,
Out of sheer curiosity, I was recently looking on the net for some ASBBs and noticed that there are heavier weight ASBBs now. I used to also shoot some airsoft and new that my guns loved the .20gm BBs. It looks like now there are BBs weighing upwards of .45gm now! It also seems that in this thread, the heavier the BBs the better. Have you by chance experimented with BBs this heavy? I don't remember if these weight BBs were popular when I played, as that was a few years ago. I wonder if the heavier ones would produce better results, or if the .25gm BBs are just the magic weight. I guess that's all part of that black magic, huh?
-Dawg
Powder coated for the first time today. After much reading I want to thank the pioneers and forum contributors. I probably wasted less than $10 getting my first batch done thanks to all of the grat advice posted here. My mistakes were buying a dry tumble container that was too big and not round and getting an assortment of pans for the convection oven. I picked up some of the Rubbermaid Takeaway containers and they're perfect. Actually, the baking pans that didn't work out set me back a whopping $3 at Dollar Tree and I'll use them elsewhere. My oven is a large Oster that will hold trays up to 14" w x 10" deep. Dollar Tree had some brownie pans for a buck each that are a good size for the oven but my favorite after one whole day of powder coating is a 1/4 sheet "commercial grade" cake pan from Wallyworld. It's heavy but doesn't flex when loaded up. It was $4.88 and worth it. It will hold up to 150 boolits easily. My first attempt was with 180 gr .40 TC boolits and Smoke's Carolina Blue. They came out ok but there were thin spots so I recoated them. Sized 'em and they're ready to load. They're not glass smooth but they'll work. PCed some 9mm with Smoke's Jet Black and had thin spots as well so coated them again, too. Sized them in my Lyman 450 and they're ready to load. Gor about 500 boolits ready to go my first day of powder coating. Just need to get the powder to BBs to boolits ratio refined and maybe pick them up with hemastats instead of nitrile gloves. Overall I'm happy with the first try and I know it will get better.
David2011.. thin spots shake HARDER. Don't be afraid of damaging the bullets you will not.
First coat will have too much powder on them. Will have to get some powder off the bullets . Either by tapping hemos on container lip to knock powder off or use the paper plates with holes like a colander to separate bullets from bbs and powder. This will also remove the extra powder on the bullets
Smoke,
Thanks for the tip. I might have to upgrade to heavier duty containers. The bottom of one Takeaway split on the first use but it might have had a defect from the start. Overall I was not disappointed. I'll pick up some HF large hemostats; finding that the nitrile gloves are a pain and a good way to spread powder coat onto everything.
First test, one coat only. Thin spots don't show in the photos.
Attachment 203260 Attachment 203261
Used up all of my unlubed boolits yesterday; will have to cast more to continue testing.
I love smokes Carolina blue. Very easy to use
This thread is great! Just starting in the world of PC and this has been so helpful! Thanks to all contributors!
I love these containers, they are NO LONGER AVAILABLE :(
https://i.imgur.com/RQ59opk.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/JlLyc3l.jpg
I have some questions on the concept of powder coating. I take it that you tumble coat the bullets after they cool coming out of the molds? Not coating them with any lube? I get the concept of putting airsoft BBs in the tumbling pan with the bullets and powder. Am I on the right track?? Also I have several boxes of bullets I bought from Missouri Bullet several years ago that where supposed to be BHN 12 and turned out to be over BHN 22. I called them and they sent me free replacements and told me to keep the other ones. I thought I would some time get around to melt them down and recast them with some added pure lead to get the proper hardness. However hasn't happened. Question: If I powder coated them as is it wouldn't work because of the lube on them, right?? They are .44 & .45 Colt.
Thanks, Grampie not Grumpie,
They have to be clean.
Thanks Truck. I'll just melt them down into ingots and recast them later - someday! :>)
You can melt off the lube in a pan then wash in acetone or denatured alcohol to get them clean. I have done it with little or no issues.
This is how I like to do it and have had good success
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...ange-PC-method
Buying your powder & BB's from smoke VS is the safest way to get started.
no more sticky lube, gumming up dies, drying and falling out AND you don't keep touching lead (if you are concerned)
I got Smoke's sample pack of PC. Here's my process:
Put in No. 5 plastic with PC and 4, 1 sq in coupons of anticling sheets, swirl around, pour out into tray made of 1/4" wire cloth that's in a large AL pan to catch excess, use tweezers to stand upright (easy because these were .45 200 gr SWC), bake 20" @ 400 F.
I don't know about the anticling sheets - counterintuitive to me. Only problem is I need more PC to stick to each piece. Everyone raves about how airsoft BBs are the cat's meow, but I refuse to pick them out with tweezers or anything else. Sheesh!
Those BBs are 6 mm nominal, i.e., 0.24 in. My wire cloth is nominal 0.25, center-on-center. In other words, the BBs would not fall through. Any ideas?
smoke! send me info on how to buy some more powder for coating bullets. I would like either the green or blue(thats what I got last time and they worked great. ) I need an address or something.
Pat
you can reach smoke here http://castboolits.gunloads.com/foru...-4320-s-Corner
Has anyone tried to coat jacketed bullets?
Will the powder coating stick?
Just wondering