Originally Posted by
danr
yes Russel, swaging does take ALLOT of time. we just finished our first round of tests with pistol calibers and powder coating, and my best response i can say is "OMG" the results where extremely impressive. we pushed 45 acp's to their limits with powder coated projectiles and saw some fantastic accuracy, and no leading at all. we recovered projectiles and powder coating was still intact. we also noticed LESS pressure signs at mag level loads than what we seen for jacketed, factory and home swaged.
we also swaged some powder coated projectiles, so that we could do an apples to apples comparison of home swaged projectiles and powder coated. even after powder coating, then swaging, then firing, the powder coating still remained on the projectiles, and we saw less high pressure signs on the cases with powder coating. we where simply amazed.
the amount of work it takes to powder coat is NIL compared to swaging.
with all this said, and saying it is like shooting myself in the foot as a swage die manufacture, powder coating stands to put swaging out to the curb side as old tech.
we powder coated with a Freight harbor $68 gun and powder, and used a walmart $15 oven, we where able to powder coat and bake 100 rounds in 30 minutes. only about 5 minutes of that was prep and powder. the rest of the time was sitting around waiting for the timer bell to go "DING" and tell us the baking was done. we also noticed that when we sized powder coated bullets, it was MUCH easier to size, less pressure was needed to push the bullets through, and it seemed like they didn't size. yet using the calipers on the 45's before sizing they where .461, and after .451, they where in fact sizing.
we also powder coated 380, 38's, and 40's. we had better accuracy with these calibers with unrefined loads than we have had with refined loads that we have.
all i can say, is OMG.
because of this, i'm re-inventing Kaine Dies and its products to help support people who want to start powder coating. we are working on building up some inexpensive kits for starters, and some advanced kits for the pro's. we are also working on documentation and instructions to go along with it. maybe some video's as well.
here is a sample loads we fired with great success.
45acp, powder coated sized to .451, 200 grain projectile, cci large pistol primer, 5.5 grains of red dot. pressure signs just started to show, we only had a slight primer flattening. fantastic accuracy, we where hitting a 3inch by 4 inch plate at about 45 to 50 yards away.
380 acp, 92 grain projectile, sized to .355, winchester small pistol primers, 2grains of red dot, great accuracy, little pressure signs.
40acp, 175 grain projectile, sized to .400, cci small pistol primer, 3.2 grains of reddot, Fantastic accuracy, no high pressure signs.
38 spl, 158 grain projectile, sized to .357, cci small pistol primers, 3 grains of reddot, Fantastic accuracy, no high pressure signs. we also noticed with this one, that the cases ejected very easily from the cylinder. much easier than normal.
we also found that it was better to size projectiles first, then powder coat, then size again, this helped prevent cracking of the powder coat for heavy coats. our spray technique wasn't anything professional, more of spray a bunch of powder on them, nothing special. we ran our gun with a secondary regulator set to 20psi when at full trigger pull. we also used tin foil for a base, and sat the projectiles nose up. so the bases where not powder coated. yet all recovered projectiles had 0 deformation of the bases.