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So I did 2000 9mm bullets Eastwood ford blue.
I tumnled them in #5 plastic tubes and laid the on cookie sheets in piles and baked all at one time .
When I removed themfrom oven i dropped the pans on floor to break up bullets
Once cooled I can see bare lead specks where the bullets touched themselves and the wire container.
Is this normal, if not what I need to do?
Will these bullets lead?
I use hardware cloth and turn trays over on bench with cooling pans , and roll bullets around to make sure none are stuck together , very few to none with spots or adhesion marks , those spots on yours should not hurt anything , should not cause any leading .
Normal to have
If you only make one layer on the hardware cloth, you get a lot less bare spots.
L Floyd
Normal to have those bare spots if they are in a pile, I also try to have one single layer in the basket. But....those bare spots are cosmetic...they shoot just as well as those perfectly coated ones.Quote:
Originally Posted by alfloyd
If spots annoy you just coat the bullets a second time.
I stand my bullets up on a non stick foil sheet in a cookie sheet to prevent the specks.
+1 on that although I put mine on a quality silicon baking sheet.Quote:
Originally Posted by fordwannabe
I tumble in a vibratory tumbler and than place the bullets nose down in an old styro foam bullet tray and flip onto the baking tray.
Not an option for me....I did try that but if you have to coat 2000 boolits, it just takes too long. IPSC style shooting/practice just consumes too much ammo.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sasquatch-1
another guy who
single layers the bullets
when finished baking dump them into a metal pan, give them about 1-2 minutes to cool and roll them around to keep from sticking
will put the pans on the garage floor to help speed up cooling
I use those tiny ice cube trays made from silicon and stand mine in them. No bare spots. When I take a tray out of the oven, I set it aside to cool while I put another prepped tray into the oven. Before the new tray is ready to come out, the first try is cool enough to dump in a coffee can and set up for the next round of baking. I can keep a steady flow that way and in a couple of hours, I can process hundreds of bullets.
All handgun boolits get baked in a pile, one layer deep if possible, all except the Lee 310 grain 44’s, they get put in the silicone ice cube trays. Rifle bullets are stood on end in one of the silicone ice cube trays. Just my way of doing things. Seems to work well.
Water drop right out of the oven.
But I don't cook the volume you do, plus mine are base down so they don't touch during cooking.
I place the bullets in ammo trays nose down then flip them onto the parchment covered baking sheet. I use 2 $20 Walmart toaster ovens and leap frog them coating and placing boolits while the other is baking. 150-200 every 10 minutes. I can easily get 1000 done in an hour.
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If you have to do 2000 in one baking session and wish to do in in an hour, more power to you. No problem with a bare spot the size of a pencil point. The important thing is full coverage around the driving band to lube the bullet and seal the gases from cutting boolit.
I don't know what powder you're using but I bake mine at 400 for 20 minutes once the oven gets back up to temp. as a rule of thumb.
Have you tried the "smash test" on your boolits by any chance? Just wondering. I know there are many whose time and temp. vary from mine.
They sure do look pretty.
Slim
If I needed to coat that many bullets I'd go with a Hitek coating.Quote:
Originally Posted by hermans
My OCD just would not let me do the pile of boolits. They have to be standing with none touching each other. I have some silicon ice trays I use that allow me to do about 500 at a time for taller ones. Short pistol boolits stand on their own pretty well. I have plenty of room in the oven. All I would need to do is order a few more trays and I could easily do a couple of thousand at a time.
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Do you guys put those silicon ice cube trays in the oven????
Yes I do. Works just fine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Horse
I do the same but just use small gage wire baskets. I can get 150/9 x 4 i to my conv pizza oven. Then water drop out of the oven. Perfect looking bullets.Quote:
Originally Posted by rsrocket1
I tried some, works fine, but they need to go on a tray for handling.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Horse