simple Hi-Tek coating

[Stephen Cohen]

This colour V colour is bullswaddle.
Sizing, alloy BHN, shape, powder, primer, case, load density and headspace affect accuracy more than colour of the coating.

Cast, coat, load, shoot, enjoy, repeat

I have to agree with you, even though as I said gold did give me my best group, I do not for a minute believe colour makes a difference. Regardless of the the song living next door to Alan. Regards Stephen

[Tazza]

Some people feel the metalic finish is better for heat rejection, but i find it hard to believe that the the few mili seconds that the projectile has a flame behind it from the propellant has enough time to melt the lead on the base. Friction of the lead on the bore rifling yes, but not from the head. This is where sizing is critical, too loose, and the tens of thousands of PSI of gas will push past the projectile, melting the lead as it cuts past it.

[Petander]

Some people feel the metalic finish is better for heat rejection, but i find it hard to believe that the the few mili seconds that the projectile has a flame behind it from the propellant has enough time to melt the lead on the base. Friction of the lead on the bore rifling yes, but not from the head. This is where sizing is critical, too loose, and the tens of thousands of PSI of gas will push past the projectile, melting the lead as it cuts past it.

I keep finding bullets that I've shot into snow.

Here is a recovered 44Mag full house N110 loaded bullet. Tru Blu/TMG Gold-mix.

[Tazza]

Shame we on't have snow or allowed o shoot in the back yard, or i could show the base of one of my K15 projectiles. The only ones i see the base of are the ones imessed up reloading and need a rod to push out of the barrel.....

[ryanmattes]

So I did my first attempt at Hi-Tek coating today. The first batch I think I coated too heavy and I cooked them a little too long (the darker ones). The second batch came out much better.

Both passed the acetone test easily, but the first batch failed the smash test. I'm pretty sure it's because the first coat was too heavy and didn't cure properly. There are also lots of touch marks. The second passed the smash test.

I cut the recipe in half, since I only had a couple hundred bullets to coat: 10g powder to 50ml acetone. Next time I think I'll add a little denatured alcohol on top of the acetone, because they mostly didn't get a full 15 seconds of tumbling before they got too dry. Must be the heat and humidity in Texas. The first batch I tumbled I followed the directions and left the lid off, and that dried in about 3-5 seconds. That's probably why they came out like they did. After that I would hold the lid on and let it burp as needed while I tumbled. That got me a 10-12 second tumble before they dried out.

Just looking for either confirmation or correction on my technique. The plan is to thin it a bit with alcohol to extend tumble time and thin the coat. Then pay closer attention to the cook time so I don't overcook like I did the first time.

Also, should I shoot the dark ones? Are they any worse than bare lead? Or better just to melt them down and start over?



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[Avenger442]

Ryanmattes

Just my two cents but, both coats if they are fist coats in the photos look a little thick to me. If second or third coat they look great. If it passes the acetone and smash test shoot it. It is OK to shoot over cooked bullets that are darker.

On the ones that didn't pass the smash test. You take a chance that they will lead the barrel. I have shot some that didn't pass and they didn't lead. They did pretty much what yours did. But conventional wisdom says melt them. Which is what I usually do.

Guys here will tell you not to half the recipe. I know it seems like your wasting coating when you only have a couple of pounds to coat. As I understand it there is a greater chance for error. And this stuff will keep for a while.

Technique seems OK for closed tumble. But would suggest dumping wet especially on the first coat. Even if you have to add the alcohol to do it. Different tumble times for different conditions, but usually in my humidity controlled area that I coat in with the recipe that comes with the coating I close tumble for about fifteen seconds and they dump slightly wet. Dry to touch in about one minute. But completely dry in about fourty five minutes sitting on top of the stove to preheat. Usually dry over night when on first coat when I have time. But like I said different conditions may change things.

I'm sure the guys from down under will chime in.

[Tazza]

Have you touched the cast with bare hands or lubricated your mould halves at all? I do feel the coat seems a bit thick, as the first coat generally looks a bit lighter than that, even after cooking.

I always do 3 fairly light coats. The first and second coat, you can still see the lead underneath, the third makes 'em pretty. I know 2 is all you need, but for the extra time to do a third, it's worth it.

They always pass wipe and smash tests, you do your part, the coating will do it's part too.

Did you ensure the coating was totally dry before baking too?

[ryanmattes]

@avenger442

Thanks. I did 3 coats on these because I figured I'd use up more of what I mixed. Once I get it all down I'll likely only do 2 coats.

Have you touched the cast with bare hands or lubricated your mould halves at all? I do feel the coat seems a bit thick, as the first coat generally looks a bit lighter than that, even after cooking.

I always do 3 fairly light coats. The first and second coat, you can still see the lead underneath, the third makes 'em pretty. I know 2 is all you need, but for the extra time to do a third, it's worth it.

They always pass wipe and smash tests, you do your part, the coating will do it's part too.

Did you ensure the coating was totally dry before baking too?

I wear nitrile gloves when I cast, or really when I'm handling more than a single bullet or two, so I don't really touch them much, although I may have picked a few up afterwards to inspect.

I didn't lubricate the mold halves. I smoked it the first time I used it, but I've cast hundreds in multiple sessions since then.

Like I said above, it was 3 coats, but even with no experience I felt like the first tumble on the first batch was way too short, and I didn't get good coverage.

I feel like the thickness has to do with the acetone evaporating too fast and causing the powder to clump. About half of the lube grooves on the first batch were still shiny lead after the first tumble, so I was pretty certain that batch was not going to be right.

Do you think that halving the recipe is a bad idea? Right now my intention is to halve it again, but this time add maybe 10ml of denatured alcohol to the mix, on top of the 50ml of acetone, both to make it thinner and to extend the tumble time for better coverage.

It's entirely possible I also didn't let them dry completely. It was outdoors at 4:00 in Texas, so the ambient temp was around 90F (32C), and even under a tree there was a lot of direct sun on the table. Fully cooled to ambient temp still felt about the same as body temp, so they were pretty warm and dried to the touch in minutes. I gave them 20-30 minutes drying time at that temp, but they may need more.

In the future, maybe I'll do the first coat the night before, let them sit overnight, and then bake them the next day.

One other variable: the oven I gave is a convection over, and I put it on the "turbo" setting instead of bake. Tons of air circulation, but it took a long time, maybe half of the cooking time (5 minutes), to get up to temp. I can try it in "bake" instead. I have a thermometer inside the oven to watch the temps.


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[dansedgli]

The poorly covered ones look like they arent dry enough.

I had heaps and heaps like that when I first started. Put them on top of the oven while its warming up or while others are cooking to help dry them.

Since doing that i havent had any issues, even with a short drying time.

I try to leave them in front of a heater for a few hours if I can.

[Tazza]

If that's 3 coats, then they look about right to not have had too much applied in one coat.

I have a plastic container that i scoop up my projectiles as my measure, i then add them to my shaker bottle and add 3ml of recently shaken liquid hi-tek. If it's not covering as well as you'd like (hot dry days), add 1-2ml more acetone with a clean syringe. I have never used denatured alcohol, i find that with the extra acetone, it never dries too fast for me, but avenger swears by it. I think he wets them first with it, then adds the coating on top.

As long as the nitrile gloves are not powdered, that is what i use too.

[slide]

There is nothing wrong with halving the mixture. I do it all the time. Punch a small hole in your lid to allow fumes to escape and leave the lid on. Go to amazon and buy yourself a digital thermometer with thermocouple. Drill a hole in a coated bullet and squeeze the base around the thermocouple. Put it in with your bullets when you bake. This way you will know what is going on temp wise with your bullets. Temp of the bullets is the key, not the temp of the air in the oven. You don't need 400F,360F is good. Once your bullets hit the 360F mark give them two to four minutes. Anymore I hardly ever use the convection setting,takes longer to heat up. The bake cycle works just fine. Hope this helps.

[Avenger442]

What's happening Slide. Haven't talked with you in a while.

[slide]

Medical problems, comes with old age.

[Tazza]

Medical problems, comes with old age.

Good to have you still here with us, the older we all get the more issues pop up, as long as we all keep one step ahead of the under taker.

[Avenger442]

Yeah my wife has had some issues lately that have kept her incapacitated. Out of work 12 weeks. And guess who gets to take up the slack

[slide]

I hope she is getting better. She is a nurse,right? Lot of work keeping a house up.

[Avenger442]

I thought I would make my point on the over baking of the coating and the old mixed coating. I was loading to test some case prep vs. no prep and Federal Match primers vs the usual CCI.



This is a mix of several colors being mixed two to six months before use, leftovers from other coating sessions. They were stored at room temperature. They were baked 400F for twice as long as normal. As you can see bullet is dark almost black. Partially due to old coating and definitely due to the bake.

Here are the targets at 100 yards. You can have as much accuracy as you want with Hi Tek.









And it looks like case prep (flash hole debur and uniform primer pocket) does help a bit. Case still out on the match primer.

[RydForLyf]

After struggling/stumbling with countertop ovens, I decided to up my game and have a purpose built Hi-Tek/CeraKote curing oven.

FB Marketplace was my shopping mall until I found my donors. I parted out what I didn't want and cobbled together what I kept so I now have a double convection oven with 6 racks. The top oven will be for cooking/curing and the bottom oven will be for drying/preheat. I've recently been using both of them as brass drying after wet tumbling.

I haven't been able to do any Hi-Tek coating yet, but I'll no longer be handicapped by the oven. One nice feature is the PID with the built in timer. I hooked it up so it lights up the timer reset switch and also has the capability to sound a buzzer if desired.

[Petander]

Shame we on't have snow or allowed o shoot in the back yard, or i could show the base of one of my K15 projectiles. The only ones i see the base of are the ones imessed up reloading and need a rod to push out of the barrel.....

In my pic you can see how VV N110 powder granules have left pressure marks on the bullet base coating.

[Petander]

After struggling/stumbling with countertop ovens, I decided to up my game and have a purpose built Hi-Tek/CeraKote curing oven.

FB Marketplace was my shopping mall until I found my donors. I parted out what I didn't want and cobbled together what I kept so I now have a double convection oven with 6 racks. The top oven will be for cooking/curing and the bottom oven will be for drying/preheat. I've recently been using both of them as brass drying after wet tumbling.

I haven't been able to do any Hi-Tek coating yet, but I'll no longer be handicapped by the oven. One nice feature is the PID with the built in timer. I hooked it up so it lights up the timer reset switch and also has the capability to sound a buzzer if desired.

Way to go!

Congrats,looks great.