Rattle Can of good quality enamal and spray boolits?

[Survival Bill]

11111

[Beagle333]

Some folks have gotten useable results with VHT epoxy paint (there's a sticky on epoxy paint), but I don't remember anybody using enamel. I wouldn't think it would stand up to sizing or especially going through the swaging of a forcing cone without cracking a good bit.

[mdi]

I tried some epoxy "appliance" paint sprayed on. First try coat was pretty thick, mebbe I should have tried two thin coats? Took forever to dry. Tried some larger bullets (.44 265 gr. RNFP). Sprayed on 1 coat, allowed to dry, paint came off in sizer. Another bunch coated, tried to bake at 250 degrees or so. White paint turned brown and sticky. Tossed bullets into the reclaim bucket, and put the paint on the shelf...

[popper]

Bill, the PC works so well, easy and cheap, why try something else?

[Love Life]

Spend the $64.00 and get the HI-TEK. By the time you're done using the container your bullets wil have cost .0042 apiece to coat.

You can even get a smaller size for less money. I have seen many times in this section where people "Saving money" has put them over the cost and time savings of just buying the HI-TEK coating. No "My bore wore out!!" or "We need a definitive thread on which powder is the best." or "I can't get powder."

Lame, lame, lame.

However; my word is not the gospel as handed down from on high.

[Bullwolf]

I have seen where some are using enamal paint putting it in a tupperware with boolits and shake it baby and doing this 3 times and baking the boolits could one not just stand up the boolits and spray them 3 times and bake them or is that to easy?

back in the long lead-bullets-coasted-with-polymer-paint thread i tried exactly this aroung page #8 on 11/17/2011.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...=1#post1467055



Here is a Re-post from that long thread.

<SNIP>

I have been curious how spray painted boolits would perform for quite a while now.

So, I spray painted a batch of 9mm tumble lube boolits all over, using a can of VHT roll bar and chassis spray paint.



I loaded up 50 or so of the black painted 9mm cast lead boolits using my standby load of Unique, minus a few tenths of a grain.





I took the boolits to the range, and ran them all through my Tanfoglio TZ-75. They functioned a lot like my usual 9mm load does.

Accuracy was the same as my standard 9mm 124 grain tumble lube load at 25 yards. The painted boolits did not smoke excessively, lead, or foul the barrel with paint. Clean up was simple and easy. The fired rounds showed no signs of excess pressure, and the velocity in FPS was not that far off of my normal 9mm loading.

The boolits sure looked pretty, and they felt quite slick but the spray paint coating was far from what I would call durable when it came to handling. The paint was somewhat delicate. It was easy to chip the paint off the top of a boolit during seating, or on the feed ramp of the gun when chambering a round. I went back over the few little nicks that I made when assembling the boolits, with a Birchwood Casey touch up paint pen when I was all finished.

I didn't have the confidence to polish or tumble the painted rounds after that either, so they only received a gentle cloth wipe down after loading.

I don't think I would bother doing it all over again, unless I wanted to be able to easily identify my ammunition.

While the results were not especially negative, they were not overly positive either. It wasn't all that easy to get an even application of paint all over the entire boolit, and the delicate coating of paint took a lot longer to dry and cure than a light coat of Allox or 45-45-10 does.

The painted boolits did work, and shoot just fine, I just didn't think that they were worth the extra effort for me at the hobbyist level.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After seeing what another board member had done with jig paint, I also tried coating a few boolits with some Pro-Tec powder paint that I bought at Cabelas.



You can check the stuff out here:
http://www.csipaint.com/index.asp

It's a fishing lure and jig paint, and it made an extremely hard and durable coating. I heated up some 9mm boolits in the oven, and dipped them in the powder paint, then I baked the coating on for a while and let it cool. Perhaps I did it wrong, as I have never coated my own fishing lures before. I noticed that the boolits were quite a bit larger after the coating was applied.

The coated boolits went from .358 to around .370 or larger. I ran 3-4 of the coated boolits through a Lee push through sizer. It took a LOT of effort to size them, and in some cases I ended up shearing off the coating doing so.

I had a couple of keepers, but the coating was so hard that I chickened out and did not shoot the Pro-Tec powder coated boolits. I still have a couple of them sitting on my loading bench. They sure are glossy and slick to handle though.


- Bullwolf

<SNIP>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I tried some epoxy "appliance" paint sprayed on. First try coat was pretty thick, mebbe I should have tried two thin coats? Took forever to dry. Tried some larger bullets (.44 265 gr. RNFP). Sprayed on 1 coat, allowed to dry, paint came off in sizer. Another bunch coated, tried to bake at 250 degrees or so. White paint turned brown and sticky. Tossed bullets into the reclaim bucket, and put the paint on the shelf...

Much of the "epoxy" appliance paint like Rustoleum for example is actually an enamel, with a epoxy-like finish. I fell for that once re-painting some appliances in my rental units, never again.

I actually use the VHT epoxy spray paint for automotive stuff.

It's long lasting and durable too, much more so than enamel for car suspension parts that are too large for me to easily powder coat.

I've read others trying it in the $10 epoxy coat can it be done? lets find out thread.

I think it would be my choice were I to do this again, rather than the VHT enamel I tried out back in November 2011. Today it seems like powder coating is the big rage, but for what it's worth my enamel 9mm load functioned fine and with no leading, it was just far more delicate than I was hoping it would be as a coating.

A bunch of people will be along shortly to tell you to just try powder coating instead.




- Bullwolf

[Walter Laich]

I can understand folks wanting to try other coatings. Yes pc works and is easy but that doesn't mean there might not be something else out there.
Part of the fun of this is trying out new things

[bangerjim]

The VHT spray on epoxy, in black and white only in most auto stores, (you HAVE to bake it!) does work, but the price is soooooooo high, it is not worth it. PC, (especially the DT method) costs so little, you cannot even calculate the cost/boolit!

Alternatives are nice, but most epoxies are cost prohibitive, especially in those horrible spray cans!

Enamels will not work at all from the several I have tried....even baking them. Too soft. And if it takes more than one coat, it is a waste of time and material.

If you just MUST use enamels, use hi-temp versions ONLY, spray ONE coat OVER the HF matte black (pre-coated & baked) and bake it again. The black gives a tooth for the enamel to hold on to and actually provides the protection. The enamel is just for glits-n-glamor at the range!

banger