Electrolytic copper

[JLF]

Has anyone tried electrolytic copper?

[bangerjim]

There have been many discussions on this over the past 10 years.

Do a search of the forum to find them.

I don't see any value to the rather thin layer of Cu would derive with electroplating. And the time involved is considerable.

What were hoping to gain? PC is the real way to do coatings.


bangerjim

[super6]

I gotta go with bangerjim on this one, Your gonna need a suitable cathode and diode, acid, and a good dc power supply. A thin plate will be all you can achieve unless you spend countless hours on it. And a good source of oxidized copper. Are you planning on the do it your self or buying copper plate boolits?

[JLF]

My intention is to do it... but for your comments it is not worth it.
The first problem to solve is that of a good coating, because I do not want to use gas check

[JLF]

There have been many discussions on this over the past 10 years.

Do a search of the forum to find them.

I don't see any value to the rather thin layer of Cu would derive with electroplating. And the time involved is considerable.

What were hoping to gain? PC es la forma real de hacer recubrimientos.


bangerjim

What is PC?

[head for the hills]

What is PC?

PC= Powder Coating

Now you have something new to search. Lots of info on PC on this site.

[Winger Ed.]

You're probably better off just powder coating and keeping the speeds down around the mid-teens or lower
if you're not going to use gas checks.

[rancher1913]

hes from Argentina so probably has even more supply issues than us.

several people have done it with mild success but it takes somebody that can repurpose stuff to make a plating set up, like banger says there are threads on here with photos of members doing it but it was a lot of work. to search the forum, go to the top corner just above where it says advanced search there is a white box, type in electroplating and hit the search icon.

if they do powdercoating in your country, that might be a better, cheeper, faster way to go. use the same search box and type in "how to powder coat" or "how to use hitek" both will give you food for thought.

you can also get a gas check punch and make your own gas checks from soda cans.

there is a guy from africa that is a member here and he had to make his own molds, he did very well with rudimentary tools.

[Sasquatch-1]

I have tried it with lackluster results. Takes considerable preparation. It is not that expensive. You need a water heating source that circulates the solution, I used parts from an old coffee machine. Tree stump remover,copper sulfate, to make your solution. I forgot what I used for an acid. Then you have to wire each bullet with thin copper wire to suspend it in the solution. You should also clean the bullets with acetone prior to plating.

For the results it is just not worth it.

[Petander]

FWIW we had a copper plating company here in Finland.

Pistol bullets only, you couldn't load them full power because the coating failed and broke off.

Hi Tek and PC both allow much more pressure / velocity.

[Dragonheart]

I too played around with copper as well as zinc for other purposes and like others found my results were not worth my time and effort unless all you want is a show & tell of the process.
Banger is right powder coating is by far the way to go for creating a jacket for a bullet. PC is about the same hardness as copper, but with a more tenacious bond. The PC surface is much slicker, so friction is reduced, velocity is increased by about 5% and barrels are left without alloy fouling. Copper plated bullets have a velocity limitation of approximately 1400fps. PC has no limitation I have found up to 3500+ fps or chamber pressure to 50K psi. That is the limit of the firearms I own and limit of my testing.
As far as not using gas checks. PC will seal & protect so a check is not needed. However, a bullet is steered from the base and any imperfections on the base of a bullet will effect accoracy. So without a properly installed gas check to make the bullet base flat and perpendicular your accuracy will suffer with increased velocity and distance of full power
. At shorter ranges or lower velocity accuracy maybe acceptable.

[centurion350]

I have just started into copper electroplating, and I have had some success by using a homemade barrel plater. Wiring the bullets individually to dip into the solution is not practical. The barrel platter allows me to plate 300 to 400 castings at a time. I'm not circulating the copper sulfate solution but I am aerating it and keeping it at a pretty constant temperature using an outer tub with a heater to heat the copper sulfate solution. I have been able to plate 300 castings at a time to 5.5mils with no cracking. The key is clean clean and clean again before plating.

[Dragonheart]

You can use an old low voltage, low amp DC battery charger from a cell phone or other discarded appliance for a power source. A magnetic stirrer with heating plate can be had for about $40 or can be made.

I can see getting into copper plating as a base for nickel, but as have already stated and see no advantages to copper plating bullets over powder coating. The simple fact remains that regardless of the coating process used we are starting out with a cast bullet, which is imperfect to begin with.

[megasupermagnum]

FWIW we had a copper plating company here in Finland.

Pistol bullets only, you couldn't load them full power because the coating failed and broke off.

Hi Tek and PC both allow much more pressure / velocity.

We have a company like that in the USA, Berrys bullets. They don't shoot that well, not horrible, but nothing great. I've never heard of them being used for accuracy competitions like bullseye or silhouette. They are a cheaper alternative to jacketed bullets, but they still offer the turnkey ease of loading that you don't quite get with lubed cast or swaged bullets. As you say, coating has more or less made plated bullets like that obsolete.

The thing is though that plating itself isn't the problem. Berry's makes bullets as cheap as possible, and as such they cant be loaded strong. Another example of an American company that plates bullets is Speer. I'm sure you have heard of the Speer Gold Dot. That is a plated bullet. It is a fantastic quality bullet capable of anything a jacketed or coated bullet can do. They even shoot good.

It doesn't matter if we are talking lubed bullets, coated bullets, jacketed bullets, or plated bullets. All 4 methods can produce top quality bullets capable of most things if you know what you are doing.

[Willbird]

We have a company like that in the USA, Berrys bullets. They don't shoot that well, not horrible, but nothing great. I've never heard of them being used for accuracy competitions like bullseye or silhouette. They are a cheaper alternative to jacketed bullets, but they still offer the turnkey ease of loading that you don't quite get with lubed cast or swaged bullets. As you say, coating has more or less made plated bullets like that obsolete.

The thing is though that plating itself isn't the problem. Berry's makes bullets as cheap as possible, and as such they cant be loaded strong. Another example of an American company that plates bullets is Speer. I'm sure you have heard of the Speer Gold Dot. That is a plated bullet. It is a fantastic quality bullet capable of anything a jacketed or coated bullet can do. They even shoot good.

It doesn't matter if we are talking lubed bullets, coated bullets, jacketed bullets, or plated bullets. All 4 methods can produce top quality bullets capable of most things if you know what you are doing.

IMHO plated jackets on run of the mill pistol bullets is more the exception than the rule. For gilt edge accuracy people seek out pistol bullets which still have drawn jackets. Again IMHO some folks are probably shooting plated jacket bullets and just do not know it. A cross section should show the truth easily.

[charlie b]

This was one of the better descriptions of copper plating bullets I have seen.

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...lating-Journey

Don't know what the rules are for your country, but, if you can order some powder from Smoke I'd go that route.

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...owder-For-sale

Here is how to apply it

https://www.mp-molds.com/tipstricks/...ble-dt-method/