If I remember correctly Petlander that had a problem at one time and it was his alloy. He had to put the bullets in muratic acid to get rid of the bad alloy on the surface of his lead so the Hi-Tek would bond properly.
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If I remember correctly Petlander that had a problem at one time and it was his alloy. He had to put the bullets in muratic acid to get rid of the bad alloy on the surface of his lead so the Hi-Tek would bond properly.
How much solution are you using for 25 bullets, and how many grams of powder did you mix into how much acetone? How much do those 25 bullets weigh, a bit under two pounds?
Honestly, I found that trying to scale up and down from the “standard” instructions of 5 to 6 mls of 20 grams in 100 ml solution added to 5 to 6 pounds of bullets baked for ten to 12 minutes didn’t always work out.
Less weight of bullets per tray might take less baking time at the same oven temperature. Big bullets (yours are three to four times heavier than my 9’s) have less surface area for the volume (and therefore for the weight) than smaller ones so might end up more heavily coated, but at the same time, having the extra mass might take longer to warm up to curing temp.
Any time I used more than 2 coats I had flaking issues when smashing the bullet, do your bullets pass the smash test after the first and second coat?Originally Posted by hard88cast
Try doing 5mls to 6mls of 20 grams in 100 ml solution added to 5 pounds of bullets baked for ten to 12 minutes and use a 5 quart container to coat the bullets.
I do around 5.5 lbs of bullets no matter what the weight of the bullets are(9mm or .45) .
Shoot some and see. Won't hurt anything. Only way to find out.
Whatever!
Sorry to ask this, but you are baking between each coat, aren’t you?
Pre bake, a proper first coat on the raw bullet can look very insubstantial; “a light stain” like tea on a napkin, with a lot of lead showing through, is about right. Post bake, the color seems heavier and to cover better. The inventor says one coat is enough to seal the bullet surface and work against leading, but most folks use two, and occasionally three, to improve appearance. I haven’t heard of four being needed.
What colors are you using?
As mentioned above, one member here had a contaminant in his alloy (niobium, IIRC) that prevented bonding unless he surface treated his casts with hydrochloric acid. If nothing else works, you can ask member BNE here to XRF analyze your alloy.
Colors are red copper and bronze. I wrote down all my measurements on the last try and when I can get that paper work later today I will post it.
Being a newbie at this I did have some feelings that these really big bullets were not picking up the mixture very well while in the mixing bucket.
Bullets almost did not have any color after mixing on first coat.
The first coat I followed the procedure as best as I could, by the third coat(to deepen the color) I was adding more mixture to the mixing bucket.
Thanks
Red copper and Bronze will not show much color with the first coat but should change color after baking the first coat, again if the coating is too thick it can lead of flaking with the smash test.
I have shot a lot of 200gr SWC's that did not pass the smash test without any leading.
I plan on shooting these, no way im wasting them.. Here is my recipe I followed, Maybe my mistake was doing powder in mL??
Yes I did divide down the mixture. I used stainless kitchen type mixing spoons to measure.
25-530gr bullets:
3 3/4mL powder
20mL acetone
Mixed ingredients thoroughly, then let stand for 1/2 hour, shook well again.
2mL mixture into mixing bucket with bullets
set oven to 370 w/fan on = actual 390 with digital probe.
set for bullet internal temp of plus 360 for 3 minutes(sacrificial bullet drilled and smashed around probe wire). This temp was reached at 5-6 minutes approx.
set timer for 10 minutes(shook bullet tray at 5 min).
By third coat I raised this to 3 1/2mL, those big bullets dont coat well in the bucket.
Ideas????
I don't know what the ml to grams conversion is for the powder, so hard to say if your mixture is right. But you're mixing so little, and trying to coat so few bullets, that I can't imagine you're getting the right coverage per bullet. You can safely use too much acetone, since it evaporates anyway. I always err on the side of too much acetone, because more liquid means you'll get a more even coverage on larger bullets.
So check your mixture. Weigh some powder to figure out the conversion, and see if you're using too much or too little.
The second issue is going to be getting decent coverage on so few bullets. There just isn't going to be enough liquid to coat them all evenly. Again, more acetone in your mix will help, and mixing with the lid on at first to get them all evenly wet, will help.
Think about it like this: if you only had 3 bullets to coat you'd only need a single drop of mixture. How on earth do you evenly spread a single drop across 3 bullets? The more you do, the more mixture you need, so there's enough to slosh around and coat all the bullets.
The sweet spot seems to be around 5lbs, so if you're doing 2lbs, add more acetone to increase the volume of liquid, and close it inside the container so it doesn't evaporate before you get it on all the bullets. Once they're covered, pop the lid and keep shaking until you feel them dry up.
Your bake sounds like it should be good, but I use C for all my temps, since that's what the guys who made it used when explaining it to me.
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I have no idea what 3 3/4mL powder would weigh.
100ml Acetone/ 20grams powder is the standard mix, (20 grams = 309 grains) so if you want to mix less volume you could do
50ml Acetone / 10grams= 155grains of powder but you still need to use enough to get good coverage on the bullets.
I never have tried to coat a small number of bullets, I use a 1 1/2 tea soon measure which is around 7 ml to coat 5.5 lb of bullets in a 5 quart bucket.
As ryanmattes suggested it won't hurt to use more Acetone to get good coverage.
Very difficult to coat a small number of bullets. Shoot what you have and try 100 min next time. When I was HiTeking for rifle I used more acetone and added just a small amount of mix first, then less acetone and more mix for second coat. Pushed 145gr PB to 2k fps with accuracy in 300 BO. Coat a bunch, load a few, shoot and if OK, load the rest. If bad, remelt and try again. HiTek is a good product but for me PC is far less trouble and labor.
Whatever!
yes, measuring in mL when Maybe I should have used a scale for the powder. I will say for my first time, right off the bat I noticed how difficult it was to coat large bullets.I did shake with the lid on for a good bunch, when I finally pulled the lid off to shake until acetone was gone I noticed liquid mix rolling around in the bottom of the tub without the bullets even touching it, bullets where just to big to pick it up and so few bullets.
I just wanted to start small so i didnt mess up too many bullets at once.
Im going to load this weekend and shoot Monday I hope, will let you know if I got leading issues.
thanks for all the feedback folks.
Like I said, that gets a lot easier with ~5lbs of bullets.
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I seem to remember comments made in the "simple Hi-Tek coating" thread that batches smaller than the recommended 100ml of acetone didn't work as well, especially those less than 50ml.
When the coating is drying, it forms a skin on the outside which makes it more difficult for the acetone next to the lead to evaporate. Since you're having problems with bonding, I'd recommend bringing the unbaked bullets inside overnoght before baking to ensure they're completely dry.
I too rinse my boolits in acetone immediately before coating. I put 7.5 pounds of bullets in each of several plastic coffee cans, add some acetone to the first one, swirl it and dump everything into a mesh strainer sitting on the second coffee can of bullets. A lid goes on the second can to prevent evaporation while I'm coating the first one. I add the HiTek and swirl the boolits in a plastic container for a few turns and then 'flip' the bullets (similar to flipping food in a frying pan) and swirl again. After several repetitions most of the acetone has evaporated and I dump the boolits on a mesh tray to dry.
I use HDPE bottles from Amazon to mix and store my HiTek and a 10 ml pipette to measure 1 ml per pound onto the boolits.
When I did hitek I used a square pretzel container, rotated so the bullets tumbled around, coating would be better. The vender vid of just swirling in a bucket doesn't look like it would work very well.
Whatever!
Sierra1911
Drying is the only variable that I can't confirm. Next time I try the hitek I will do as you mentioned , coat and let them sit over night before baking.
Thanks
To be sure of complete drying I get the coated bullets warmed to 120 deg F for 20-30 min, I never have coating fail with this drying method.
You can go up to 140 deg F to insure drying, 140 deg F is almost too hot to hold in your hand. With 530 gr bullets it might need more heat and time for drying.
300 gr is the largest bullets I have coated and at 120 deg F for 20-30 min drying was good.
To start out you need to follow the instructions exactly.
1 mix exactly the amount in the instructions smaller batches don’t work out well weigh the dry ingredients (dry measure is not a volume measure).
2 coat no less than 5# at a time you need more bullets swirling around in the mix to get good coverage
3 if you think you don’t have enough coating on the first coat you probably have too much.
Follow the instructions to the letter until you get good results once you have things working you can make alterations to the process (and if coating fails you know what the issue is) but starting out you need to follow the instructions exactly so you remove all variables.
Get some oral syringes 5cc to dispense your coating if you are not measuring you can’t get repeatable results.
https://smile.amazon.com/Dispenser-S...s%2C138&sr=8-3
all good thoughts, and i know dry measure is not a volume measure, appreciate the reminder..
But on a good point i shot 15 of those 530 and 450gr cast bullets out to 1700fps and didnt get
any leading so thats great.
papercidal, thanks for the link.
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