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Thread: PCing HP Cast bullets

  1. #1
    Boolit Buddy
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    PCing HP Cast bullets

    How are you powder coating your hollow point cast bullets and leaving the hollow portion clean of paint?

  2. #2
    Boolit Master
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    I use HiTek to coat. Sometimes the hollow point gets coated, and sometimes it doesn't. I don't worry about it, I don't think it affects the performance any.


    Sent from my Pixel 5a using Tapatalk

  3. #3
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    Really no need to keep clean unless you just want to. It will not effect expansion or stability
    [SIZE=4][B]Selling Hi Quality Powdercoating Powder

    I carry a Nuke50 because cleaning up the mess is Silly !!

    http://www.bing.com/search?q=nuke50&...7ADE&FORM=QBLH

    I am not crazy my mom had me tested

    Theres a fine line between genius and crazy .. I'm that line
    and depending on the day I might just step over that line !!!

  4. #4
    Boolit Master Retumbo's Avatar
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    My old thread...other things you may have to worry about. 400 grain bullets for 45/70

    https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...g-or-bad-thing

  5. #5
    Boolit Buddy
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    Did those bullets expand with the plastic bb in the hollow point?

  6. #6
    Boolit Buddy Castloader's Avatar
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    I know some of the answers above, while accurate in and of themselves, are not very satisfying but the answer here is actually pretty simple. Don't tumble with too much powder. Folks use various different tumblers including manual tumbling in old plastic jugs etc. I use a Frankford Arsenal vibratory tumbler. I dump in the boolits, then throw about 1 tablespoon of powder per 100 boolits and turn it on for 5 minutes. I can tell after that much time if I need a little more powder or not, if so I add some sprinkling it over the boolits. All together I tumble for 10 minutes. Boolits come out with powder sticking to the sides all over, but very little in the cavity, and very little in the bowl. It's the excess that causes problems, so don't give it any excess. I put on nitrile gloves and coat the relevant fingers with powder before touching the boolits to ensure I don't rub the coating off, then I place into an old ammo tray nose down. A couple more shakes in the tray to kick off any excess, then invert the tray onto some aluminum foil and pop into the oven. This is a batch I did just this afternoon in fact. Boolit is HP mold "9 Or 38, 147-154, Bevel Base,HP, NO Lube Groove Mold (Multi Choice)" Casts at about 150gr before coating. PC is Smokes Flame Red. Normally I do batches of 200, but this was a test with new powder and a new mold.
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  7. #7
    Boolit Master Retumbo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BJung View Post
    Did those bullets expand with the plastic bb in the hollow point?
    Never did shoot them like that

  8. #8
    Boolit Master pmer's Avatar
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    If you wanted to spray them... what I did was using an old piece sheet metal, cookie sheet etc, drill self tapping sheet metal screws into the sheet and place the boolits upside down on the screws.
    They should be inch or more apart otherwise some electrical affect kicks in and messes with the coverage. It might be the Faraday effect.
    Oh great, another thread that makes me spend money.

  9. #9
    Boolit Master
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    If you look at any of the hollow point ballistic tests, the problem with a hollow point bullet design is when the cavity is plugged, the bullet stops expanding any more than a solid projectile would. So purposely filling the cavity with a hard polymer or anything else is not going to aid in expansion.

    I designed a "Bed of Nails" for the purpose of keeping the cavity free of PC. The bad news is you have to spray, but the good news is it is a good reason to buy a PC gun. Spraying hollow points is a lot faster and the results are excellent! I press parchment paper down over the nails. I do a 300° preheat and then spray. I can see my coverage as the PC hits the bullets and starts to flow. The parchment tends stay relatively clean and appears to help the powder find its target. Then the tray goes into the oven for full cure. HP cavities remain uncoated.
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  10. #10
    Boolit Grand Master Tripplebeards's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BJung View Post
    Did those bullets expand with the plastic bb in the hollow point?
    I tried cast boolits with plastic a plastic BB inserted and never got good expansion. I even pressed with my seater die and melted a few into place. Thought I was going to get fancy and reinvent the wheel. Lol. It acted more like a FMJ than a rapidly expanding boolit as one might think. I used 7.5 and 10.4 BH alloys. I just stick to extremely soft malleable alloys with PCd HPs and get great expansion. I tumble coat so my HP cavity is PCd. Makes no difference IMO wether they have PC in them or bare.

  11. #11
    Boolit Master
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    HiTek is liquid, so only ever creates a micro-thin layer. It's not making any measurable difference in expansion.

    Sent from my Pixel 5a using Tapatalk

  12. #12
    Boolit Buddy
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    Thanks for your photo and idea. It looks to me that you took roofing nails and hammered them through sheet metal. A Dollar store aluminum cookie tray or non stick wax paper could be pushed over this to line the surface if desired. How much money do you have in your PC sprayer unit? I'm using orange pc but with the lead base, the orange dark. I plant mix 50/50 orange/white paint to lighten the orange PC color and later mix 50/50 red/white (because the red is like the Smokes Flame Red above) so I can lighten and brighten the red. I was thinking of swabbing the inside of the hollow point cavity with vaseline or filling it with cotton. Any opinions about that idea beside having a mini fire in my toaster oven?

  13. #13
    Boolit Buddy
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    Didn't this Elvis fellow one youtube fill his hp cavity with white caulk and got expansion?

  14. #14
    Boolit Master pmer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ryanmattes View Post
    HiTek is liquid, so only ever creates a micro-thin layer. It's not making any measurable difference in expansion.

    Sent from my Pixel 5a using Tapatalk
    I haven't tried Hi Tek but occasionally bought some Hi Tek coated boolits. HiTek shouldn't come off very easy? This winter I shot some HiTek coated 9mm boolits into a snow bank used as a bullet stop. When the snow melts I pick them up for recycling and noticed the coating came off the bearing surface on some of the boolits. Is that normal for Hitek? The barrels of a pistol and a carbine looked fine.

    PC doesn't come off but it gets discolored from what I seen.
    Oh great, another thread that makes me spend money.

  15. #15
    Boolit Master
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    Can't upload photos, must've hit some kind of limit.

    https://photos.app.goo.gl/t7ST8bxiPMcNPM9i9

    https://photos.app.goo.gl/CdgizSckF9vqux1K6

    These were shot through a paper target into a dirt berm. You can see the rifling did take some off the 9mm, but the coating is still fully bonded to the surfaces.

    Sent from my Pixel 5a using Tapatalk

  16. #16
    Boolit Mold
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    I shake and baked hollow points from a mp-mold and some had pretty significant fill in the point.
    I shot them into milk jugs and had great expansion on all the bullets. No issue with powder in the hollow. I looked at it like this: Hornady critical defense ammo has a polymer like fill in the hollow to help prevent clogging. If that works I feel no need to worry about powder coat.

  17. #17
    Boolit Grand Master Tripplebeards's Avatar
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    If you go to my home page and look at my photos I have expanded Lyman devastators with several different alloys. I used milk jugs and water filled totes to shoot into for expansion tests. All mine are tumble coated with Smoke’s PC. Choosing a softer alloy will do everything you will want to do VS trying to fill the HP area imo.

  18. #18
    Boolit Master pmer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ryanmattes View Post
    Can't upload photos, must've hit some kind of limit.

    https://photos.app.goo.gl/t7ST8bxiPMcNPM9i9

    https://photos.app.goo.gl/CdgizSckF9vqux1K6

    These were shot through a paper target into a dirt berm. You can see the rifling did take some off the 9mm, but the coating is still fully bonded to the surfaces.

    Sent from my Pixel 5a using Tapatalk
    Thanks, that's about what mine look like.
    Oh great, another thread that makes me spend money.

  19. #19
    Boolit Master pmer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BJung View Post
    Thanks for your photo and idea. It looks to me that you took roofing nails and hammered them through sheet metal. A Dollar store aluminum cookie tray or non stick wax paper could be pushed over this to line the surface if desired. How much money do you have in your PC sprayer unit? I'm using orange pc but with the lead base, the orange dark. I plant mix 50/50 orange/white paint to lighten the orange PC color and later mix 50/50 red/white (because the red is like the Smokes Flame Red above) so I can lighten and brighten the red. I was thinking of swabbing the inside of the hollow point cavity with vaseline or filling it with cotton. Any opinions about that idea beside having a mini fire in my toaster oven?
    I think Harbor Freight has sprayers for around 80 dollars. You might have other uses for a sprayer, I've coated my old mail box and engine brackets etc.
    Oh great, another thread that makes me spend money.

  20. #20
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by BJung View Post
    Thanks for your photo and idea. It looks to me that you took roofing nails and hammered them through sheet metal. A Dollar store aluminum cookie tray or non stick wax paper could be pushed over this to line the surface if desired. How much money do you have in your PC sprayer unit? I'm using orange pc but with the lead base, the orange dark. I plant mix 50/50 orange/white paint to lighten the orange PC color and later mix 50/50 red/white (because the red is like the Smokes Flame Red above) so I can lighten and brighten the red. I was thinking of swabbing the inside of the hollow point cavity with vaseline or filling it with cotton. Any opinions about that idea beside having a mini fire in my toaster oven?
    Actually that is a half size aluminum bakers sheet pan as I am using a 30" oven, capable of cooking thousands of bullets at a time.
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    The nails are 3/4" hardened concrete nails typically used to install carpet tack strip. There is a cut to size piece of sheet metal layered over the bottom of th pan, which holds the nails in place. I used numerous blind rivets to tightly secure the sheetmetal to the pan.

    Parchment paper works the best pressed doom over the nails to protect the pan from PC buildup. When sprayed the parchment assists in providing s very even cosaing, notice almost no powder adhering to the paper. Since the hollow bullet cavity is covering the nail point, no PC build up in the nail point and no PC in the bullet cavity. Simply place the bullets nose down on the nails, spray and put the tray into the oven. Fast and simple.

    I use and recommend the Eastwood Dual Voltage Gun.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check