Is There A Downside To Powder Caoting Bullets?

[popper]

I shake & bake PC all my HV cast in 30 cal. I cut the bottom from the holes of a 45 acp factory plastic cartridge holder. Use hemostats to pick out of the bowl, drop into the hole. 50 rnds set, pick up the plastic and move to the other side of the tray, repeat. Use a Yoshi copper baking sheet. Lasts forever. I cook on a flat top hot plate with a ceramic tile as heat spreader, a small steel sheet under the baking sheet and bullets. Lift off the steel plate if I W.D., else let it all cool in place. I do 100 per cook cycle and no domino problems. I'm retired so time is not a problem. Time to toss toaster oven in the trash. I install GC when sizing, then S&B. Resize if needed.

[rsrocket1]

I both PC and lube. I use both trying to use the process that fits my need the best.

2) on high volume pistol bullets I have yet found a fast way to stand them up, so a little tedious and slow. For some reason I don't mind feeding bullets through a luber but standing up bullets is just boring to me.

I used to stand bullets up individually on baking trays, now I use a bullet tray from a used box of cartridges to stand them up. My coated bullets can be handled by my nitrile gloved hand so after tumbling, I pour them into a pie pan and drop them into the bullet tray sitting in metal tray nose down. I then flip them over onto the baking tray and put them in the oven. At this rate, I can coat and bake 1000 rounds in about an hour. I use two $20 Walmart ovens and tag team them together to bake while tumbling and stacking.





I use a silicone mini ice cube tray to help stand up rifle bullets. The tray easily withstands the 450F baking temp.

[slim1836]

Not attempting to go you one better Slim, I have access to a 3-axis knee mill. It'd make short of work taking a piece of sheet aluminum or whatever and rendering it full of holes.

Question; how much handling will a unbaked bullet stand after being coated before the raw coating gets smudged to uselessness?

Answer: IDK, my boolits are powder coated on the same tray they get baked on, They don't get handled once placed on the tray,

Slim

[elmacgyver0]

You don't have to either one, or you can do both.
Isn't it wonderful to have choices?
Right now, I'm kind of tired of lubing boolits and the mess it makes.
I am enjoying PC at the precent.
I may want to lube some boolits in the future, I don't know.
I do like to have the options.

[poppy42]

jmho - airborne lead in it's solid form has no bearing on it - lead primer residue can do it or spatters from steel plates or back stop can - particle's of lead dust must be inhaled or ingested to show in blood levels - do you use proper ventilation when casting or spraying ? -

+1! Although I wouldn’t advise it you could probably take a clean shiny Cast Boolets and swallow it and it wouldn’t do anything to raise your lead levels. Might be a little difficult on the way out though, depending on the caliber. Lol

[poppy42]

I used to stand bullets up individually on baking trays, now I use a bullet tray from a used box of cartridges to stand them up. My coated bullets can be handled by my nitrile gloved hand so after tumbling, I pour them into a pie pan and drop them into the bullet tray sitting in metal tray nose down. I then flip them over onto the baking tray and put them in the oven. At this rate, I can coat and bake 1000 rounds in about an hour. I use two $20 Walmart ovens and tag team them together to bake while tumbling and stacking.





I use a silicone mini ice cube tray to help stand up rifle bullets. The tray easily withstands the 450F baking temp.

I have a few questions? I am a Little curious as to what your procedure is to cost and bake 1000 bullets in about an hour. If you actually can do that many in an hour maybe you can give me a few tips. I certainly can’t get that many done anywhere’s near an hours time. So here goes:
How many bullets do you coat at a time?
How long do you shake them?
I assume you’re baking for the 20 minute time. If not how long do you bake?
How many bullets can you bake in each oven at one time?
And lastly how long does it take you once you’re done shaking them to get them ready to go in the oven?

[rsrocket1]

I have a few questions? I am a Little curious as to what your procedure is to cost and bake 1000 bullets in about an hour. If you actually can do that many in an hour maybe you can give me a few tips. I certainly can’t get that many done anywhere’s near an hours time. So here goes:
How many bullets do you coat at a time?
How long do you shake them?
I assume you’re baking for the 20 minute time. If not how long do you bake?
How many bullets can you bake in each oven at one time?
And lastly how long does it take you once you’re done shaking them to get them ready to go in the oven?

Poppy, yes I set the timer on the oven to 20 minutes. I shake the bullets with black airsoft BB's in a Walmart mug with lid:







The powder coating I use I believe is Prismatic Powder. I think that is what the guy called it. I visited a powder coating shop near my house and asked to buy a pound of their powder. The owner of the shop asked what for and I said "powder coating bullets for shooting". He was also a shooter so he gave me about 2 pounds for free. This stuff works very well and the coating easily holds up to handing with Harbor Freight nitrile gloves. In fact after stacking the bullets in the plastic trays, I slam the tray onto the baking tray a couple of times to even out the powder and remove excess.

The clinging action of the powder to the lead is simple static electricity which is generated by making and breaking contact between 2 materials on the triboelectric series. That means the harder and more vigorously you shake, the better the cling. Little dot sized bare spots on the bullet will be covered as the powder melts in the oven. I've timed myself and I have trouble (patience wise) with shaking for much more than a minute so I make sure I shake for 1 minute. I've tested a Harbor Freight vibratory tumbler with the bullets in a gallon sized Ziplock bag for anywhere between 2-5 minutes and about 3 minutes was optimal, but every time, the powder came out looking darker than it went in. I believe this is probably powderized lead so I stopped this method. Shake and bake by manual shaking is best. In the dry Sacramento air, I've gotten away with nothing more that bullets and powder in a 1 gallon Ziplock bag and gently massaging the bag for a couple of minutes and that worked out fine. I've seen some folks use a big section of PVC pipe with screw on ends and that worked out fine but it's a balance between how many you do and how much work you have to put into the shaking effort. The cup method works well for me and I no longer bust up Cool Whip tubs or low cost "Tupperware" containers.

With the bullets arranged on the tray, I can get 200 done in a bake. So it takes 5 bakes to coat 1000 bullets. While one tray is baking, I am shaking and stacking for the other oven and can get that done in about 10 minutes. So by leap frogging the ovens and starting/finishing a bake every 10 minutes, the 5th batch is done at the end of an hour.

The cost is minimal. Even with $10-$15/pound powder, you're only using about 1/2-1 teaspoon of powder for 100-150 bullets. The ovens were $20 each at Walmart. I was using $5 ovens I bought at Goodwill in California but I threw them out in my move to Texas thinking I could replace them for another $10. Goodwill stores out here are far worse stocked than the ones I was used to in the Sacramento area. I'm glad I brought all my baking trays because it's a good idea to have at least a half dozen baking trays so you can stack on a couple, bake on a couple and allow a couple to cool down after the bake.

The California central valley was ideal for PC'ing because the summers were bone dry. I was afraid that the Texas humidity would hurt my powder coating efforts but in fact, it's not bad at all. I now do my powder coating in the garage of my house and have managed to perform the work without making a mess. I think the trick is to keep your powder in compartmented containers so you don't contaminate the whole batch with humidity each time you open it and to do the opening indoors away from the outdoor humidity if you're in that climate. A few years back I wanted to see how "badly" I could powder coat and what the effects were. I PC'ed a batch of bullets on a humid California morning and got a "good" splotchy coating on the bullets.



I then sized the bullets and you can see that even though the pigment was splotchy, the polymer flowed evenly over the driving bands.





Shooting 200 rounds in one session showed no fouling and no leading in my M&P40. So even a blotchy powder coat job is perfectly satisfactory for shooting, they just don't look too nice. But at 1050 fps and 25 yards, you won't notice the difference.

So to powder coat bullets, you don't need to spend much money or time. Optimistically, I would say it would take me 2 hours to cast, 1 hour to coat and one hour to size. Add an hour for set up and clean up for casting and 20 minutes for set up and putting away my PC setup.

Hope that helps

[Silvercreek Farmer]

Been trying to think of downsides. Biggest one I can think of is that if you screw up, all your casting work is down the drain. Didn’t let boolits cool enough once, threw the powder in and it turned into a gummy mess, 200+ boolits back in the pot. Thermostat messed up on the toaster once, hundreds of boolits back in the pot. Not the end of the world with a 6 cavity, but when you are working with a single or two cavity, it hurts a bit…

[Charlie Horse]

Poppy, yes I set the timer on the oven to 20 minutes. I shake the bullets with black airsoft BB's in a Walmart mug with lid:







The powder coating I use I believe is Prismatic Powder. I think that is what the guy called it. I visited a powder coating shop near my house and asked to buy a pound of their powder. The owner of the shop asked what for and I said "powder coating bullets for shooting". He was also a shooter so he gave me about 2 pounds for free. This stuff works very well and the coating easily holds up to handing with Harbor Freight nitrile gloves. In fact after stacking the bullets in the plastic trays, I slam the tray onto the baking tray a couple of times to even out the powder and remove excess.

The clinging action of the powder to the lead is simple static electricity which is generated by making and breaking contact between 2 materials on the triboelectric series. That means the harder and more vigorously you shake, the better the cling. Little dot sized bare spots on the bullet will be covered as the powder melts in the oven. I've timed myself and I have trouble (patience wise) with shaking for much more than a minute so I make sure I shake for 1 minute. I've tested a Harbor Freight vibratory tumbler with the bullets in a gallon sized Ziplock bag for anywhere between 2-5 minutes and about 3 minutes was optimal, but every time, the powder came out looking darker than it went in. I believe this is probably powderized lead so I stopped this method. Shake and bake by manual shaking is best. In the dry Sacramento air, I've gotten away with nothing more that bullets and powder in a 1 gallon Ziplock bag and gently massaging the bag for a couple of minutes and that worked out fine. I've seen some folks use a big section of PVC pipe with screw on ends and that worked out fine but it's a balance between how many you do and how much work you have to put into the shaking effort. The cup method works well for me and I no longer bust up Cool Whip tubs or low cost "Tupperware" containers.

With the bullets arranged on the tray, I can get 200 done in a bake. So it takes 5 bakes to coat 1000 bullets. While one tray is baking, I am shaking and stacking for the other oven and can get that done in about 10 minutes. So by leap frogging the ovens and starting/finishing a bake every 10 minutes, the 5th batch is done at the end of an hour.

The cost is minimal. Even with $10-$15/pound powder, you're only using about 1/2-1 teaspoon of powder for 100-150 bullets. The ovens were $20 each at Walmart. I was using $5 ovens I bought at Goodwill in California but I threw them out in my move to Texas thinking I could replace them for another $10. Goodwill stores out here are far worse stocked than the ones I was used to in the Sacramento area. I'm glad I brought all my baking trays because it's a good idea to have at least a half dozen baking trays so you can stack on a couple, bake on a couple and allow a couple to cool down after the bake.

The California central valley was ideal for PC'ing because the summers were bone dry. I was afraid that the Texas humidity would hurt my powder coating efforts but in fact, it's not bad at all. I now do my powder coating in the garage of my house and have managed to perform the work without making a mess. I think the trick is to keep your powder in compartmented containers so you don't contaminate the whole batch with humidity each time you open it and to do the opening indoors away from the outdoor humidity if you're in that climate. A few years back I wanted to see how "badly" I could powder coat and what the effects were. I PC'ed a batch of bullets on a humid California morning and got a "good" splotchy coating on the bullets.



I then sized the bullets and you can see that even though the pigment was splotchy, the polymer flowed evenly over the driving bands.





Shooting 200 rounds in one session showed no fouling and no leading in my M&P40. So even a blotchy powder coat job is perfectly satisfactory for shooting, they just don't look too nice. But at 1050 fps and 25 yards, you won't notice the difference.

So to powder coat bullets, you don't need to spend much money or time. Optimistically, I would say it would take me 2 hours to cast, 1 hour to coat and one hour to size. Add an hour for set up and clean up for casting and 20 minutes for set up and putting away my PC setup.

Hope that helps

Your posts help me. I'm going to try the bullet tray and the ice cube tray tricks.

[GL49]

I've been finding reasons not to powder coat, instead, I use my star sizers. The biggest drawback I saw before reading this and looking at the pictures was standing the little buggers up on their tails before you put them in the oven. I see smarter guys than me have solved that problem. My wife objects to the smells from boolit casting, fluxing, etc., does baking the boolits make much of an odor?

[popper]

Just a little odor. Less than lube. Do NOT use her oven. Bake where there is ventilation, no problem. Make sure of ventilation if melting PCd bullets.

[megasupermagnum]

One of the biggest downsides I see, is that it is impossible to reasonably discuss the downsides of powder coating. As soon as you imply that PC isn't perfect, someone comes along to claim otherwise, as well as that it can cure your ills, and make you a supermodel. Don't become that guy.

On a more serious note, there are absolutely downsides, but a lot of them depend on where you are coming from. A lot of new people don't want to buy a lube sizer, and I can't blame them. That equipment cost is a downside to wax lube. There are other kinds of lube though. A tumble lube for example doesn't need anything, it applies easier than powder coat. It can be WAY faster than any other method out there by a wide margin. A lot of people though glob the stuff on like candy, find the bullets don't dry, and then assume that's just the way it is. They don't want sticky bullets, who does? Done right, the stuff is dry. Speaking of equipment costs, most people who start powder coating buy the cheapest oven they can, as did I. They then find that those ovens are trash. They don't hold consistent temperature, they don't evenly distribute that temperature. Just look at the endless threads on coating problems in that section of this forum. You really need a decent oven to powder coat. It is still a little cheaper than a lube sizer though. It is not a plug and play setup. There is a real learning curve to learning to coat bullets, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. It is a more labor intensive method than lubing, but not that horrible. A basic lubesizer is easier. Tumble lubing is easier yet. A Star lubesizer is 1 and done, doesn't get any faster or easier than that, but none of those methods are that bad. Lubing by hand such as pan or dip lubing is the only thing I would say is really slow.

When it comes to shooting there are some advantages to powder coating. Many people like the fact that you don't get the smoke from lube. What usually gets missed is that you are changing your bullet dimensions. This is especially important in rifles. You are adding thickness in ever direction. Most commonly people find that the bore riding section of rifle bullets is now too big with powder coating. This can sometimes work out to be an advantage if your mold was too small to begin with, but for the most part it is a headache. You also need to figure out how to handle the gas check. Sometimes they fit on with the coating, sometimes not. I hate to size before coating to crimp the check on, and you had better be spot on with cleaning them afterwards.

I don't agree with Popper on the smell. I'm sure it depends on the brand, but the stuff I used smelled like fresh asphalt when I was baking, and burning plastic when shooting. Yeah, you don't get much smoke when shooting, but is the horrendous odor really worth it? To some people it may be.

Lastly is accuracy. For most people powder coating is plenty accurate. It covers up mistakes which might actually make them shoot better than their lubed bullets may have been. Some people are just happy to have hardly and barrel fouling, and don't care about accuracy. That's up to them. When it comes to extreme rifle accuracy, I think powder coat is lacking. I even found it less accurate than lube in a handgun. If you look through match results on the Cast Bullet Association website you won't find powder coat on the leader board. It is very much wax type lubes dominating those boards. There is another coating that has been doing well though, and that is Hi-Tek. I have never tried Hi-Tek myself, but it is a much trickier coating to apply, but the payback is that is is extremely thin.

[trapper9260]

In the past I have read about how accurate PC to lube and there is not really any, I had read that on Cast Bullet Association. I use the old NRA lube with ATF that I make and I do not get the leading like some talk about as long I do my part. I use it in my reloading. It dose not matter what it is, there is another thing I learn on here, is to put a patch with JPW down the barrel , It helps alot . also if you shoot bird shot in a wheel gun. This is what I found works for me .

[gloob]

Megasupermagnum, so true. Powdercoat will make a bad boolit-gun fit shoot better. But if you powdercoat off the bat, you will mask fit issues which would otherwise have left obvious evidence and possibly never achieve your best load-gun combos. Without even putting any bullets on paper, systematically eliminating fouling of lubed naked cast will make your groups tighter.

After sorting out the fouling, then you can powdercoat some of your bullets to make ammo that is a better compromise for multiple firearms with varying chamber/throat/bores.

Somewhat like the guys that use the Lee Factory Crimp die for pistol ammo. Sure, your bad cartridges will chamber now and they'll go bang, but some people want to make better ammo.

[sse]

I would not be powder coating if I did not shoot them thru a suppressor. To be able to shoot cast with a suppressor is really cool because it is cheap. Once I started PC ing I have shot a lot of lead out of rifles that I would not have done before, because it is cheap. No leading so far with no gas checks. Why no gas checks? Because I am cheap!

[megasupermagnum]

I would not be powder coating if I did not shoot them thru a suppressor. To be able to shoot cast with a suppressor is really cool because it is cheap. Once I started PC ing I have shot a lot of lead out of rifles that I would not have done before, because it is cheap. No leading so far with no gas checks. Why no gas checks? Because I am cheap!

Millions of lubed bullets are shot through suppressors every year. I suppose the extra 10 minutes it saves you from cleaning lube from the can every few hundred rounds might be an advantage of powder coating. I'm not convinced it would save you even that much. Most cleaners get lube out just fine.

[sse]

It is not the lube in the can it is the lead and it can be a REAL problem.

[megasupermagnum]

It is not the lube in the can it is the lead and it can be a REAL problem.

It's really not a problem. I suppose it could be in a sealed can, but I'm not sure why anyone who shoots cast bullets would buy one. It's really not that hard to remove the lead. I've only ever done it by hand, but apparently I've been told that you can run the baffles in a wet tumbler and it cleans them really well that way. No work at all then.

I can only surmise that if lead in your suppressor is a big issue, that something is wrong with your load.

[sse]

As anyone that has shot lead thru a can can tell you, lead build up is a problem. Ask anyone that has a 22 rimfire can. Any can that is not sealed can be cleaned true, but it can be a real pain with certain baffles. As far as sealed cans are concerned, many people, myself included, have centerfire rifle rated cans that until powder coating never considered shooting lead. Now I shoot 308 with a sealed can often because 200 gr. PC cast is a whole lot cheaper. Back to the "I am cheap" part.

[curioushooter]

lets see:

More expense. Having to bake the bullets (anneals the alloy changing it's hardness and other properties). Yet another manufacturer dependency. Yet another variable.

I am frankly unconvinced powercoating has any advantage in time, speed, or anything at all.

Only thing that is sort of cool is you can use different colored bullets to distinguish different loads.

I've never had problems with leading when I followed the "rules." So why powdercoat?