simple Hi-Tek coating

[BBQJOE]

I'm ready for the all new tie-dye color.
It would be perfect for taking out hippies and.......never mind.

[leadman]

jmoore, check your lube as some of it is water soluble. I would try cleaning with hot water and dish soap to see what happens. Then clean them with acetone and you might be able to coat them once more.

[Ausglock]

I tried putting a 3rd coating on after sizing using Hornady oneshot lube. wash in soapy water and swirled in acetone then let dry. applied the coating and baked.

Nice crinkle finish ...... back into the pot they went....

[jmoore]

I tried putting a 3rd coating on after sizing using Hornady oneshot lube. wash in soapy water and swirled in acetone then let dry. applied the coating and baked.

Nice crinkle finish ...... back into the pot they went....

Just exactly what I used. Figured it wouldn't take another coat. Might just lube 'em and let fly in one of the .44 Specials. They've been neglected of late whilst I've been working on the mid range (100m) stuff.

ETA: Correction on the Central Machinery cement mixer mentioned a page or two back: It's a 1 1/4 Cubic foot model. About US$170. It was about the same price as a large vibratory cleaner at Harbor Freight, but it might be called on to actually mix cement one of these days, and Lyman finally sent me a new base for the old 3200 vibratory cleaner which was killed trying to clean range lead. The mixer will tumble 30+ lbs of lead for long periods with no strain. (If you forget about it!) 60 or so lbs can be run long enough to get the worst dirt off in short order, but the motor warms up quite a bit! (With water, the load is probably over 100lbs.) Soap optional, but don't add much...

[kdiver58]

I shot about 80 rounds of 41 mag coated with 2 coats of green. 2 thin coats. I only coated 80 boolits so I used .5 cc of catalyst , 2.5 cc's of color and 3 cc's of acetone. baked and repeated . This was on a Saeco 220 grain bevel base SWC. Behind it I had 6.9 grains if Tite-group. There was a little bubbling at the base of the recovered boolits . I think they needed another coat. I also feel the hotter Tite-group load and the bevel base may have also contributed to the bubbling at the base. There was a little leading in the barrel .. By my standards not bad at all.
jmoore was there and can weigh in. A little cooler powder, one more coat and a little lighter load and I'm good to go.
Here is a 5 shot group, by jmoore, from my 6" model 57 at 25 yards, iron sights standing. This is after I had already run 60 rounds through the gun.

[swheeler]

Looks good to me but I think that is a five shot group

[Ausglock]

looks great.

I spent the day testing the new blue coating. sadly is has been a failure. after baking, the colour would wipe off all the way back to a bare bullet.
Back to the drawing board, HI-TEK...

[dverna]

jmoore can shoot. That is a great group at 25 yards off hand.

But here is the $64k question. You are looking at "A little cooler powder, one more coat and a little lighter load". If you used a good commercial lube (White Label for example) would you already "be there"? This is my issue with coating. If you still need to size, why invest the time/space to mix stuff, shake, dry, bake, cool two or three times? I can process over 1000 bullets an hour with a Star without breaking a sweat and use less than a square foot of bench space.

Gunoil has a Star and still coats and I cannot understand it. Maybe the smoke using lubes bothers others more than it does me. Maybe it is the "pretty colors" (colours for our Aussie friends). But my priorities are accuracy, productivity and no leading. At this point, coating offers little incentive for me unless it provides an advantage with high velocity rifle bullets. Popper and a few others are doing some work on rifle bullets but so far results have not been stellar. If I am incorrect, please PM with the threads I have missed.

Don Verna

[sparky45]

It's a choice Don, just like deciding on a T-bone or a Fillet. I DON'T like the sticky mess with conventional Lubes, the smell, the "concoctions" trying to make the perfect Lube, the recurring cost. Truth be known, conventional Lubes cost WAY MORE to fabricate - on a boolit to boolit basis than the Hi Tek formula. Now, I have a Lyman 4500 and a Star and when my Hi Tek half Liter gets here I'll be using them "dry" so to speak to size my boolits to bullets and hopefully never look back. BTW, have you prices Beeswax lately? Where I'm at it costs me about $18/LB, YMMV. Also, I almost forgot, I don't have a Leading issue to deal with when I push my .45 Colt's to fast.
But again, it's a personal choice.

[prickett]

jmoore can shoot. That is a great group at 25 yards off hand.

But here is the $64k question. You are looking at "A little cooler powder, one more coat and a little lighter load". If you used a good commercial lube (White Label for example) would you already "be there"? This is my issue with coating. If you still need to size, why invest the time/space to mix stuff, shake, dry, bake, cool two or three times? I can process over 1000 bullets an hour with a Star without breaking a sweat and use less than a square foot of bench space.

Gunoil has a Star and still coats and I cannot understand it. Maybe the smoke using lubes bothers others more than it does me. Maybe it is the "pretty colors" (colours for our Aussie friends). But my priorities are accuracy, productivity and no leading. At this point, coating offers little incentive for me unless it provides an advantage with high velocity rifle bullets. Popper and a few others are doing some work on rifle bullets but so far results have not been stellar. If I am incorrect, please PM with the threads I have missed.

Don Verna

No smoke
No sticky carbon/wax sludge on feed ramp or action internals
Clean barrel
Can shoot through Glocks
Can shoot softer lead
Much faster to lube & size if you don't own a Star/Much cheaper than buying a Star
Choice of colors
Allows you to use bullet feeders on your progressive press

I find myself asking just the opposite question as I'm reading the other threads in the lube section. I ask "why are you still looking when we've found the solution".

[jmoore]

I shot about 80 rounds of 41 mag coated with 2 coats of green. 2 thin coats. I only coated 80 boolits so I used .5 cc of catalyst , 2.5 cc's of color and 3 cc's of acetone. baked and repeated . This was on a Saeco 220 grain bevel base SWC. Behind it I had 6.9 grains if Tite-group. There was a little bubbling at the base of the recovered boolits . I think they needed another coat. I also feel the hotter Tite-group load and the bevel base may have also contributed to the bubbling at the base. There was a little leading in the barrel .. By my standards not bad at all.
jmoore was there and can weigh in. A little cooler powder, one more coat and a little lighter load and I'm good to go...

(That was a five round group, BTW. I usually load 'em that way at the range. Many of my revolvers are shot using the same five chambers every time.)

The recovered .41 boolits out of kdiver58's Model 57 showed signs of what looked like gas cutting near the base. Probably should have taken a photo, but the camera never came out of it's case. That Titegroup load was not fierce, but probably a little warmish for punching paper.

I don't think his revolver had leading around the forcing come area, either, (which seems typical of lighter loads) so I think it's just a matter of fine tuning.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I did another couple of coats of green on the uncontaminated boolits. Found that it's not all that hard to induce condensation when washing the batch with acetone! Cold lead! Like to never have gotten them to flash off when adding coating immediately after the wash. Force dried them quite a while and then cooked. Seems to have come out OK, so the last coat was added this morning which went according to plan, oddly enough! I think they're close to the thickness of the first test batch, but with better adhesion. So maybe better results next outing. Might be easier to beagle the mold to get slightly larger casts, but it's still experimentation time.

[gunoil]

Dverna, yea but i will have to make up some pretty blue ring lube bullets to shoot. Dang i just recieved the thing. And now i have two, yea 2, got lucky an stumbled on another. Prickett nail it, hi/tek "is it". I just have the attitude of trying some star bullets but my hi-tek bullets leed the way. Iam shooting hi-tek every day. 45acp & 9mm.

[goblism]

tried some of my hi tek bullets in 44 mag and 475 today, both leaded after 20 ish rounds of heavy loads (44 mag were gas checked) Have had ok luck with conventional lube in these guns in the past, should i try a 3rd coat?

[dverna]

Sparky,

White Label lubes are less than $2/stick. Saving a few dollars a year is no incentive. And there is no saving if I place any value on my time. I have never, and will never, brew my own lube when I can buy good lube that inexpensively.

It looks like after the .41 Mag test, the poster thought he might need a third coat and/or a "cooler" load. So coating is not a panacea.

Prickett,
My priorities are performance and productivity. I have three progressives so adding bullet feeders to all of them (or even one of them) is more expensive than a Star lubrisizer. But I already have a Star and have no plans for a bullet feeder. I think anyone who invests in a bullet feeder before getting a Star lubrisizer has not thought things through. I have never used another type of lubricator but I understand they can make a mess with lube leakage.

I have no need for soft pistol bullets as I only shoot paper or steel with pistols. My alloy is 92/6/2. For the few boxes of soft lead bullets I may want for self-defense I purchased a PB GC maker.

I will grant you that not having to clean you gun is a plus.

If you are referring to the "extreme lube" thread, my understanding is that most of the testing/interest is with rifles. As i stated earlier, this is the area of interest for me. Traditional lubes do everything I need for pistol bullets. I think part of my "satisfaction" is that having shot traditional lubes for over 40 years (with little leading issues) I accept "gunk" and a bit of smoke as normal.

Sparky nailed it. It is a personal choice. I keep following these threads in the hope of seeing accuracy testing with rifles at high velocities. But the vast majority of cast bullets are shot in pistols so I need to be patient.

If I did not have a Star, I would certainly look at the Hy-Tek coating. ES PC'ing is a "loser" for me due to the need to stand bullets up on end and keep them from falling over - what a pain. I will shoot lower velocity cast rifle bullets or shoot jacketed before going through that.

I am not saying bullet coaters are 'wrong'. I wondered if I missed something - thus the questions. I really hope you guys are successful. We need people who push the envelop and advance our hobby. Having a coating that easily yields 2 MOA groups at 2800 fps would be a real game changer. Good luck gentlemen.

Don Verna

[Ausglock]

tried some of my hi tek bullets in 44 mag and 475 today, both leaded after 20 ish rounds of heavy loads (44 mag were gas checked) Have had ok luck with conventional lube in these guns in the past, should i try a 3rd coat?

What colour was it? Red/copper with 3 coats would be more than enough.

[goblism]

What colour was it? Red/copper with 3 coats would be more than enough.

The 44 mag was green, the 475 was the red, fairly thick coats as they were my first run

[Liberty'sSon]

Goblism, I think the main mistake people make with Hi Tek is coating too thick. Perhaps you didn't get good adhesion on the first coat. Did you do the smash test or the acetone test? Maybe Ausglock will chime in on more on this one.

[goblism]

Goblism, I think the main mistake people make with Hi Tek is coating too thick. Perhaps you didn't get good adhesion on the first coat. Did you do the smash test or the acetone test? Maybe Ausglock will chime in on more on this one.

Both passed well, only the red was thick. The green was done with 5-1-8 and nice even coats

[sparky45]

dverna; good points all. Sounds like you've put a lot of thought into the process and are making good choices. I don't mind "jumping" the gate a little and trying other methods of reloading, especially if it gets me away from the nasty smelling, sticky lubes that others have for sale or the "special formulas" that abound on this website. I have a Lyman 4500(loaded with White Label) and a Star for those other boolits I need to lube for my rifles, but I really wanted to try the Hi Tek system. Probably going to size the pistol bullets with the Star sans any lube of course.

[leadman]

I am going to do one more test on the 30-06 and the 223 soon. Was going to do it Sunday but did not get enough done today so it will probably be Wed. These boolits are heat treated 50-50 COWW/Lino, 32 BHN one hour after the heat treat.
I hope these show better accuracy than the straight lino boolits. My thoughts are that the coating will take the velocity but the alloy may not be up to the job. Shooting will tell the tale.
The thick coated boolits seem to size much harder and also show a slightly slower speed on the Chrony, maybe 20 to 30 fps. I did have a couple of loads that I got just a little leading on and IIRC it was with the thicker coating.
I only use 3 coats just because Donnie does and it works and looks better than 2 with the Red Copper.