Powder Coating Boolits

[xacex]

I'll bet that FedEx won't show up on Saturday, even though the tracking shows that it is supposed to be here.

I get FedEx on Saturday. UPS makes you pay extra for sat deliveries. In fact my last HF order came on a Saturday as well. Got the mini chop saw for doing 300 Blackout cases with the jig. Don't be surprised if your order is on the porch tomorrow. I wish my glow in the dark powder would show up. This guy from ebay is jerking me around.

[el34]

My HF powder coating rig is supposed to be here tomorrow! I'll bet that FedEx won't show up on Saturday, even though the tracking shows that it is supposed to be here.

You'll get the hang of it pretty quickly but don't be too surprised if you make a powder mess the first time or two. The air pressure to the gun has a big impact on how much powder comes out, adjust it for a gentle thin spray, you'll see. The diffuser down at the end of the threaded rod just spreads it all over the place, I took it off for a narrower powder stream. Like banger's, my boolits are in rows 1" apart and I spray them row by row. When you tilt the thing downward a wad of powder, about a half-teaspoon, falls out or at least it does for me. An earlier poster recommended tapping the gun/bottle while spraying and that works for me too. After a half dozen batches or so I became comfy and confident. You will too, post some pics!

[bangerjim]

You'll get the hang of it pretty quickly but don't be too surprised if you make a powder mess the first time or two. The air pressure to the gun has a big impact on how much powder comes out, adjust it for a gentle thin spray, you'll see. The diffuser down at the end of the threaded rod just spreads it all over the place, I took it off for a narrower powder stream. Like banger's, my boolits are in rows 1" apart and I spray them row by row. When you tilt the thing downward a wad of powder, about a half-teaspoon, falls out or at least it does for me. An earlier poster recommended tapping the gun/bottle while spraying and that works for me too. After a half dozen batches or so I became comfy and confident. You will too, post some pics!

I had that powder "fall-out" problem at first, but after messing around with the flow control knob on the gun and the pressure reg (raising the pressure slightly and getting a bit more powder flowing out) the clumping was minimized and almost disappeared. I have found with the right combo of flow, pressure, and boolit spacing, I get pretty much 100% coverage from only ONE side! I do turn the rack and check for no silver spots showing thru and hit them if they are there, but the static charge attracts the powder in and around the slugs perrrrty well.

The key to anyone out there "listening in" is to experiment around with the technique and ask quesitons!

Good spraying!

bangerjim

[randoma]

For those people looking for a larger oven, I used to use an electric range that I bought off Craigslist for $20.. Definitely has a larger capacity than a toaster oven.





For mounting boolits for powder coating, how hard would it be to add a very small diameter hole at the bottom of the mold (where you'd put a hollow point pin) and put a pin nail, or piece of copper wire and then cast the boolits around that? After you're done with the PC, it should be easy to pull the wire out. I'm thinking this would be most suitable for .223 size rounds, where you want any hole (like from a pin nailer) precisely centered. It seems like with PC and not needing lube grooves, you should be able to make a BTHP boolit in a similar design to the Sierra Matchking..etc.

[el34]

banger, I have been getting good all-around coverage too, I hold the gun above the boolits and spray almost straight down. That's when the loose powder wad falls out but I expect it and hold the muzzle to the side of my rack while pointing it downward. It's nowhere enough to try to recoup, I just don't want it on boolit tops.

Like you I check 360 degrees and usually see a bit of bare lead to touch up but not much.

I mounted a small HF regulator, $6 or so, right on the gun for easy adjustment.

[el34]

After you're done with the PC, it should be easy to pull the wire out.

Great idea, I'm worried you'd not be able to pull the copper wire out though, it'd possibly become a soldered joint. Maybe stainless nails (???) would work.

That's an impressive oven you got.

[Smoke4320]

for compressor pressure I find that 20 PSI cutoff which gives about 10PSI output when spraying almost totally eliminates wasted powder and gives great coverage . I spray at about 45 Degrees to the bullets.. YMMV

[popper]

Randoma - I use the HF pin nail gun, the meplat on mine is 0.2" and it's easy to get centered. It also doesn't make much difference if they are off center or bulge the ogive much. I tried the wire in the mould once - it is a pain for home casters. Not a problem for commercial. Easy to automate a commercial operation, too much $$ for home brew.

[randoma]

Randoma - I use the HF pin nail gun, the meplat on mine is 0.2" and it's easy to get centered. It also doesn't make much difference if they are off center or bulge the ogive much. I tried the wire in the mould once - it is a pain for home casters. Not a problem for commercial. Easy to automate a commercial operation, too much $$ for home brew.

Why was the wire-in-mould a pain?

[bangerjim]

banger, I have been getting good all-around coverage too, I hold the gun above the boolits and spray almost straight down. That's when the loose powder wad falls out but I expect it and hold the muzzle to the side of my rack while pointing it downward. It's nowhere enough to try to recoup, I just don't want it on boolit tops.

Like you I check 360 degrees and usually see a bit of bare lead to touch up but not much.

I mounted a small HF regulator, $6 or so, right on the gun for easy adjustment.

I shoot at about a 45 angle. The "mist" flows down and around the slugs, being attracted to them by the EMF charge and very little flows off the other side. I do it one row at a time from left to right and then right to left and move on to the next row. But the next row already had about a 50% coat due to the flow by!

I have my reg at the electronics box and use aquarium tubing from there to the gun. I put the air tube and the coax cable in that split cable wrap you get at Radio Shack for stereo wires so I only have to fight one hose! The small tubing gives sufficient volume and pressure to work very well. And I do not have to fight a big heavy air hose AND the coax.

banger

[bangerjim]

For those people looking for a larger oven, I used to use an electric range that I bought off Craigslist for $20.. Definitely has a larger capacity than a toaster oven.





For mounting boolits for powder coating, how hard would it be to add a very small diameter hole at the bottom of the mold (where you'd put a hollow point pin) and put a pin nail, or piece of copper wire and then cast the boolits around that? After you're done with the PC, it should be easy to pull the wire out. I'm thinking this would be most suitable for .223 size rounds, where you want any hole (like from a pin nailer) precisely centered. It seems like with PC and not needing lube grooves, you should be able to make a BTHP boolit in a similar design to the Sierra Matchking..etc.

Holy Bat Cave! That IS a big one. I have thought of that, but do not have room.

Nice.

banger

[bangerjim]

for compressor pressure I find that 20 PSI cutoff which gives about 10PSI output when spraying almost totally eliminates wasted powder and gives great coverage . I spray at about 45 Degrees to the bullets.. YMMV

DITTO! I have found 20 is the perfect reg pressure. (probably about 10-15 at the gun) My little back shop compressor is set at 90-100 psi and the little HF reg takes care of the reducing. I use aquarium tubing from the reg at the electronics box to the gun and that give perfect flow and pressure. 45 degree angle give multi-row coverage.

Keep up the good work.

banger

[popper]

32 ga copper (so I could close the halves) inserted into the bottom of a Lee 401/175, hard to keep in place, didn't hold a wrap too good when suspending to coat. You could use a pin & mould like a HP, have to have a rig to hold the pin in place. The pin nail gun is just easier for me. Goes as fast as I can put one in the PVC pipe, 15 min for ~200.

[dezynco86]

Hooray! FedEx dropped off a nice powder coat system for me today! I didn't know if they would make it on Saturday or not.

I went right to it and got a couple of small batches coated. It will take a time or two to get the spray right. I've got to work out how I'm gonna coat my 30 caliber boolits, nose-up or nose-down. If I coat them nose-up, I can place a gas check on them when I run them through the sizer. If I coat them with the nose-down, I may not need a gas check, and I'll have a "soft-point" where the bullets goes into the holding fixture I made.

What do you guys think? These are the RCBS 200 grain Silhouette's. I'll probably run these as fast as I can get them, around 2,000fps in my 30-30 Contender. The gas check (or lack of one) will not be an issue in my 300 Whisper AR-15, won't be able to run them very fast anyway.

Also, I coated some 45 grain 22 calibers to try in my .223. Seems OK, I'm running about 3200+ with no issues so far. I may never buy jacketed bullets again!

[Beagle333]

I thought maybe I could coat the middle and not the nose or the GC. The GC part was easy, I just put a GC on em without crimping it. I figured I would take it off and reuse it over and over when coating and just put new GC's on em for shooting.
Then I tried shoving the nose down through some foil into some 3/8 nuts. It didn't work. The paint got down on the nose anyway and made a ridge and some rough areas and so I have to find a better way. I can't coat the nose on these, because at .301 they already engrave on loading in my .30-30s, so I can't afford any more diameter on the nose. I used 3 different boolits for the test, but it didn't matter, since it got on the noses anyway. So it's back to the drawing board for my testing for .30-30 boolits.

The boolits on the right just show what is underneath the foil.


The coating was nice and pretty... but too complete, since it leaked down into the nut.


The GC base and the driving bands are perfect..... 'now to discover a way to protect the nose....
Coating them lighter and multiple times would just deposit it on the nose slower. I need some way to make a seal that would not also make some flashing along the line where it joins the nose.

[xacex]

alright, I only shot these two groups today, and am getting something strange. I am getting some vertical stringing, but as you can tell it is something I am doing because it changes direction between groups. This is a 16" AR 15 Beowulf that I built myself. The boolit is a lee 440 with aluminum gas check, P/C .5025 not water dropped. The group sizes are similar with the bottom one being just under 3"x1". Better, but still not one hole. Top one is a 7 shot group, bottom is a 5 shots with the bottom hole being my last shot. Am I just being to anal about groups with the Wolf? This was at 100 yards with a 2x4 wood rest, and a 3x9 scope with some thick *** cross hairs. At 100 yards the lines on my target were about 1/4 the size of my cross hairs. looks like I need a couple clicks to the left on this scope.

[a.squibload]

Well the thinner took out my plastic bottle tumbler, softened it right up.
That's OK 'cause the powder was mostly sticking to the bottle anyway.
Will attempt a glass jar tumbler, maybe.

Picked up some JPW (paste wax as boolit lube), if that works out for my purposes
I can save the $50 on the powder sprayer, although I do like the way the sprayed ones turn out!
I'm impressed with all the technical development in this thread, might get me hooked on PC yet.

Took some PCd 380s, 38s, and 44s to the range today, all worked fine even though
they didn't look too good. Didn't clean the Redhawk last time, looks good now,
the PC rounds cleaned the barrel out!

[dezynco86]

Hey xacex. Those groups look pretty good to me! If you can shoot a group with the Beowulf without flinching and get a 3" group, you're doing OK! I have shot 1.5" with my Beowulf, but that was with one of those strap on "sissy pads" to keep it from beating the **** out of me!

I also use the Lee 440 cast lead bullets, I'm thinking about casting a few and PC'ing them soon. Are you gas checking your bullets? I was thinking about coating them standing on the nose and leaving the gas check off. The 440's can't run very fast anyway, so I figure the gas check is a waste of money.

I have an old piece of plywood to pin my targets at 100 yards. I love the time delay you hear - "BOOM...............WHACK"!

[dezynco86]

a.squibload, use one of those white plastic buckets like the ones that drywall compound comes in. That's what I am using and it works great. I'm using the gallon-sized one that you get at Wal-Mart. It's only about $6, just dump the drywall compound in the trash and wash out the bucket. Or get a 5 gallon sized one for about the same money.

[MacFan]

Good idea using aquarium tubing Banger. I use a coil hose and it's driving me nuts.