It's your call. I, being an engineer by trade, tend to lean toward accuracy and repeatability, irregardless of the cost. $100 or so for a tool that allows me to do things easily and accurately without any fudges or tweaks is worth every single penny in my book.
I fiddles and messed with a standard $3 Goodwill *** for many bakes before I realized my time was more valuable. So off to the store to get a new conv oven. I gave that high end one to my wife in exchange for our older one (it still cost about $100 when we bought it) and have never looked back.
Let us know how you do!
banger
It's regardless... Just sayin.. Lol
Unless you're on a smartphone with auto-capitalization. In which case ". Lol" gets a pass.
Awh, don't get me started about smartphones and their auto-corrections.
Sometimes I think I spend more time correcting its automatic replacements than I would just typing it letter by letter. And of course the speech to text conversion is lets just say somewhat "creative" at times.
Live fast, die young, leave a cute widow...
Last edited by Hang Fire; 01-31-2014 at 10:32 AM.
'Coated a few today. Here is the coating facility, ready for production.
I did 320 today while I was smoking some chicken on the Big Green Egg (the base can seen behind the toaster in the first pic)
One of these days I really gotta go fetch my 3-level convection toaster that I bought on Craigslist.
The darker ones had some blue still in the cup when I added red. I had some penta, some cup and some deep HPs.
KE4GWE - - - - - - Colt 1860, it just feels right.
Beagle; have you got a video of you making these beautiful bullets? I've been PC'ing my cast Lead for a short time now, but my coverage isn't quite as good as your's especially around the base. I don't have the HF gun, instead I bought the Craftsman gun.
Sparky
I have read about people having inferior results with the Sears gun. I have never had the opportnity to use one so I really do not know the problems. But several on here have voiced problems in construciton & usage. Hopefully playing around with it will give you acceptable results.
As you can see, Beagle is getting excellent coatings as do I and all the others on here do using the ESPC HF gun. Mine look the same way.....perfect coatings every time.
Good luck and have fun!!!!!!!
bangerjim
I don't have a video. I just have an old Sony DCS-T50 flipcam with a "micro" setting that I use to take most of my pictures. But the key to getting a good coating on the bottom driving band is to have enough room between the boolits (I use a 3/4" spacing) and spray from all sides. If you only did 9mm, they could be close and if you only did .45, 'maybe might need a little more, but for me the 3/4 is a great all-around grid. I spray from all 4 sides of my tray with a sweeping motion and aim for the bases. I don't walk around the table with the cord and hose, and I have to stand on the switch, so I just reach over and to each side and spray from all directions, but at an angle. The HF gun will spray upside down for 8-10 seconds at a time while I reach over, especially with a slight flip or tap to keep the powder agitated while spraying.
I know that a lot of folks don't want to mess with the nuts under the foil, but I find that I get a great coat all the way to the bottom and even some wrap-around effect from having the boolit elevated just a little bit. This lets me know that the contact surfaces are all coated in nice slippery polyester.
KE4GWE - - - - - - Colt 1860, it just feels right.
Hi PC-ers. I was using a cheap toaster oven while Dry Tumbling (and never had an issue), but I finally purchased things for the ES method and so bought a nicer and bigger "countertop convection oven" and a thermometer. So I crank it up to 375 and toss in the thermometer (oven one from walmart). I go set up some bullets, come back and she's at 550!
Sooo, I'll simply test this tonight by trying it indoors, but does anyone know if outside temperature effects these things? I was in the garage, it was probably 12 degrees out, so maybe it thought it had to keep the burners on??
Here's the one I got, it says convection, but is obviously on the cheap side of the convection line...
http://www.walmart.com/ip/22866805?w...083796&veh=sem
-Brad
One of these days I'll accidentally find a cheap used convection oven at Goodwill.. but until then do no more than 75 as a time and watch the boolits as the cure. You can see them when the curing is complete from watching the sheen.. go a minute or two past then and you are fine. I melted two batches with the cheap toaster oven too.. but both I didn't pay attention. If you use the $13 oven, you need to do small batches, a single tray at a time and pay attention. I never have had "under cured" ones that way... And the HF powder will cure at 375*F even though 450*F is recommended.. and that's with a thermocouple monitoring the cure....
Birdadly I was baking in my unheated well shed in -5 to-15 and I didn't have a problem. I did try to second guess my oven but I learned to trust its temperature reading. But it is a new oven as well as an upper end one. Kevin
Ambient temp will/should have no effect on the inside temp of your oven. It is the cheap thermostats they use in those ovens. You will have to do a test run at different temps and write the REAL temps on your oven front. Those things are about as cheap as you can get.....a bi-metal strip that expands and closed a set of contacts!
But they should be relatively repeatable, so do a cal test.
bangerjim
Let your toaster oven stabilize for 20 or 30 minutes.
At first warm up mine will hit 500 degrees and then slowly cool and stabilize where it's set. If I'm rushing, I'll open the door a little to cool it back down to temp faster.
I am seeing more and more colors showing up, so I thought that I would show my troops lined up.
Nice lookin' ES boolits there, AverageJoe!
KE4GWE - - - - - - Colt 1860, it just feels right.
AverageJoe;
What is the color of the copper ones on the right and where did you get it? Got some that I thought would be copper from allpowder but it is a nice carmel when applied.
thanks Dan
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 |