Does anyone increase the baking time a little bit if your bullets are cold? I’m doing a batch of 500 grain 458 bullets and letting them dry outside where it’s pretty close to freezing. I’m thinking about adding a couple of minutes to compensate for such big cold bullets.
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Armed people don't march into gas chambers.
Elkins45, Joe should be along. He will answer your questions. Hang in there!
Boolits !!!!! Does that mean what I think it do? It do!
Forgot today is Sunday. To answer your question I don't dry bullets outside unless it is spring or summer time. If you go straight to the oven you may run into condensation and if that gets under your coating it won't set. I can tell you what I do,maybe it will help you. Room temp is around 70 F where I do this. There is an exhaust system. After coating the bullets are poured onto a wire mesh tray and left in front of a fan for about ten minutes. then they go to the top of my oven until they heat up to around 120 F. Placed in the oven. When bullets reach 360 F I start a countdown timer from four minutes. Is there any way you can dry your bullets inside? Extra time won't hurt but it can turn your coating darker.
Boolits !!!!! Does that mean what I think it do? It do!
Slide is right in what he said, however I do prefer to let my coated cast dry overnight if it is cold. I have found with larger cast including the 500gr that force drying in front of a fan does seem to trap moisture under coating, which turns to steam when baking and one gets small burst bubbles on the surface of baked cast. I like the cast to be a little warm, not cold to the touch when coating them in cooler weather. If the coating is properly dry and you do get some burst bubbles after baking it only affects the look not the performance. I always warm my coated cast on top of oven as slide suggested, but only after they are dry. Regards Stephen
Elkins 45
Great question.
I will try to answer step by step.
1. If projectiles are already cold when you are coating, they will get even colder due to evaporation of solvent. Ideal situation is, that your projectiles are about 8-10 degrees above ambient temperatures. Reason..... when coating cast, solvent evaporation can chill alloy by another 5C. So if they are already cold when you start, you are making them even colder.
2. The chilling of cast by solvent evaporation, attracts a lot of moisture which can be trapped inside the coating. As coating dries, it forms a skin, which traps moisture.
The skin feels dry, but it is misleading. The instant you put this into an oven, the rise in temperature of coating/alloy, turns the trapped water into super heated steam.
This steam cannot get out and is forced towards the colder area, (alloy). This then lifts coating off the alloy. Heat will cure the coating, but it wont be bonded to alloy adequately. Tell tale signs are, that baked coating has fine blisters after baking and can be easily scratched from alloy.. If this happens the tests on coating will fail.
3. Having warmer cast to coat is preferable. Warm air drying is very useful, especially in cold damp conditions.
4. Test bake only a couple first when you think you have dried it enough.
If it passes all tests, all good. But if tests fail, keep warm air drying.
Re-Test again only with a couple.
Repeat tests with a couple until you get a pass with tests. (keep warm air drying until you get a pass with tests)
With your question, baking a cold coated cast longer, will not "fix" the problem but will in fact cause more problems.
Hope I have answered your question.
Elkins, I did some once when it was cold and wet (normal Winter where I live) so I warmed up my oven (not hot) and ran them through there first to make sure they were dried properly before baking. Worked for me. I reckon one of those food dehydrator thingy's would work well for drying coated boolits.
The dehydrator idea is a good one, but I might just make myself a curing box to coat in cold weather. Build racks for all my trays with hot air forced in from the bottom or maybe a heat lamp bulb.
I ended up setting my trays on the tailgate of my truck in the sun. They dried completely and baked with no flaking.
NRA Endowment Member
Armed people don't march into gas chambers.
The curing box is a good idea.
[QUOTE=Elkins45;4814445]The dehydrator idea is a good one, but I might just make myself a curing box to coat in cold weather. Build racks for all my trays with hot air forced in from the bottom or maybe a heat lamp bulb.
Elkins45
I would not use a closed in drying system. I am concerned about solvent vapour build up and fire resulting.
A ventilated drying box of sort, with Infra Red heating lamp would work well as it would warm bullets much more gently and evenly. If you have a tray with multi layers, you would have to turn over/move around projectiles to ensure all were heated/warmed evenly. Then simply monitor load temperatures with IR thermometer. After testing a couple by baking, and if it passes tests, simply bake that load that is now pre-heated. Monitor load in oven for the temperature, and, when load gets to 180C, leave it in oven to bake for another 2 minutes. That is it. Simple.
When will the blue be available in the states?
NRA Benefactor.
In December Donnie Miculek posted here that his shipment was in transit, but in a slow boat from Down Under.
It's like waiting on a group buy mold. The anticipation is half the fun.
Elkins45, I posted in another thread that I did exactly what you asked about. Using casts previously coated and dried but stored and then baked in cold conditions, I ended up with baking times of 14 minutes at confirmed convection oven air temps of 420 degrees F. Winter boolits came out with the right color. Summer boolits baked with the same protocol were darker, though not quite scorched (and still passed all tests and shot fine without leading). Now I know better.
Last edited by kevin c; 01-27-2020 at 01:30 PM.
[QUOTE=HI-TEK;4814519]Vented at the top, air forced in from the bottom. The box is just there to direct airflow and minimize heat loss. Like a film drying cabinet back when people used to develop film. Except for needing to support the trays it could almost be made of cardboard.
NRA Endowment Member
Armed people don't march into gas chambers.
Burnt Fingers
The shipment is already in the US. The delays is at port, with delays with Customs clearing.
Last time I checked about 6-8 days ago, Donnie was waiting on delivery and was estimating 8-10 days. So TRUBLU is not that far away from being available.
Please keep in touch with Donnie to get updates.
That's good to hear. Thanks for the update!
Joe, is the tru blue a metallic?
Boolits !!!!! Does that mean what I think it do? It do!
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 |
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GC | Gas Check |