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Old May 8, 2014, 01:25 AM   #26
nemesiss45
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I picked up some HF powder coat on monday along with some needle nose pliers which I sharpened and bent like beagle... in fact, they are the exact same pliers, I believe. then this morning I got lucky and found a huge convection toaster oven at the thrift shop for $15.



I had a few types of airsoft BBs laying around, so I tried them all out, blue, white, and yellow. After coating a few bullets, I could see the yellow was the only BB picking up an even coating of paint, so I dumped the mix an used straight yellow.



I have coated 3 sets of bullets so far, but I am having issues getting an even coat. in the following images, you will see on the left some .30 cals on their second coat. the coverage is fairly good, bu you can still see silver and it has an orange peel texture. in the middle are some 1st coat .30 cals, you can clearly see the blotchy coverage. On the right are some .45s on their second coat, with the same issues.




when you guys are shaking the container, how hard and what direction are you shaking it? are you swirling, shaking side to side, of up and down? I was doing a combination but I think I might be doing something that is working against me. I also wonder if I have too many bullets and they are scraping eachother clean.

opinions welcome. I am pleased with the process so far, but I'd like to get my bullets looking like those first ones beagle posted.

oh, also as a side note, beagle, I use those same ice cream containers to hold my cast bullets. I love them, and the ice cream is good too.
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Old May 8, 2014, 01:31 AM   #27
A pause for the COZ
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I have not had any issues running mine through ether LEE sizers or my Star with the lube shut off.
The only concern you would have is leading and well you wont get that with the coated bullets.

As for Alox in my opinion any thing is better than Alox. But thats just my opinion some guys really like it. I am not one of them. I will do it if I have too but only if I have too.


I tried a basket for some of my 223 bullets. Just to see if I could forgo the sprayer. Seems to work fine. Not as purdy but should be serviceable.
Worth more investigation any way.


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Old May 8, 2014, 01:51 PM   #28
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Quote:
when you guys are shaking the container, how hard and what direction are you shaking it? are you swirling, shaking side to side, of up and down? I was doing a combination but I think I might be doing something that is working against me. I also wonder if I have too many bullets and they are scraping each other clean.
I can't tell from the pic too well, but it doesn't look like they are scraping each other clean as much as the powder is caked on and not smooth. Maybe try with less powder and bullets, even if you have to shake 2 or 3 bowls to get a pan full for baking? You can always add more powder if you aren't getting a full coverage. It just doesn't look like it is sticking evenly. Or maybe you aren't generating enough static? I don't know, since I bought the black BBs the first time out and it worked for me.

I'm shaking them in all directions, side to side, over my head, rather vigorously...... not really like I was trying to free up the rattle ball in a new can of spray paint, but a good medium shaking like you would give that can of spray paint as you shake between sprays. (if that makes sense)
Shake that stuff! lol
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Old May 8, 2014, 02:53 PM   #29
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OSOK said:
Quote:
I load up a cast and lubed bullet for a rifle. With my limited expertise, I will start leading at 1200 FPS and get much worse the faster I push the bullet. I'm exceeding the speed I can get quickly. But with a 'Powder Coated' bullet, I know of (and trust in the claims) velocities in excess of 3200 FPS with no leading or other degradation.
You know, this is encouraging. As if one were able to load rifle bullets of a medium alloy, which would mushroom as opposed to fragment (as I have experienced with linotype), and powder coat them, one could have a short to intermediate range game bullet with great practical effect.
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Old May 8, 2014, 03:11 PM   #30
nemesiss45
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Thanks beagle, ill try just a few bullets and see how it goes. And maybe ill try picking up some black bbs to try.

I think the coating I have will do the job, I sized the .45s and the driving band was smooth and fully coated. I am anxious to see how the shoot.
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Old May 8, 2014, 04:50 PM   #31
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You know, this is encouraging. As if one were able to load rifle bullets of a medium alloy, which would mushroom as opposed to fragment (as I have experienced with linotype), and powder coat them, one could have a short to intermediate range game bullet with great practical effect.
Very true. I'm mostly using it for pistols, and while I do coat 30-30 and 45-70, it doesn't fall in the class you are speaking of. But there are several guys doing a lot of experimentation of .223, .308 and .300 blackout, to see if what you say is a good idea. It would be nice to shoot softer stuff at high velocities and get a beautiful 'shroom from my .270
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Old May 8, 2014, 09:00 PM   #32
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You know, this is encouraging. As if one were able to load rifle bullets of a medium alloy, which would mushroom as opposed to fragment (as I have experienced with linotype), and powder coat them, one could have a short to intermediate range game bullet with great practical effect.
Last week, I made my first trip to a range I bought a membership for. Being a Sunday, with terrible wind and no one else around, I proceeded to "mine" one of the 100 yard berms when I was done shooting. (Just picking up what was on the surface.)

Much to my surprise, about 5 pounds of the 21-22 lbs of scrap I picked up were .30 caliber cast rifle bullets, nicely mushroomed.
When I got home, I inspected a handful of them. They appear to have been a 175-180 gr silhouette bullet (possibly a hollow point), using what appears to be black moly lube. Some quick testing (alloy on alloy - nothing properly scientific) put them just on the soft side of wheel weight alloy. I don't know what velocity they were fired at, but they were mushroomed very nicely and for at least 40% of their length.

I don't normally consider dirt to be a good medium for judging expansion, but everything I was picking up, other than FMJs, was expanded as if it had been fired into gelatin - with the occasional rock strike.
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Old May 9, 2014, 09:46 PM   #33
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Today I found a small sample of some forgotten tumble lube bullets that someone had given me. I think they got tumbled twice, because there were waaaay too thick with lube...


But I gave em a quick swirl in some gas to remove the Alox, then a quick swirl in some thinner to remove the gas, and they shined right up......


then tossed em in the Airsoft BB bowl for a quick tumble. I baked them up real nice and red and now they are ready for heavy loading for some high speed water jug detonating.

Not nearly as slick as spraying, but it was fast (especially for this few bullets)and they'll shoot just fine.


And I did go to my LGS today, just to look around, and the ol' guy thumbed toward the back and said "You might wanna check the back, we got some powder in." and I walked back there and was shocked outta my shoes. It was like the old days! (Well, except the prices) But they had all Alliant in stock again! From Unique all the way down to Bullseye. It was so beautiful!
I only took 4 lbs of Unique (which is about how much of that I'll shoot in a year) and walked to the front grinning like I'd won the lottery! I didn't even bother with any of the Bullseye, the Dots or any of the numbered powders. I'll check back for them and maybe any leftover Unique later.
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Old May 10, 2014, 04:54 AM   #34
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Should have gotten at least one of those jugs of BE, heck thats around 1800 rounds of those WC's....oh sorry "Turtle Busters".
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Old May 10, 2014, 09:27 AM   #35
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I still got H110, W296, Trail Boss, PB, American Select, RedDot, 800X, and if it comes down to it...... about a dozen pounds of store-bought black.

But I was seriously rationing my last half pound of Unique.... so I feel much better now.


The TB's are at the ready.



All dressed up for action.



The enemy.
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Old May 10, 2014, 07:46 PM   #36
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One thing that has surprised me reading about the various coating process adaptations is that most everyone seems to coat the nose, but not worry about the base. My instinct would be to go the other way around. That's based on past experience with poly-wads behind conventional cast bullets successfully preventing leading even at jacketed bullet velocities. It's also based on the greater importance of base uniformity than nose uniformity to accuracy.

I'll just have to try some myself. Got the powder just recently, but need to get to the experimental phase.
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Old May 10, 2014, 08:38 PM   #37
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Unclenick,

I'm with you on not wanting to coat the nose but the butt.
Alas, I'm using the 'shake-and-bake' system and get full coverage.
I am thinking hard on getting one of those aftermarket 'hollow-pointer' drill thingies. Just thinking on a keyboard but....

Enjoy,

OSOK
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Old May 10, 2014, 10:17 PM   #38
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While this Airsoft BB tumbling method coats the whole thing, coating the nose is not necessary, except in a bore-riding nose, and then only up to the ogive. All that need be coated are what rides the barrel. The nose gets coated using the spray method just because it's easier to stand the bullet on the base than the nose, and it looks good loaded.
If you want to see a coated base - but not the nose, you might like the spray method better where the guys put hollow points on nails to coat them. Then it's only the sides and base that get coated fully. But the base does not need coated. In my/our testing, this will not perform as a gas check, it's only 1/1000 of an inch of slippery polyester that is there for friction reduction. If your alloy and your "fit" do not completely stopper that barrel when you light a fire under it, even a completely coated bullet is going to lead unless there is a gas check there (which might include a poly-wad... I've never used those) to stop that hot gas from cutting the base.

But, for looks..... some of the guys who like to see a coated base on some that were sprayed, will tap the base of the finished coated/baked bullet on a rag dampened with acetone or thinner and then tap it on a piece of paper with some powder sprinkled on it and bake the bullets again. That will give you a coat to look at, but it will not let you push it faster than without that coloring on the bottom. I have personally not seen one sentence supporting that, in the hundreds of pages I have read on the forum during development.

But I am always willing to learn new things and would love to see somebody willing to purposefully lead up a barrel, coat some bullets both fully and bare-based and push them to failure on some unbiased side-by-side tests.
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Old May 11, 2014, 06:50 AM   #39
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I'm with Beagle on this. Coating the base seems to be a waste of time and materials to me. My reasoning...The temperature of burning powder is much higher than the melting point of the powder coat. Once it's liquid, it isn't going to do much protecting of anything and by the time it's solid again it will be out of the barrel and well on it's way toward (if not through) the target. How much protection does it need there?
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Old May 11, 2014, 10:51 AM   #40
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Rottweiler, I am new to this powder coating fad, and intend to become a faddist soon

There are two factors concerning melting. One, as you point out is temperature. The other, dwell time. Sure the powder gases become quite hot, but the short time they act on the coating may not be enough to melt/strip the coating from the base of the bullet. The best way to find out, I suppose, is to mine one of the slugs from an appropriate medium and inspect...
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Old May 11, 2014, 01:19 PM   #41
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Beagle33,

My first interest in coating the base actually is not about velocity, but about maintaining symmetry of muzzle blast deflection of it at bullet exit. It's the same reason a uniform crown matters. It takes only a small asymmetry in the gas jet playing off the bullet base at exit to introduce an off-bore-axis drift that stays with the bullet all the way to the target. That opens groups up. Harry Pope said over a century ago, "the base steers the bullet", and that's what the uncoated bases first brought to mind.

You are obviously correct the bullet fit has to be good, but even a gas checked bullet that doesn't fit the bore well does not shoot well, either, IME, so I don't think it's about making up lost diameter. I think it's more about refining the seal. So, can a layer a thousandth of pliable material help make a better seal at the inside corners of the lands? I can't see why it would not. It's sort of like having a conformal O-ring. Will it have the mechanical strength of a real gas check? No. Obviously not. But I expect one reason liquid Alox works even when the lube grooves are not filled, is that it does help create an edge seal as it is dragged off the sides of the bullet as it enters the throat. I have no proof of that, though, so you've made me think up a couple of test experiments.

Accuracy testing is straight forward. Bullet base condition might take some forensic effort. I think the coating should come off recovered bullets sitting in methylene chloride for a time, making it possible to examine the lead underneath to see how well it has been protected. I've taken molded epoxy packaging off transistors and integrated circuits that way before. For velocity, I've got a 6.5 mm mold for my '96 Swede that I have yet to break in, so that might be a good test bed. The bore is very smooth.


Rottweiler,

It's counter-intuitive, but, ironically, the low melting point actually helps prevent heat from penetrating the coating too far. This is due to enthalpy of fusion. Polymers, like water ice, require that extra heat to break up the solid structure and render it liquid. So, even though heat starts to penetrate the surface, it can't raise the temperature above the melting point until after it has also put that extra heat in. Since how fast heat is driven into something depends on the temperature difference between where the heat is coming from and where it is going to, that melting point limit on temperature also limits how fast the heat can move from the surface of the melting thing down into it until enough heat to cause surface melting has been delivered by the heat source. This is what Stubbicatt is referring to.

Chrome-moly barrel steel has on the order of 20 times higher thermal effusivity than typical polyester, and has been shown by the military to be penetrated only a couple thousandths of an inch by the leading edge of the thermal transient during the time high heat and pressure are still in a barrel. That's why you get the differential surface expansion that causes the alligator cracking of a throat as it ages. So, figure you might get a twentieth of that, or a ten thousandth of an inch penetration of your powder coat layer before the bullet clears the muzzle. When you then take into account enthalpy of fusion, another factor or 30 or so is likely involved, so you might get three millionths of an inch of melting at the surface. Probably shallower than the surface texture is deep.
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Old May 11, 2014, 02:24 PM   #42
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UncleNick....

I see that you want a good seal at the inside corners of the lands.... so, the bullets shown above would work for your suggested tests, or these as well?... since the powder wraps around the base but not all the way to the center, which is the area I was saying is not important.



I had thought you might be with the "coat the entire base" crowd, but I think see your point. For any improvement in sealing along the sides, it would just need to come completely around and onto the flat part, even a few thousandths would make sure nothing 'whistled past' until after complete exit, and then the blast would expand uniformly in all directions.

Is that what you were saying? Because coating the center of the base would have no effect on the radial dispersion once the edges of the base clear the crown, that I could see.
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Old May 12, 2014, 07:37 AM   #43
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That pretty much covers the in-bore concerns. The muzzle exit concerns might get more complex, but I am really up against the limit of what I know so far about the process and materials, so it's hard to speculate further without wandering off the beam. I'd like to examine some recovered bullet bases to check for peeling edges or other issues that might arise from muzzle blast. I'd also like to look at large groups for precision comparisons with bare copies of the same bullets fired from a gun that can shoot them without appreciable leading. I have a .44 Mag barrel for my TC Encore that is smooth enough to make a good test bed for that at .44 Special pressures. I'll see if I can get time to do that.
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Old May 12, 2014, 10:09 AM   #44
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Good luck with it. It'll be interesting to read the results.
For these, as long as I'm within minute-of-turtle, I'm grinning.


Those rascals are taking me over!
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Old May 12, 2014, 07:25 PM   #45
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TiteGroup on the shelf today. I picked up two pounds of it. I've never load that stuff though. They also got Bullseye. Loads of Bullseye and Power Pistol. I don't even know what it's good for, but for some reason I want to buy some of it! 'Mebbe on the next trip to town. I don't think anybody local knows how to load em either. That row hasn't been touched since Thursday (5 days now).
I gotta go get out my reloading manual and check it. I load so few powders that I don't have to refer to that thing often.
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Old May 13, 2014, 04:31 AM   #46
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Quote:
They also got Bullseye. Loads of Bullseye
I'm tellin ya, pick up some of that BE while ya can. One jug of it will load around 1K rounds of a wide variety of target type loads. While it might not be the cleanest burning stuff out there, they don't call it by that name for nothin...

I'm using it in 38Spl, some 357's and mostly in my 45 ACP. It is the thing for those cast target loads for sure. Even if you like something else a LOT better, two pounds of BE will carry you through a LOT of shooting while your looking for those "something better" powders.
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Old May 13, 2014, 11:00 PM   #47
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Jumped onthe cart

Now, take it easy on me, I know I dissed on the "painted boolit" concept, BUT I just tried it.



These are 9mm, both 124 grainers.



Used the white airsoft, I had some on hand.



Pretty good coverage, shook the in a ziplock container. (note, don't tip it upside down to see if there's enough paint powder!!.



I'm real happy. You can see a few spots not covered, but most of the driving bands are covered.

I did some 45's last night. Only had a few not lubed to try to coat. I tried the tumbler impact coating method, I had a clean extra bowl and some #2 steel shot. Incredible racket, didn't cover well at all. Immediately switched to the airsoft. Those came out well, so I fired up the pot today to make some 9mm.

These will be an additional test, that's nearly pure lead, BHN about 7-8. IF the powder coat really can eliminate leading, this should be a good test.

The RN cast @ .360, but sized easily to .356. Didn't mic the TC boolits,, but they sized to .356 as well.

Now to load some tomorrow, maybe shoot as well.

Thanks to Beagle for bringing the new tumble method to our attention. I wasn't about to get a spray outfit, nowhere to use it anyway.
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Old May 14, 2014, 10:14 AM   #48
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What temperature?

Sorry Beagle, I looked but I must have missed it, but what temperature do you bake them and for how long?
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Old May 14, 2014, 11:14 AM   #49
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Nice lookin' boolits, Snuffy!


Stubbicatt
I bake mine at 400° for 20 minutes. That is for HF red. There is a lot of variation on bake times. The powders also vary, but it will tell you on the powder directions how long to bake and what temp. Most are 400, but times vary wildly. Some folks swear by 10 minutes only, some bake 20 minutes after the powder glosses over (I think that's what the HF powder actually says to do), and some guys will bake for a whole hour and water drop, but I have found that 20 mins, start to finish, in a preheated 400° toaster (using my PID, so I know it is exact), is perfect.
I don't have an oven thermometer, but I figure a $2 one from WallWorld would do the same.

And I do not warm my bullets before tumble (or spray), and I also do not wash them in anything like brake cleaner or acetone.
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Old May 14, 2014, 05:34 PM   #50
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I baked @ 400 degrees for 30 minutes, took out of the oven , let air cool. I used my cooking oven which is natural gas, no, I'm not worried about lead since the boolits are encapsulated. I also used parchment paper, didn't want to make another stop to buy the non-stick alum. foil. None of them stuck to the paper!

Now to get some loaded. I plan on loading some of the 45's I coated on the first run, they're a MP 200 HP. I'll run them into my bullet expansion test media to capture AND test if the coating allows expansion. Should see how the rifling reacts as well.
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