After years of casting and lubing conventional bullets, I decided to branch out into powder coating.

Made a lot of mistakes first but eventually got the knack of coating and baking in a small toaster oven.

You're off to a good start it looks like.

A friend makes 'em by the many thousands.
Says it's easy. Don't need to jump thru all
the hoops guys here claim needs done.

He casts, drops in water. 2-300 and dries 'em.
Then just them and the powder in a bowl.
Bakes at 250-300 in the oven for 20 min. drops
in a bucket of water again. Later he sizes them
once.

He's supposed to make me 2000 .40's this fall sometime.
He says even leaded bores will clean right out
with pc's.

Good luck.

George

I see some of those in the berms at the local shooting range. Never tried it but many say it really does work and keeps bores clean.
Just don't make any pink ones, OK, BA?

A buddy of mine has turned his M-1 Carbine into almost a tackdriver with powder coated bullets.

Loaded some 223's today and put over the chrony. Using 2206 (equiv to Dupont 3031) I workrd up some loads to 20.5gn for 2,604fps.

Couldn't see any leading, so some accuracy testing is next.

You can now even color-code your loads! Sounds silly I know but I did the same thing casting for my 45 LC's. Different bullets for different pressures (ALA Ruger/ S+W V/s Colt SAA) You can tell at a glance which loads go to which guns.

Tried 'yellow' and black. Not happy with the yellow but the black gave a good gloss finish.

I started PC bullets a few months ago. The turn out pretty good.

Today I started with the 22 Hornet and a little 40gn plain based bullet from MP molds. After finding Eastwood "Ford light blue" powder gave a good coverage with a single coat I prepared 25 loads ranging from 7gn 2205 to 9.0gn 4227 in 0.5gn increments.

Starting at 7gn 1843fps
7.5gn 1910fps
8.0gn 2068fps
8.5gn 2260fps
9.0gn 2388fps

I then shot on a paper target with the remaining rounds and was delighted to see little groups forming on target. The first 3 at 50m (lower group) shots indicated a change in impact from my normal jacketted rounds. An adjustment of 4 clicks up saw a beautiful cloverleaf form in the black, another 4 clicks up saw the bullet strike 1" above the bull where I normally zero.

In all I fired 25 rounds and could find no trace of blue coating in the barrel. Definately deserves more testing after I reload the empties!

Do you size yours after the P.C.?

First coat



Second coat



My first 470 cal cast & PC bullets.

I had to coat & bake twice to get good coating.

Sized after coating.

New to casting & PC. My groups are not great - just fired less than 20 pounds.

Did some more testing today with the 22 Hornet and 223 Remington. Conditions were overcast but no wind, targets were setup on a 50m range as I was mostly testing for velocity.

Loads for the Hornet were 9.2,9.4 & 9.6gns 2205

9.2gns recorded 2,418fps with good accuracy
9.4gns 2,465fps
9.6gns 2,520fps but accuracy started to open up; still not bad for a plain based cast lead pill that has been powder coated.

[u]22 Hornet plain based bullet[/u]


Testing then moved to the 223 and previous testing had recorded 2,603 fps with a load of 20.5gns 2206.

Firstly I confirmed the original load was still at 2,603 fps (2,592fps but close enough)

Then I tried 21.0gn of 2206 which recorded an average of 2,688fps

Finally I tried 21.5gn of 2206 and recorded 2,818fps.

Having a small number of rounds left, I tried for a group at 50m, not brilliant BUT at just one inch for a 10 shot group, I came away happy with the results.

[u]223 Remington 10 shot group powder coated and gas checked[/u]


I have yet to test any of the "bigger" calibres but have plenty of 100gn RCBS pills for the old 303/25 and 140gn Lyman for my 303/270! If I can get these to shoot well, there may be a cheap way of bringing these old girls out of retirement.

Further testing powder coated loads with 7mm Mauser and 243 Winchester.

!39gn bullet (red) achiever 2,918fps while the 150gn (black) achieved 2,862fps. these are maximum loads for this cartridge.

Did some further testing today, this time with a Norinko JW103 in 7.62x39 with some 190gn bullets

quote:

Today I started with the 22 Hornet and a little 40gn plain based bullet from MP molds.

I can’t find that mold on MP - Molds site. Could you so kind as to tell me the number?

I have been powder coating for a while and found that the harbor freight stuff works but the stuff I bought this time from a company named Powder By The Pound works leaps and bound better. I get better coverage and it adheres much quicker with 1 application. Literally it did the shake and bake for less than a minute and had to knock off the excess.