I am curious about powder coating cast bullets.

There seems to be some discussion about how to do it, and what steps are added or subtracted from the standard sizing/lubing/seating gas checks process.

Anyone...?

Question:
Anybody tried this? Curious about bullet prep and results.

Choices:
Yes, not worth the trouble
Yes, well worth the trouble
No, tell me about it.

 

Go here:
http://castboolits.gunloads.co...ngs-and-Alternatives

Anything and everything you could ever want on the subject.

yeah, I've been a member since they started up.

I was just curious if anyone here had been trying it...

Rich,
I have fiddled with it some and think it's worth it.
I did quickly learn to use/apply the powder coating sparingly. If you apply too much, it will increase your O.D. quite a bit.
You may be thinking "no big deal, just run it through a sizer". Yes that works but it can also increases the ogive a fair bit, making bullet seating inconsistant. And if you are also using gas checks it can be a real problem..
Got some on the reloading bench right now wonder if I should re-melt or shoot'em anyway.

Still playing with it and learning.
Definitely see value in PC for full power loading of castboolits.

Rich, I have been powder coating my big bore cast bullets for a couple of years now, I will never go back to lube again.

I only shoot gas checked bullets. all are sized after the PC. I have used a powder coat gun to start and it does a professional looking job, but lately I have been putting my bullets in a big plastic jar with the powder coat and some plastic air soft BB's and shaking them up. I pull the bullets out of the powder with hemostats.

Its not as perfect as the gun but works fine and increases production. I have pushed powder coated bullets to 2100 fps and have zero fouling. I have recovered many bullets and all of them have retained their powder coating even after being shot through a tree.

In my experience powder coated bullets are more accurate than lubed bullets, I can only speak for my rifles and the calibers I shoot, PC tightened up the groups. I'm hooked YMMV.

Thank you both. So, no lube necessary?

The jar process seems to work well, but I have read different posts on CB forum about "how to..."

Coat, size, and GC. That's good, since it strains my luber/sizer to do .552" diameter bullets for my 550 Gibbs.

Rich

No lube what so ever needed at full power loading, more or less.
No lead fouling either.
But again, I also use gas checks in addition to the powder coating.
This winter I plan on experimenting with GC boolit's without the gas check.
Coat, bake, gas check and size.
Don't forget the baking part.

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
Thank you both. So, no lube necessary?

The jar process seems to work well, but I have read different posts on CB forum about "how to..."

Coat, size, and GC. That's good, since it strains my luber/sizer to do .552" diameter bullets for my 550 Gibbs.

Rich

Rich my biggest bullet is a 700 grain WFN GC .513 powder coat and then size/gas check in a custom lee sizing die.

I bought a jar of the red powder from Harbor Freight and have cast up some plain based 30 cal billets to test. I think I will try the tumbling method at first because I don't really have the desire to buy the electrostatic stuff if it doesn't work for me. I already have an old toaster oven.

My first test will be to coat, bake, then push them through a Lee sizer. Next test if that doesn't work will be to size first, then coat and bake.

Hunting season plus changing jobs has put this on the back burner for me right now.

Powder coating for cat bullets the title says. Powder or no powder this world needs more cat bullets.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Elkins45:
I bought a jar of the red powder from Harbor Freight and have cast up some plain based 30 cal billets to test. I think I will try the tumbling method at first because I don't really have the desire to buy the electrostatic stuff if it doesn't work for me. I already have an old toaster oven.


This PC gun for under $45 works great, no compressor needed, it works like a hair drier. I does a professional job, I have two of them (one for a back up)

http://www.amazon.com/Electric...espc+powder+coat+gun

Some 310 Cadet bullets for the girls.
Dry tumbled in a solo cup with airsoft balls to generate some static then cooked at 400deg in a toaster oven for 12min.

Carpetman, these could be your "Hello Kitty" bullets!

First try with the PC gun.
The coverage is definitely better but there is a lot of lost powder on the foil. I think I can place them closer together but with such tall bullets I was worried about getting good coverage on the sides
These are plain based bullets as cast which I will size to .410" and shoot at normal cast velocities although I am tempted to run a few at full speed and see how they do. The PC bullets can take full velocity normally but most guys are using gas checked bullets either coated before the check or with the check.
I may throw a lubed wad in there just to protect the base.

They started about .408" and now measure .411-.412" so I might be laying it on a little heavy with the gun.
Sure look nice though.

On the way into the toaster oven.


I think they are looking pretty darn good!


More 310 Cadet

Nice A true "Blue Nose" bullet

Blue, purple, and pink bullets! I can see that the bullet casting community is getting in touch with their sensitive side.

quote:

Originally posted by carpetman1:
Powder coating for cat bullets the title says. Powder or no powder this world needs more cat bullets.

Hey don''t knock it until you've tried it.

Wasn't my fault. Spell Check failed me...

Big words like CAT and CAST would require spell checker for those that are spelling challenged.

Rich, I haven't tried them, yet. A few fellows up here are doing it and reporting great velocities and virtually no fouling.

Well I dipped into the PC cool aid a couple of weeks back. For my purpose I wanted to see how they ran side by side compared to some conventional lubed ones out of my 41mag.

I loaded 25ea starting at 14grs of AA-9 and increased in .5gr increments up to 16grs. Unfortunately I wasn't able to chrono them, but the last time I tried this particular alloy I used Alox and only got 4 rounds through the barrel before it was leaded to the point I could hardly see the grooves.

All of these shot well and left nothing behind but a clean bore sans some powder residue. As mentioned the recovered bullets all had coating on them to some extent. Some still had the base fully coated some not so fully coated. I can only assume that these were the upper end charges due to the expansion they showed. They also had the powder dimples as well which suggested higher pressures too.

This particular alloy only runs around a 10-12 BHN but it help up well to the loads. I will be testing more as I want to dial in a load with this particular bullet, and I also want to get some up and running in my .308 to put on the hogs. I figure why use up the higher priced jacketed if not needed, especially on a hog.

If I can get the same or similar performance out of that little rifle I will be plenty happy with it.

I have been experimenting with powder coating bullets this winter.

I dump a handfull of bullets in a small plastic bowl and add a teaspoon of powder paint. I sit the bowl on top of my tumbler for 3-5 minutes. The bowl will spin around on top of the tumbler, but not fall off. I dump them in a screen tray, shake off the excess and into a toaster oven for 15 minutes at 325 degrees. The blue I'm using doesn't coat very well. I will stick to my other colors.



So far, I have coated 190 grain 10mm, 55 grain .224, and 230 grain .308.



Yesterday I loaded some 10mm, 218 Mashburn Bee, and 309 JDJ fireform loads. As soon as weather permits, I will get to the range and try them out.

I've got everything set up to go ahead and try PC,
I will try my 320gr for my 450-400 first.
The one thing I am not totally clear on so far is some talk about coating older, not fresh cast bullets. There seems to be some debate on oxidization on older bullets and PC not getting along, but I haven't been able to decipher the verdict on that, thru the info I have seen.
I am at the point of just going out and casting some, but, also have about 400 raw boolits I could use that are a couple of yrs old.
And of course, the north wind blows every time I think of heading to the garage to cast. And I am not opening that garage door with the north wind blowing this time of year.
Anyone tried coating older boolits? Results?

Is there any prep needed or just dump as cast in the cup n shake, then bake?
Bet they'd draw a crowd at the range!
Thanks for sharing guys,
George

Somehow a while bacck I ended up with 3 tumblers. So I dedicated one to PC. Just a very few easy minutes and they are coated well. I like it. Have a 9mm 1911 with a very rough bore. They even shoot excellant in it. All I will use from now on.

quote:

Originally posted by georgeld:
Is there any prep needed or just dump as cast in the cup n shake, then bake?
Bet they'd draw a crowd at the range!
Thanks for sharing guys,
George

I have used a red plastic Solo cup with some airsoft BBs in the mix.
The BBs build up a little static to get the powder to coat more evenly.
Make sure your bullets are absolutely clean and dry and pick them out of the powder with some tweezers or something with a fine tip so you dont wipe off the powder when doing the tumble method.
That is why I went to the powder gun. Much easier to manage moving bigger bullets around when they are already upright.

IF bullets are soft, will they still mushroom with this coating?
Thanks,
George

Yes.
The behave pretty much as regular cast bullets other than the leading in the barrel.

Sounds like something I should try in this .3fifty8u/m. Don't see any leading with 100rnds of light cast thru it so far. Am guessing maybe fifteen hundred, damned number keys have died, need a new keyboard it looks like. Bear with me, ok?

How much more velocity will this coating allow?
IF I've missed it above, say so and I'll read thru it again.

Thanks,
George

Many shoot these at jacketed velocities. I haven't done that.

All info is here:
http://castboolits.gunloads.co...ngs-and-Alternatives

G'Day Fella's,

As Huvius has described to you blokes, this cast bullet coating, seems to have a lot of potential!
I'm just about to make a start on Powder Coating (PC) my cast Handgun and Rifle bullets.
What want to try, is to add some Hexagon Boron Nitride (HBN) powder to the PC powder, and see if this dry lubricant has any additional positive effect on this bullet coating?
By that I mean, can we shoot Cast lead bullets at normal and or standard velocities for various cartridges?

You may like to add some Moly (MSo2) powder to the PC powder also???

Doh!
Homer

You are still limited by the compound you are using, all the usual cast bullet caveats apply to the bullet whether PC'd or lubed. The only thing the PC does is do away with pan lubing or a lubesizer in some applications. It seems to me to be more inclined towards pistol bullets, they are easier to handle and a bit more forgiving towards accuracy issues than the rifle bullets are. And you have to define what you call accuracy. Even coating seems to be progressively more difficult as the bullet length increases. Some people have noticed a slight increase in velocity with PC, but, you still need gaschecks and all the other parameters for sizing and hardness to increase speed, same as with a lubed bullet.
Not a lot out there yet for proven accuracy out of rifles as compared to lubed bullet info, it is too new to judge yet.
I did a cast of 320gr-410WFN-gc a while back, PC process went well, tumbled them, looked great. Problem I ran into was diameter. .412 as cast, went to .415 when PC'd. Came out a bit bigger in the cast than I really wanted. Tried a 410 sizer on a few to see what I'd get for springback, but, that was too much sizing for the coating. They passed the hammer test fine, but, couldn't withstand the .005 sizing, some scraped off. I will have to get a larger sizer or change the blend to reduce the as cast diameter.

209Jones,

that may be true, but show me your data.

There are guys on the cast bullet forum who are shooting PC plain base bullets over 2000fps with good accuracy and no leading issues. That is where my data originates. The news there is that much softer alloys can be employed and higher velocities achieved VS conventional alloys and grease/crayon lubrication.

This will be very important for casters in the future, as our government works to make casting much more expensive (tin at $16-18 per pound for instance). Every little part each government agency can do to make shooting more difficult/costly counts for something to the liberals.

Once you have alloy and a way to cast good bullets, the cost to PC is pretty much a one-time purchase of a decent convection oven, and the PC. I like the idea that I can cast a hundred rounds of a particular design and differentiate powders/loads by color. Pretty easy to see bullets up in a Case-Gard 100.

Rich

I haven't done a really thorough search for rifle results in about 2-3 months in Cast Boolits. I am going by what is posted there.Some folk were getting about the same, some not so good. Apparently PC will not replace gaschecks, yet. I have not seen where shooting softer compounds will improve anything over lubed bullets. From what I could see there were really only a few people had been working on any type of match type rifles. There again, I'm used to a couple of guns that would/will shoot under 2" at 200yds. Love to see data on someone shooting 247 or better on a Coors/ASSRA target.
That was with my 22-250 and 32-40, both highwalls. So, maybe my expectations are a bit high. I hadn't seen much other that a very few posts of anyone shooting at better than 100yds, and not a lot of detail about them, a lot of those folk who were shooting, were shooting 50yds, with irons, old military stuff. I would be happy with my 450-400 staying under 3" @100yds, which it does now.
Be interesting to try some breech seated in my 32-40, I think that would probably be a fair test for the validity of PC accuracy, have not seen anything like that, yet. I'd have to get a different mould to do that though, so, I won't invest in that experiment just yet. Haven't noticed anyone on ASSRA trying it yet either. Could be that someone on CBA has been doing it, but, Firefox was blocking it as a dangerous site for the last couple of years. Was open the last time I tried it, but, haven't done a thorough search on there yet. What I did see didn't say much.
Even still, the info on Cast Boolits is in the majority showing that the bullets need to be about the same blends/construction as lubed versions from what I read. The coating is harder than the lead, apparently but, some have posted they could not get the same results without going a bit harder on the bullet compound in order to increase speed.
I found the coating thickness on the ones I did to be around .001 to .0015 out of round. The sizing process would take care of that, but, it still makes a person wonder what the results may be downrange with that. I suppose it is all according to what a person is looking for, for their own satisfaction level.

It's been a couple months now since the last post.
Has anyone shot big game with these PC's bullets? I'd like to know and/or see the results.

Anyone??
Thanks,
George

not yet.

A world class case of the flu delayed my project. I just finally opened the box with my new convection oven in it yesterday.

A gentleman named Smoke4320 on the cast bullets forum sells sample packs of the PC and the ASBB's (Air Soft BB's).

Got my stuff, just waiting for another week like the last one (warm, but riding the HD won out) to set up outback and get to testing. Got plenty of bullets in a couple different sizes to work with.

I really like the idea of no lube. What I have learned from the experts:

1. buy a dedicated convection oven to bake in.

2. the Powder Coat will increase the bullet diameter. Guys are taking their bullets and running them thru their sizer luber, after completely cleaning all traces of lube out before coating them, and again after. The sizer die does not seem to scrape the PC coating off.

If you go to the cast bullets forum and scroll down about seven or eight threads, there is a very comprehensive forum on coatings.

I really, really like the idea of being able to coat my bullets and put them in boxes without having to worry about the lube drying and coming off, or clumps of bullets sticking together.

Ask me again in about a week/ten days.

First batch finished this afternoon.

They came out great!

A bit more work, but hardly any mess compared to lubing them.

Ran a batch of them thru my old RCBS sizer-luber, then tumbled/swirled in the powder coated ASBBs, then thru the pre-heated convection oven at 375-degrees for twenty minutes.
Carolina Blue. Ran them thru the sizer again, no PC came off, even the driving bands came out intact.

This is going to be fun...

Had some success with 45/70. RCBS 45-500 bullet cast of COWW. 508 gr, coated with two coats harbor freight Red, then sized 459. Charge was 26.5 gr 5744. Loaded five rounds with only one coat HF red, and five rounds with the two coats. The 2 coat bullets went thru the sizer with a little more resistance. Shot lots better. These same bullets lubed with alox/Johnson's liquid floor wax and same charge of 5744 chronoed right at 1300 fps. Did not chrono the powder coated bullets. Shot in my Shiio Hartford with 30" barrel.

I'll probably fool around and post two pictures here..

Not bad for a 50 foot group.

Les,

you do not have to take that...