I have used thinned nail polish and Ben & Jerry's (oops, George & Roy's) primer sealant in the past.

I know the military cartridges, and a few commercial (usually "Safari" type ammunition) cartridges are sealed by a colored lacquer applied by an expensive machine.

Does any one here have experience applying lacquer by hand? I'm loking for recommended technique(s) and any lessons learned.

merci beaucoups

I use nail polish (not thined). I just dab it on , invert the cartridge and quickly swipe the base across a folded paper towel to remove any excess polish.

I've used both the nail polish and George & Roy's. G&Rs is way better. To apply I followed the following1/ Seat primers as you normally would.2/ Apply a small drop of the sealant to the grove where the primer meets the case . Allow the sealant to flow around the entire diameter of the primer then wipe any excess off. 3/ Stand case in a loading block with the head up to dry. To seal the bullets I start with the seating die backed out of the press approx 1/8 th inch. Load powder, set bullet on case and seat the bullet approx 1/8 longer than it should be. When all cases are loaded screw the die into the normal position. Take a round with the bullet seated out 1/8 inch and run a small amount of sealant on the first 1/8 inch of bullet protruding from the case neck. Seat the bullet to the proper depth and wipe of any excess sealant. Stand loaded round in a loading block for the sealant to dry. After seating all bullets take your seating die apart and clean up any sealant that may be in the die. The reason I believe G&R sealant is better is it seems to "flow " better around the primer and around the bullet. It seems that nail polish is formulated not to flow. Hope this helps

A piece of internet lore I've read somewhere, i.e., not tried is to dissolve some Varget or other single base powder in acetone and use that. You've basically made some nitrocellulose laquer and you can thin it to your hearts desire.

But I've also read as long as you're not storing your ammo under 10 ft of water, you're wasting your time.

I did this to several thousand primed cases over Thanksgiving and Christmas. I had to push the shoulder down by about .006 inches. I used nail polish to keep the cooking spray I used for lube from ruining the primer. I started with clear, but soon found it was too clear to see if I'd done that case when I had 100 of them lined up on a "screwboard" I'd screwed up just for this purpose. I went to white nail polish later. It's much, much easier to see than clear. To make it look nice, you can use a bit of Scotchbrite pad to clean off the head. This will leave just a thin line around the primer. I fired a few of the clear ones. The indentation was not as deep as I think I remember from this gun, but the rounds did go off...

My screwboard for mass case lubing...





The grid allows for 594 cases to be lubed at once, but I ran out of drywall nails at around 100. They'd be too close to pick up anyway, because the grids are about 3/4-inch apart. If I had it to do over again, I'd draw the grid at one inch on a 12 x 12 piece of 3/4-inch ply. Screws are 2-1/2 inches long with the super-pointy tips ground off a skosh to keep from poking myself. I use cheap Walmart cooking spray to lube my .223 cases. Just a quick spritz is all you need. To clean the board, I just spray brake cleaner on it once it gets really greasy and slimy. A quick blast does it in two seconds. Best to drill the holes with a drill press to keep the screws vertical. They tend to take on a bit of angle if you do it freehand...

quote:

Originally posted by TripletDad:
A piece of internet lore I've read somewhere, i.e., not tried is to dissolve some Varget or other single base powder in acetone and use that.

I have never been able to dissolve any smokeless powder in acetone. or denatured alcohol, or MEK either.