Powder coating bullets

[daboone]

That will happen tomorrow when LarryW, a fellow member here and I go out to play. I hear his wife is fixing a beef stew dinner after we return.
I'll be doing some more handgun and rifle bullets today and testing them as well.

[62chevy]

Can't leave stuff like that out side in West Virginia if the weather don't get it the varmints will. but those bullets look real good.

[daboone]

Actually the the actual electrical gadgets, pot and stuff are stored in a ugly tin shed out of the elements when not in use. But then the weather here today is a high of 84 and currently the humidity is 22% perfect for casting and PCing. Rain is rare in Phoenix.

[scotland]

Great pics and you forgot princess! Now my dumb question? Other than pretty why else to powder coat bullets?

[daboone]

Good question and let me assure you my 450 ain't gonna get lonely. In all honesty the reason I had to try powder coating was simply because it is just another way to do things. I'm old and and have the time to experiment. But I do have a couple of guns like my Mosin and the Carcano 6.5 that have larger bore than the molds I have. ( Even the .314 NEI ain't cutting it for the Mosin.) So I've been told that PC bullets add diameter and don't lead...... we'll see tomorrow if I get everything ready or then in the next few days if I don't.

[guncheese]

Now my dumb question? Other than pretty why else to powder coat bullets?

really just another type of cast bullet lube

and yup you can play sizing games

and you can run a softer alloy without trouble

and if you tumble them to coat the base of the bullet then you may be able to use them in the "no exposed lead" indoor ranges

ohh and its cheap

and yup they are purdy

i should do a A/B comparison over the chrono
some say faster some say slower

[Maximumbob54]

Why powder coat? It makes shooting cast bullets nearly as pain free as they are going to get. There is zero worry about leading the bore or anything else. That's my biggest reason. Even when I match the alloy hardness with the lube stiffness I would still from time to time see leading in one gun if not another. And wow if you do mess up and use the wrong lead in the wrong batch of bullets then it's lead lined bore city. It's a nice added bonus that the burning wax lube smoke is now gone. Polygonal bores like IN H&K and Glock seem to love coated bullets. But in the end it's really just another option to use in the process.

[Maximumbob54]

.44 special 200gr RNFP coated in gloss black

[Maximumbob54]

I've been meaning to try this for a while now. The Hi-Tek guys bake the coating and while they are still pretty warm they take the tray full of curing coating and then shake them. I've always baked a minimum of bullets to prevent too many of them from touching too much or they glue together once cured. Hmmm...



This is more than twice as many as I usually bake at a time. So while wearing my casting gloves I gave the tray a good shake until it looked like they were all moving freely and then set them back down to finish cooling. Also like Hi-Tek I run them through two shake and bakes. Before everyone rages about the time this takes... Realize that I shook up the bullets for half a minute, dumped them, baked for fifteen minutes, washed up and made a sandwich while I was waiting, shook the tray, let them set in front of the fan for a few minutes while I picked up the garage a little, tumbled in PC and repeated. Not another sandwich though, I went and started typing this post. And then I did a second batch the same way. Now from a short batch of 320 (strange it was exactly that much) I have them ready to load after an actual maybe ten minutes on hand. Not counting running them through the sizing die of course.



All sized up and ready for the LNL AP to get running again.

[62chevy]

I just cast up over 2000 45 bullets and about 400 rifle. Time to do the shack and back thing.