Cracked the PC Code

[bersaguy]

I think I have finally found a method for powder coating bullets that's going to work for me. After some lackluster attempts, looks like this works

1. ¼ cup of powder (Eastwood Ford Light Blue) with 1 cup of bullets into the tumbler for 20 min
2. Preheat toaster oven to 400°F
3. Ball up a sheet of non stick aluminum foil and spread back out into bottom of wire basket. The krinkled foils allows the bullets to only have contact in a few points rather than a line down the side of them
4. Spread bullets out on foil so they are not, or just barely touching each other...put next batch into tumbler
5. Bake for 25 minutes
6. Take out of oven, let cool to between 150° and 120°
7. Start breaking bullets apart and pull up off of foil.
8. Repeat

The krinkeled foil I picked up from a YouTube video, and is really slick. I found breaking up the bullet clumps and removing from the foil when they're still warm, but not smoking hot lets the coating to solidify enough to not be marred up, but not so much that they don't want to separate. And doing smallish batches where they're not creating huge clusters is the way to go, I was running about 75 158grainers at a time. In between batches I had enough time to size the previous batch, and load about 25 rounds. Still get a few with goobers, but most are still shootable. Reject rate has gone waaaaay down, and the majority came out about as well as I could have hoped for.

The foil trick was a game changer for me

Most came out perfect

The ones with goobers from sticking together are pretty minor, these here should shoot just fine

 

[AJC1]

I use the same powder and bake at 400 for 20 min. I stand them up and the only drawback is getting all the foil off the base. Free gas check??? I had considered trying to punch them through the foil for just that reason but have no idea if it would be good or bad. My smash test I get good bonding at the shorter time. The come out of the oven into a bucket for quench.

 

[bersaguy]

I was doing the same thing, and the results were good, exceptfor the foil on the base. And then a few would get excess powder coat pooling around the base. Not really a problem, just a bit annoying. The non stick foil helped but didn't eliminate the gas check effect. I find the few extra minutes cooking helped to give me more consistency across the batch, my toaster oven is an $18 wally world special, so it has hot and cold spots. I did the water quench on my first few attempts. Probably is fine, I was cooking way too many at once and as a result was probably not going long enough, wound up having poor adhesion and lots of bare spots. 20 minutes would probably work fine now with the smaller batches. I did find that when I did water quench, my bullets were noticeably harder. I just like not having to manipulate each one now and can just dump them right onto the foil. Speeds up the process considerably

 

[AJC1]

I was doing the same thing, and the results were good, exceptfor the foil on the base. And then a few would get excess powder coat pooling around the base. Not really a problem, just a bit annoying. The non stick foil helped but didn't eliminate the gas check effect. I find the few extra minutes cooking helped to give me more consistency across the batch, my toaster oven is an $18 wally world special, so it has hot and cold spots. I did the water quench on my first few attempts. Probably is fine, I was cooking way too many at once and as a result was probably not going long enough, wound up having poor adhesion and lots of bare spots. 20 minutes would probably work fine now with the smaller batches. I did find that when I did water quench, my bullets were noticeably harder. I just like not having to manipulate each one now and can just dump them right onto the foil. Speeds up the process considerably

I'll tell you for sure when there all stood up and you mess up and they fall over makes you want to scream.

 

[forrest r]

I'm a John Deere green man myself

 

[CptnAwesome]

Glad you found something that works for you. Just curious. What's the purpose of the powder coating?

 

[Riomouse911]

Nice stuff! I ordered a bunch of cheap 125 gr LFP years ago with lube that crumbled and flaked from the groove. I haven’t loaded them because the lube is so crappy, but I think that I can rescue them using your PC method.

Looks like I’ll need to grab a toaster oven and some powder and get to it.

Stay safe.

 

[bersaguy]

Glad you found something that works for you. Just curious. What's the purpose of the powder coating?

So the powder coating takes the place of traditional lube for cast lead bullets. Typically a waxy lube goes in the grooves at the base of the bullet, but with powder coating, that's not necessary. Plus, the lead is fully encapsulated in a poly coat, so no lead in the barrel, no shmoo sticking to the exposed portion of the bullet, and no lead oxidation. And in my personal experience with the 38 specials I powder coated, I picked up an additional 100fps over the traditionaly lubed bullets from the same mold.

 

[DukeConnor]

Glad you found something that works for you. Just curious. What's the purpose of the powder coating?

Pretty

 

[DukeConnor]

I use a hardware screen that is big enough for the air soft bb's to fall through.

 

[Riomouse911]

So the powder coating takes the place of traditional lube for cast lead bullets. Typically a waxy lube goes in the grooves at the base of the bullet, but with powder coating, that's not necessary. Plus, the lead is fully encapsulated in a poly coat, so no lead in the barrel, no shmoo sticking to the exposed portion of the bullet, and no lead oxidation. And in my personal experience with the 38 specials I powder coated, I picked up an additional 100fps over the traditionaly lubed bullets from the same mold.

Bersaguy, when you have a goobered up bullet or two how do you recoat them so they’re shootable?
Stay safe.

 

[bersaguy]

Bersaguy, when you have a goobered up bullet or two how do you recoat them so they’re shootable?
Stay safe.

If they just have a little booger, or just a fleck of lead showing, they should shoot just fine. The lumps get fixed when sizing before loading and a little bare spot shouldn't make much of a difference. Now if there's a line going right down the side, or a bit that has peeled, or a large bare spot, multiple bare spots...I just toss them in the pot and melt them down again.

 

[Riomouse911]

If they just a a little booger, or just a fleck of lead showing, they should shoot just fine. The lumps get fixed when sizing before loading and a little bare spot shouldn't make much of a difference. Now if there's a line going right down the side, or a bit that has peeled, or a large bare spot, multiple bare spots...I just toss them in the pot and melt them down again.

I gotcha you’re casting them .
Does the coating on the bullets tossed into the pot contaminate the lead or does it float up to the surface to be skimmed off?
Stay safe.

 

[AJC1]

I gotcha you’re casting them .
Does the coating on the bullets tossed into the pot contaminate the lead or does it float up to the surface to be skimmed off?
Stay safe.

Melts and fluxes off like any other contamination

 

[bersaguy]

Yup, stinks to high heaven, but just squeeze the plastic jackets against the side of the pot, and skim off like flux

 

[.38 Special]

Well that all seems much easier than just running them through the lubrisizer.

 

[AJC1]

Well that all seems much easier than just running them through the lubrisizer.

Well it's a lot faster and less sticky.

 

[.38 Special]

Well it's a lot faster and less sticky.

Judging by this thread I'm not at all sure it's any faster. If "sticky" is an issue then I guess you are on to something.

But I am old and crotchety and have no more patience for "new". If it works for you than I give you joy of it and will leave you alone. I'm still going to make fun, of course, but you shouldn't take it personally!

 

[AJC1]

Judging by this thread I'm not at all sure it's any faster. If "sticky" is an issue then I guess you are on to something.

But I am old and crotchety and have no more patience for "new". If it works for you than I give you joy of it and will leave you alone. I'm still going to make fun, of course, but you shouldn't take it personally!

Oh I just love a good conversation. The reality for me is I can powdercoat for the cost of powder. If I had a traditional system I would use that no issue. Free toaster oven and off and running. Between lube gas checks and the sizer it's a considerable investment. I was going to pan lube and size and I still might. This hobby has so many options, and I plan to experience as many as I can.

 

[FROGO207]

If your pre lubed bullets had wax on them you need to get it off first. I boil them in hot water and let it cool. Skim off the hardened wax and dry. I also spray a layer of silicone shoe treatment on the tin foil before placing the bullets. They dont stick then.

 

[bersaguy]

Well that all seems much easier than just running them through the lubrisizer.

Ha!...exactly. Well it's easier than pan lubing, which is the other method I have available to me at the moment. And that's not bad, but just messy and time consuming. Looked into getting a lubesizer, can't seem get one for love or money right now

Edit: actually, the way I was doing it, pan lubing was bad, the product was good, but I don't have a proper cookie cutter so I was just pushing my bullets out of the cake. I had lube everywhere, on the bases, smeared down the sides, in my hair, up my.....well you get the idea. Went thru a lot of rags to say the least

 

[frankmako]

you can find good information over at the cast boolits site on powder coating. there are some small tricks you can learn to make your powder coated bullets better. since i started powder coating i have stopped lubing bullets.

some nice 357 mag bullets for my marlin 1894 cb that i use in nra lever action silhouette matches.
.

some nice 30 cal bullets for the marlin 336 cb used in nra lever action silhouette matches.

 

[jmorris]

Judging by this thread I'm not at all sure it's any faster.

It is another step vs sizing with wax lube, I don’t do it because it’s faster but a way to keep from wax lubing. I played with plating and various lubes and coatings over the years to get rid of the smoke of wax lubed bullets and have stuck with the Hi-tek coating the longest.

My process isn’t the fastest but it’s not too much work.

 

[AJC1]

It is another step vs sizing with wax lube, I don’t do it because it’s faster but a way to keep from wax lubing. I played with plating and various lubes and coatings over the years to get rid of the smoke of wax lubed bullets and have stuck with the Hi-tek coating the longest.

My process isn’t the fastest but it’s not too much work.

Lots of activity going on in that video, are you shooting that much or in production

 

[rsrocket1]

20 minutes??!!
I did it for 5 and with junky HF Red, my bullets were fully coated. I stopped using the vibrating tumbler because I noticed the red powder was noticeably darker after tumbling. To me that meant the lead on the bullet was getting powderized too and now I had a bunch of lead dust mixed with the powder. When the stuff went into the toaster oven, it all got bound together so that wasn't a problem but the left over powder now included a bunch of lead dust.

Luckily I live in an area that is usually very dry and highly prone to static electricity generation anyway so 2-3 minutes of shaking in a 1 gallon ziplock bag is enough to coat the bullets





I used to stand the bullets up one by one using Nitrile gloves but I found a much faster way. I place them nose down in a bullet tray, the kind that holds 50 factory loaded bullets in cardboard boxes. I then arrange the bullet trays on one toaster over tray, put another one over the top and flip. 200 bullets arranged nicely on a parchment paper lined oven tray.

I know some of you in humid conditions need more violent banging of the powder against the lead for adequate static electricity generation, but try to limit the length of banging and be very careful of the lead dust you may be generating with the vibratory tumblers. Maybe get a lead tester and test the powder before and after tumbling.