Powder Coating Boolits

[unfy]

Care to elaborate on the heat treating ?

The 400F PC cook is basically going to undo any water quenching ya might do (ie: it'll annealing the bullets as far as I know). I've not got a hardness tester to prove such a thing... so... grain of salt.

And, I'm not sure if ya can or should quench the bullets out of the oven from powder coating.

[DangerousDrummer]

I quenched one batch and it didn't seem to hurt them, but can't say it helped them either. I was more concerned with size than hardness, so I melted them all down and started over. Resizing before coating. One thing I have found is that the coating wears better if allowed to cure a few days before seating. Or it might be my imagination...

[docstodd]

i thought I would post my experence with PC. i shot about about 50 rounds of PC bullets through my ar 15 no leading I haven't been able to check the gas system yet but the barrel looks clean. I would guess the bullets to be going in the 2500 fps range. the method I used to powder coat is to put a single layer of boolits in a tupperware bowl and spray them with some spray adhesive roll around and spray again. then dump them into a bowl with a little PC powder in it and roll it around untill they are coated. then I put them on a fine mesh grid and cook them. accuracy firing offhand at 30 yards with a peepsite was about 3 inches

[bstone5]

docstodd

Your method of applying the powder coat is very interesting.

Your method could result in a totally powder coated covered bullet.

What brand of spray adhesive was used in applying the powder coat.

I would like to give your method a try in coating pistol bullets.

Thanks for the info.

[bmiller]

Docstodd, could you post some pictures of the finished product? Did the mesh leave any marks on the projectiles? I am assuming you installed a gas check before coating? Thank you

[popper]

Finally tested PC'd 30-30 Flat Base. Tested completely covered and exposed nose. RD311175 that drops 180. Used 17 gr 2400 & 21 gr. LeverE. Completely covered wins, hands down. Looks like the light LeverE wins too. All had a bit of dacron. 2% Sb, sulfur toughened, oven HT, 4 mo old. Target @ 50.
PC'd 308 needs better alloy but was better than uncoated. 41 gr h4895, completely covered except the GC. Same alloy.
Attachment 68447
Looked at previous targets with full load of Lever powder. Group size is the same, POI is ~1" higher with FB vs GC. All the CBs from the same batch. Now I can eliminate the GC & 1/3 of powder, a reasonable savings for paper punching. Oh, I did 2 5 rnd round-robin with the same results, just didn't save the other target.

[bmiller]

What would you estimate the velocity at Popper?

[popper]

Don't have a crony but others have said ~1400 with the 2400. Lvr is lower impact so I assume faster. Scope is zerod for 150 factory corelok @ 100

[docstodd]

bstone
i have used two kinds of spray addhesive one that my wife had in her craft stuff. then when that ran out i just ran over to the fabric store and got what they had. right now can't remember the brands but both seamed to work. i even think the addhesive contributes some coating on the bullet that bakes on with the PC.
bmiller
i will try and post some pictures of the finshed product. they are not very purdy but seam to work. i used a freechex 3 to make the gas check. I sized and applyed the gas check before coating

[docstodd]

bmiller
forgot to add the mesh dosn't seam to leave any marks

[Copper75]

My second attempt. First ones didn't stick well but then I noticed the machine wasn't turned on...duh.

[Russel Nash]

Don't feel bad. I'll sometimes forget to reattach the ground clamp while trying to weld. Ummn....errr... Duh!

[popper]

Did more this morning with the modified rifle rig, Of 70 I got 15 incomplete coverage, due to minor shadowing, still having trouble shooting the powder up to the bottom, hard to get a good angle with the gun. Didn't drop a single one. Mounted ~ 15 deg angle so gravity helps keep them in place, hooked on the lube groove. Got to rework the connection winding wire through the hole failed after a couple times. Oh, wood doesn't burn but it sure will warp with heat. So far I've done ~ 1700 40 & 30 cal. and still have ~ 1 1/2" of powder left in the jug.
Attachment 68615
I PC'd my 40SW M plug, brought it up from 0.3975 to 0.3995. I think that will last longer than the poly paint I put on the RCBS plug. edit: works for expansion, not for flaring. I'll flare and then expand. Probably would work with the RCBS style but I couldn't get that one to take any powder.

[DangerousDrummer]

Now available in 5 new colors!

[ricklaut]

This may be a dumb question, but with powder coated boolits, does lead hardness matter anymore (at least for "average" loads)?

Much of the focus on hardness related to eliminating leading. Powder coating has eliminated leading in a pistol that leaded like crazy with the same boolit - but wasn't PC'd.

I'm pretty new at this, though - am I missing something? Thoughts?

[ItZaLLgooD]

Shot my first USPSA match of the year today. All of my 40 S+W ammo was PC'd. 5.3 grains of Unique under a TL175-401SWC PC'd with the Harbor Freight powder running through a Sig 226 Tacops. I haven't shot over a chrono yet but I should be getting close to major power factor.

I will definitely be sticking with the PC for my bulk handgun ammo. It has a lot of benefit without a whole lot of extra work.

[popper]

does lead hardness matter anymore

I think yes, just as fit does. So far I think I can run hotter loads with the same alloy, with equal or better accuracy. It isn't the 'Easy Button', but does make it easier to find the right combination, lets you concentrate on the other factors. I cleaned the 30-30 yesterday, no leading but lots of black residue that took Ed's Red & Hoppe's 9 to clean out. Must be my eyes as I think I still need to clean it again, I see a wavy pattern in the MG rifling: the bore is nice and shiny.

[2wheelDuke]

My second attempt. First ones didn't stick well but then I noticed the machine wasn't turned on...duh.

I had that problem once too. I only have the machine on when I'm ready to spray, just in case. One time I forgot to turn it back on, I only figured out when I realized that none of the powder was sticking. At least it was easy enough to recover and try again

[Russel Nash]

I remember back within the first 10 pages or so of this thread somebody brought up small parts like shoe eyelets or boot speedlacers getting powder coated in bulk.

So the first thing I came across was "dip spinning". But I don't think that would apply to us powder coating experimenters, unless there was a way to spin and bake simultaneously, without all the boolits all clumped together.

But I don't think that is it.

So I kept looking and found this article from 2000 about a company called MetoKote:

http://www.pfonline.com/articles/coa...;s-perspective

And this is the part that trips me up:

The conformal coating process fluidizes the parts to be coated in air so that all surfaces are coated with micron-sized droplets of the coating.

I think the same person who brought this up originally said it was basically a big tub or vat of that powder, with air hoses blowing compressed air up through the powder making it boil or bubble and the little parts get dropped in from up top. Then a conveyor picks them up out of the tub and then through an oven for the finish to get baked on.

I am left wondering two things:

1. How is the room/building this vat is in not covered with the powder, everywhere?

2. How does the conveyor not end up knocking some of powder off before it gets baked on?

[Russel Nash]

Ahh... Yeah, the term or phrase I am looking for is "fluid bed". It seems like a lot of anglers/fisherman like to powder coat their own lures. So this is where I am at right now:

http://www.google.com/search?q=how+t...&client=safari