I usually PC with the HF gun but after reading so much about the tumbling method I figured I would give it a try. I was looking at my tumbler with the lid on and decided just to drill a hole in the bowl and wing nut it right to the top bolt. It tumbles pretty well and I think it will work fine for PC'ing with the black airsoft bb's. May need to use a bowl with a lid though.
"If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month."
Theodore Roosevelt
I like the idea. I guess you just have to watch the weight with raising the center of gravity.
Thanks.
Dave
My feedback thread: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...raight-shooter!
You WILL need a lid. Dust will be in clouds. Not good for your lungs.
Manual tumbling only works for most of us very well. I keep my vib for cleaning boolits.
bangerjim
Yeah, if the manual tumbling is working well I'll probably go with that.
"If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month."
Theodore Roosevelt
I'm thinking of the smaller square plastic sealable top food savers. Just big enough for one or two of those plastic cartridge holders ( you know, what your cartridges are stacked in from the factory.) I would want something you could turn your boolits nose down in and then add the pc/bb's/whatever. If it worked, you could dump them out base down already stacked straight (use a pc of cardboard with some foil on it and leave the foil.) I'm gonna try it when I find the right container/ boolit holder. We might not have to handle the boolits after coating this way.
Good luck with that! I would think those little plastic "racks" will scrape lots of powder off the boolits as you move and dump them. Remember that powder is held on "by the skin if it's teeth" with a small static charge. Pretty much ANYTHING will scrape/knock it off and give you uneven garbage coatings.
But try it. I have no problem with picking up boolits with hemostats and getting perfect coats.
banger
When doing the wet piglet method, I load the bullets in the hard plastic boxes from the drying tray to load on my oven tray. I can put 3 or 4 depending on the box size. I put those on a small piece of plywood, place the oven tray on top, flip the whole shebang over and the bullets are all lined up nice and pretty. You have to make sure the are dry to the touch. But I can't see how it would work at all with dry tumble.
If you can shake them in the containers maybe neat but you would have lots of powder on the plastic holder.
But give it a try. I'm sure someone said, dry tumble PC, naw can't be done.
Go for it! The next big advancement is just one new idea away. Mebbe you got it!
KE4GWE - - - - - - Colt 1860, it just feels right.
I had about 2500, SWC's and TC's that where coated with HF reddish brown that I recoated with Cardinal gloss red and Tiger neon green.
at first I could not get good coverage with the ASBB BK,.
So with the red I was looking around for something smaller to add to the media to help keep the boolits from banging each other.
I tried adding some corncob, just because I had some.
I tumbled as usual and the CC settled down near the bottom and mixed with the powder. The boolits seemed to settle there to.
Now to the point, I put my palm sander in the vice upside down with the rubber jaws, put a paper plate over the pad and held my #5 container over that.
It worked great, because the container is semi clear I could see everything inside was boiling around like crazy.
Now when I opened up the container I had to pour off some BB's to get to the boolits but after tapping the side of the container with the pliers and boolit to knock the access powder off, I had much better coverage.
So try the sander, just remember to put something between the pad and the container or things will start melting pretty quick.
I switched to a Glad #5 bowl wing nutted to the top of the tumbler and the coverage is awesome. After running it for about 10 minutes the PC is stuck on the boolits.
"If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month."
Theodore Roosevelt
I just picked up a Harbor Freight tumbler, the small one. They had it on sale and I found a 25% coupon online.
been using it to PC and I like it. Some of the others swear by the CoolWhip bowl.
I like the tumbler because, if one gets a bit much powder knocked off, just toss it back and let it run a little bit longer.
I find it gives a very consistent thin coating.
Do, or do not.
There is no try.
Yoda
Originally Posted by 500MAG
I haven't ever PCed anything, so I'm just talking out my @ss, but how about dropping bullets, bbs and PC in a zip lock bag into your tumbler? Just a thought. Has anybody tried it?
I have everything ready to go, including the big cookie box from Costco which the container happens to be made out of the #5 plastic. Just need to replace my thermometer that died. Never casted without a thermometer. Has anyone ever tried one of those handheld infrared temperature measuring devices instead of the lead thermometer ?
Shoot'em If You Got'em...
just put a woman's shower cap over it
I personally haven't but I've read about plenty that have tried. Long story short, it doesn't work.
My feedback thread: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...raight-shooter!
Thanks for the confirmation. I'll try one from Rotometals instead of another Lyman
**************************************************
Just ordered one from Rotometals and added 20# of Lyman #2 lead to get the free shipping. LOL, that would be really bad if they ship in the same box together...
Last edited by Bonz; 06-28-2014 at 05:35 AM.
I really like the idea of using the tumbler. Since airsoft bullets would just walk to the top I wonder if lead balls would help or maybe lead shot.
I tired my tumbler and have to say it's the best method I've used for dry tumbling so far. I also added some steel shot and maybe 30 airsoft bb's, some bullets come out heavily coated but I just smack them against the side of the tumbler and all the extra stuff seems to come off.
Seems to me that the coating is beat on and doesn't come off as easy when transferring to the pan.
I was using habor freight red and got 97% to 100% coverage on the first coat. I wonder if Habor freights black would work with this method.
Last edited by Thompsoncustom; 06-26-2014 at 02:15 PM.
Forget it. "Black body radiation" is the reason.....remember your HS physics class? IR likes to look at dark surfaces. Your molten lead and aluminum molds are bright and shiny and will not read right.....a mile off.
I have NEVER used a thermometer to cast and get perfect boolits. It all comes from the touch and feel of experience, I guess. Just cast away. you will know if the temp is too high or low. I use a Lee 4-20 and set the dial around 6.5 all the time.
Use your IR for checking your AC registers for the correct air temp drop and things like that. They work great!
bangerjim
NO.....NO....NO. Covered MANY times in the stickies.
HF black has a matte agent in it that will NOT coat using BBDT. Kills the slight static charge built up in the container. I works GREAT with the ESPC gun....the way they stuff is made to be applied. I love my Ninja flat black boolits.
The ones I tried with BBDT ended up about <20% coated if at all. And very lumpy and uneven. Stick with red.
Buy a HF gun if you want black. Or some gloss black from a powder monger.
bangerjim
Posting Permissions
| BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
| BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
| BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
| C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
| HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
| PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
| LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
| GC | Gas Check |
Reply With Quote
