Powder Coating Lead Bullets

[bkoenig]

That's right, or to think of it another way, the powdercoat replaces the lube on a plain cast bullet.

Plain lead will foul the bore if it's not protected from rubbing off on the bore.  Shooting plain lubed cast bullets is cheap works fine with minimal fouling if you have your alloy/lube/powder combination all figured out.  The downside is that you typically can't push it as fast as a jacketed bullet, and the lube tends to be smokey. 

I tried the coated bullets out today and they seemed to shoot just as well as the cast bullets I've been using.  No real difference in accuracy that I could tell, and no smoke.  I'm pleased with the results so far, but I was really just banging away and not doing any serious testing.  I would like to try the same load side by side but with one cast and one coated, and see how they differ through the chronograph.  Most guys report a few extra FPS with coated bullets.

I haven't had a chance to strip the gun down and check it for fouling.  Hopefully I'll get to that tonight.

[bkoenig]

Another update - I finally got around to cleaning the barrel after shooting the coated bullets, and there was very little fouling.  A couple of passes with a brush and then a patch and it was perfectly clean. 

Next up will be to try the .311 bullets for my 7.62x54R and some of the big 245gr subsonics for my .300 Blackout.  Probably will be next week before I get a chance to work on those.

[GreyGeek]

Cool!  That solves the "when Copper is as expensive as Gold" problem!  (Which seems to be rapidly approaching!)

[bkoenig]

Yeah, now I need an easily to melt and low cost lead replacement in case they ban that....

[GreyGeek]

Yeah, now I need an easily to melt and low cost lead replacement in case they ban that....

Serious problem.   
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/29/lead-doerun-smelter-idAFL2E8HT76620120629
The EPA is shutting down the LAST Lead smelting plant in the US, run by Doe Run,  at Herculaneum,  Missouri,  at the end of this year.
With no smelting plants inside our boarders ALL of our used battery cores are now being sent to Mexico and other countries for recycling.
The Progressives are saying that Doe Run, the company which the EPA has been hounding for years,  is shipping jobs out of the country for greed and profit.

[unfy]

Another update - I finally got around to cleaning the barrel after shooting the coated bullets, and there was very little fouling.  A couple of passes with a brush and then a patch and it was perfectly clean. 

Next up will be to try the .311 bullets for my 7.62x54R and some of the big 245gr subsonics for my .300 Blackout.  Probably will be next week before I get a chance to work on those.

\o/

[unfy]

So I made an attempt at finalizing jig last night.

It's a bed of nails - but the nails don't quite hold my 40s&w hollow points quite right.  So the idea was to slide some tubing over each of the nails.  At the end of the tubing would be a bit of lead formed in the shape of the hollow point cavity.

So...

* made a mold of the hollow point cavity in plaster of paris
* baked it for a few hours to drive out all moisture
* cut a bit of tubing
* notched tubing to get a better hold on lead
* heated up some solder with a butane torch and attempted it

Results:

While the cavity seems monstrous, and the tubing seems tiny and all of that kind of stuff - it's actually all quite tiny heh.  While it kind of worked - it won't really work out that well.

I'm gonna fiddle with the tubing and some stuff to see if I can come up with a better way of having the bullets sit on the tubing / nails.

[unfy]

New jig pictured below.

Moved to 1.5" on centers, reducing the bullet count per tray to 43 - but since it goes pretty quick I don't mind really.  The nail bed was 1 inch centers and looked like it might have had some shadowing problems.

The sheath + cast-lead tips didn't work out at all, sadly.

Now if this works out, after a few bakes, I'd like to make something with holes / strips / etc.  Basically for powder reclamation (so that it doesn't stay on the jig and get baked to it)

And no - i've not tried to powder coat in below zero weather

[unfy]

I've been trying to dig up where I found the info of folks that were dipping lures or something into a liquified powder coat solution... but haven't found it yet.


Did see this though:



So...

A fluid bed (aka air bubbling through dry powder to make a haze at the bottom) ...

Preheat the work piece

Dip hot piece in the fluid bed, powder haze sticks / melts to it

Later you bake the piece to set it.


A jig where you hang bullets ?  A bit freely.

A trough shaped fluid bed ?

Heat up a row of bullets in this hanging jig in powder coat oven.  Set it over the trough so the bullets get a coat.  Set jig aside or put back on tray to bake.

I dunno if a "melt some holes into aquarium tubing" will be a good-enough manifold.  Prolly some proper tubing and proper holes / manifold stuff is in order.  Still cheap and easy to do.

I don't see why this won't work.  It eliminates the mess of powder coating via spray gun.  It might eliminate some of the waste (powdercoating the jig). But it does take longer (technically) since you gotta cook the bullets twice.  Still gotta design and build the trough & jigs.

This seems like the right way to go (outside of a liquid base).

[unfy]

Looking a bit more over the 'state of things' ... there's a few ideas being thrown around out there.


Airsoft BB shake and bake.

The idea: big batch of airsoft bb's, powdercoat powder, some bullets.  Shake it up vigorously, thus coating the bullets (and the airsoft bb's but who cares).  Afterwards you dump the container out and pick out the bullets with some tweezers / needle nose pliers / some nitrile gloves with powdercoat on finger tips.

You'll need enough airsoft bb's so that bullets don't really touch each other a lot and to generate a static charge in the lead.  Apparently the container should be polypropylene (5 PP in recycling mark).

Plenty of tumbling options appear to be out there, including some powered ones (cordless drills, etc).


Other ideas:

1 part powder, 3 parts solvent.  Bunch of bullets, shake to coat.  Dump out on some 1/4" wire mesh screen and bake.

Some folks use acetone, others laquer thinner.  I'm inclined to think the latter is better off.  I will probably try this method soon.


Fluid bed - I still like this idea as you can better control where the powder goes etc.  Buuutttt... hmmmm.

[unfy]

Soooo spent a fair bit of the afternoon casting some buckshot.

Also have the supplies to test out the lacquer thinner (LT) tumble powder coating.

Went through about 25# of lead and decided to form the wire cloth basket and stuff for the bake part of things.  After each ingot (and the next one was melting), I'd do some work on getting ready for the PC.


I decided to use a 1QT HDPE (2 recycle symbol) paint can as a my tumble container.

1 tbs of powder coat.  maybe 3-4 tbs of LT. To 50 bullets.

Yeah that was way too much of both.

Added another 3/4 of a tbs of powder coat and another 30 bullets or so.  Still not great.  See the first pic.  At least the PC was settling on the bullets and looking encouraging.

Decided to start cutting the buckshot off the sprue.  After every handful of buckshot, I'd agitate the PC stuff.  See the second pic.

Well... 2 or 3 hours later, I finished with the buckshot and... yeah, the PC was still wayyyyyy runny.  Decided to hold the paint can at like 60 degrees and just slowly turn it constantly (tumble!).  That helped speed up the process considerably.

I'm still tumbling.  Will get more pics later.


Immediate lesson learned: buy the big paint measure / mixer thing from hardware store.  Less waste of PC, lets you tumble easier possibly, and the big air cavity and mouth aids in evaporation.

[unfy]

It thickened up as expected, and appeared to coat as expected.

Dumped them on the wire cloth, separated them out a bit with knife.  Dunno if moving them at that point in time was correct or not.

There was a fair amount of waste as shown by the left over in the pan.  The thing in the middle is some of the sprue from casting the buckshot.

Gave it a cook for 20-25min @ 400f.

The concern I've had about the liquid tumble + wire cloth is realized here. It pooled up around the wire cloth - which makes taking them off take a bit of effort - but more importantly, there is some nasty blemishes.  On some of them, it's minor.  On others, not so much.

I'm not too concerned about it.  As a first test with ALOT of mistakes... I expected a pile of poopy.

But, it's encouraging.  And so far less messy than using the gun.

I need to figure out timing of everything a bit better, and also a more proper PC to LT ratio.  Also, I didn't have any tray beneath the wire cloth, so I imagine the bullets right above the elements took a pounding.

Would I do this with any kind of 'performance' ammo ? No.  Pistol plinking... sure.

[tstuart34]

I've been using a ceramic tile in my kydex oven. If you pre heat the tile as a heat sink it helps even things out a bit in your oven and keeps things from having hot spots from the elements

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

[unfy]

I just realized bkoenig already did the lacquer tumble!

Woo!

Way for me to read own threads

[unfy]

I am about to start doing this en-masse.  Or work up to doing this em-masse to burn through a huge stockpile of lead that I have.

My immediate intention is to give the lacquer thinner thing another attempt.

Has anyone else given this a try, and have suggestions before I start experimenting again ?  I have every intention of powder coating hundred(s) of pounds of cast bullets ....

[unfy]

Been so busy

And lots of medical probs

Anyway - attempting some more powder coat. Solvent route.

1 QT Home Despot paint mixer cup

50 bullets (.40 - 175gr)
1 tablespoon lacquer thinner
1 teaspoon horror freight red powder

First batch is cooking now. Took a bit longer than expected to gel / evaporate things and seems a bit thick. But better than ancient attempts.

Gonna up it to 60 75 bullets on next batch.


addenum: yeah, 60 bullets was looking really thick as well.  i think cause it's from a fresh mixing cup to one that already had LT in it.  So I put it to 75 and it was still thick-ish.

Don't have pics just yet, but the coat is... well... plinking round style ugly.  It's better than my first batch, but worse than bkoenig's.

I'll do 1tbsp LT, 1/2tsp pc, 75 bullets after the current 75 are done cooking.  75 also happens to be about the max bullets my tiny toaster oven can hold.

[shooter]

 From what ive read, even runs in the coating can affect accuracy. how do you dry them?

[unfy]

From what ive read, even runs in the coating can affect accuracy. how do you dry them?

Dry ? I just swirl / shake them in the mixer cup until there's no more LT puddle and everything is very tacky looking.  From there it's on to a wire mesh, manipulated with a nail to not be touching, then baked.  No real "dry" time.

For pistol plinking rounds, I've not really seen any problems.  Granted, I've not had alot of time at the range with them.

I think bkoenig has said he's given up powder coating either all bullets or given up on rifle bullets due to accuracy concerns.

Slightly off topic: there was a youtube video... I can't seem to find it at the moment.  They took your typical cone / spitzer bullet and bent the tip.  With a second bullet they filed a smalish notch in the base.  Turns out the notch in the base was far more "evil" when it came to affecting the bullet trajectory.  I wish I could find the video.... but alas, no such luck atm.


Is powder coat for match rounds ? Nope. Just like factory plated rounds wouldn't be.  A properly jacketed rifle round or perhaps a nicely cast lead round for revolvers...

I'm using the powder coating only for pistol plinking rounds due to how inexpensive it is and how it has stopped leading in my Sig's barrel.  With some bullets from MBC, I was able to work up a load that was "okay", but not the bees knees.  Powder coating has left my barrel nice and clean.

Don't get me wrong, I've debated just getting a lubrisizer - but - PC has been fine for me.


275 bullets powdercoated today.  Also pushed them through a lee press mounted sizing die (SFG: the little light Lee press from yesteryear!).  I believe 75 bullets, 1 tablespoon LT, and 1/2 teaspoon of powder coat powder is what is gonna work out nicely for me.

For what it's worth, using a cheap stamped metal measuring spoon set heh.


Last thought - I do wonder if there was some way to do a LT vapor bath or something to help uniform the coating after the bullets have been placed on a rack (or something).  Something to kinda gently re-"melt" the gel before you go about baking them. 

I've done the vapor bath thing with acetone when making home made computer pcb's....

All of this is prolly too much work for 'plinking' rounds

[jschenck]

Interesting way to coat bullets with very little equipment

[unfy]

Not bad.

Tempting to try.

I'll admit to being happy with the solvent method.