Ammunition & Hand Loading > Cartridge and Shotshell reloading
Powder Coating Lead Bullets
unfy:
--- Quote from: bkoenig on September 12, 2013, 12:21:24 PM ---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.
--- End quote ---
\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 :P
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.
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