Powder Coating Lead Bullets

[unfy]

Dangerous: we'll do the Copper Plating talk in the copper plating thread


Had coffee with SFG, handed him some PC bullets for him to try in his Glock.  Says he'll load'em up and try'em next week.

Stopped by Moeller Arms and got to do a quick show and tell with the PC bullets with Rod, NENick, Koz, and.... I forget the other gentleman's name .  Impressions were good of course LOL.  Had to bail from there to quickly hit hardware store for some supplies.

Picked up a pound of 1.5" (i think) roofing nails.  Nice flat wide heads to make grabbing on to stuff easier etc.  Also grabbed a tiny 4 pack of 3/4" angle braces.  The angle braces won't be the final solution, they're far too expensive.  But they're quick and were 'cheap' ($1.97 ?) for a quick prototype.

I'll fold over the angle braces, one hole goes into a bolt, the other hole the nail.  folded over should get:



    ___
  ||   |
==||< ||-----
  |____|



Basically, take a thin sheet of metal (aluminum roof flashing ?)... cut it into a 1/4 inch by 1 inch strip or something, drill 3 holes along it's length.

Nail goes through center hole.

Fold over the other two holes to line up with center hole... bolt head goes through center hole.

The folds won't be a few right angles like in the ascii art, just straight out folds.  But ya get the idea.

Fun thing: how to get bolt head through two out of three holes .  Possibly use a couple nuts instead of a bolt head on this end, whatever, don't care.

Aluminum flashing is dirt cheap, snips to cut it are cheap, drilling holes in it is easy, etc.  The idea of using 3 holes instead of 2 is that the flashing probably isn't rigid enough with just a single bend holding the nail in place, i honestly dunno.  i do tend to over-engineer ****.

This should get a captive nail attached to the end of a bolt without requiring a welder.


NENick: i might take ya up on the welding offer.  I dunno yet.  I'm debating how to get the nails attached to sheet of metal.  Prolly a smaller-than-nail-diameter hole might do, i honestly dunno how much force is going to be applied to the bullet between nail heads.  Shouldn't require much as far as i know.  Of course, drilling holes in a single sheet and then backing it with another is a fair option

[unfy]

An example of what in the world I was talking about.... this contraption was built with a spring simply because I don't feel like drilling a hole at the moment for tapping.  In the morning.

Concerning this particular setup.. the hole drilled and the fact that it's a threaded bolt... doesn't really keep the 'needle' aligned that great.  how important keeping deflection to a minimum is.... i dunno.  but anyhoo.



Finding a cheap spring source, finding a way to keep it aligned better, i dunno.  It might have possibilities.

a 3 sided square (or square) bit of aluminum / steel.... with holes drilled straight through would keep the spring pin aligned nicer as far as i know...

moving along...

[bkoenig]

One of the guys on the Arfcom thread tried drilling a hole just slightly smaller than the driving band, and setting the bullets nose down in that.  He said that he got a nice sharp edge to the coating. 

[unfy]

One of the guys on the Arfcom thread tried drilling a hole just slightly smaller than the driving band, and setting the bullets nose down in that.  He said that he got a nice sharp edge to the coating. 

I could possibly go one size up on the holes I have and it'd be pretty darn close to the edge of the driving band. Still issues with cookie sheet flexing.


I'll be hitting hardware store tonight for some supplies.  Will also pick up a couple more cookie sheets to cut up.

Dunno if I'm gonna use the $3-$4 a bar galvanized chain link fence tension bars or drill out some aluminum bars.  I've got a bit of both.  Prolly the aluminum since it's softer.  Still gonna go with the bolts & tapped rods to apply the squeeze via nails on the bullets... simply because dunno a local cheap source of compression springs. 

This means drilling ~70 holes and tapping them, all for only the retention mechanism... not including mounting holes.  And then drilling another ~70 holes for the 'floor' set of nails.

Actually, I'll need to pick more aluminum, I need... 70 inches or so of it minimum, I've only got about 36.


So... either welding section angle iron stuffs with holes in it or shelving area.  Or can just get the aluminum / steel angle iron and drill own holes.  ($? depends)

Aluminum or galvanized steel bar ($3-$8).

Some flashing as cheap sheets of metal to cut up for U nuts.  3 fold U-nuts probably, but whatever. ($?? dunno. I know home depot has 100 packs of 4x6-ish sized things for $22... but surely i can avoid excess for cheaper, especially since each U nut is only 1/2 inch by 1.5 inches or so).

Should probably get another box of 6/32 or 8/32 bolts (will depend on which kind of wing nut i have more of at the moment).  $3-$6 for ~100 pack.

If needed, another box of wing nuts ($3-$6).

Two more cookie sheets ($1 ea).


Note:

http://www.allrite.com/FGCOM_WD.HTM

Prices are awesome.  The first spring in the list, 100 pack is like $13, 200 pack is $15.  Awesome.  At least, compared to other sources I've seen (haven't dug too much).

[GreyGeek]

Unfy,  you remind me of Thomas Edison!   

[unfy]

Unfy,  you remind me of Thomas Edison! 

Edison was far more determined and far brighter than I .


Went to hardware store (Menards).  Spent money I shouldn't have.

Decided to go with some small angle aluminum for both legs and retaining bars.

They had some 5"x7" 10-pack flashing things for $3.  Cheaper than $25 and more than enough (although price per piece is higher).

Extra bolts and wing nuts picked up just in case.  Similarly, some more 1-1/2 inch roofing nails.  I went with 1-1/2 because I believe that's the correct length for the heights my toaster oven can handle (5 inches or so).  If I'm wrong, I'll just have to grab shorter nails or bolts (and curse frequently).

And, for S&G, picked up a cheap-but-not-cheapest rivet squeezy gun ($16) with a relatively cheap 1000pc rivet assortment ($10).  I've not done rivets before, figured I'd give it a shot.  Yes, I know how to use one ... have watched plenty of AK builds heh.

[unfy]

Naturally... my cheap toaster oven has only about 3.5 inches of vertical clearance, making two sets of inch and a half nails as pushing it.  sigh.  Will grab some 1 inch and 3/4 inch nails tomorrow.

sigh

[unfy]

Picked up some 3/4inch and 1 inch roofing nails tonight, should be able to make something that works.  Will be doing all of the planning on sheet metal and other stuff at home after work (sometime after 2 or 4 am) ... and tomorrow hope to actually get holes drilled and things cut out friday night / saturday morning.


Gonna copy/paste from the CB thread just some relevant info regarding teflon-ish powder coating powders.  I had mentioned that it might run afoul of federal laws regarding armor defeating etc.

Basically this is important stuff relating to legal things etc, and the only reason I'm copy/pasting here instead of saying "go read these posts with a link".

----

I was thinking that it could help reduce friction in the barrel.

----

From Wikipedia (and yea, I realize it's not always right..)

In 1982, NBC ran a television special on the bullets, supposedly against the requests of many police organizations, wherein it was argued that the bullets were a threat to police. Various gun control organizations in the U.S. labeled Teflon-coated bullets with the epithet "cop killers" because of the supposedly increased penetration the bullets offered against ballistic vests, a staple of the American police uniform. Many erroneously focused on the Teflon coating as the source of the bullets' supposedly increased penetration, rather than the hardness of the metals used. A common resulting misconception, often perpetuated in film and television, is that coating otherwise normal bullets with Teflon will give them armor-piercing capabilities. In reality, as noted above, Teflon and similar coatings were used primarily as a means to protect the gun barrel from the hardened brass bullet, and, secondarily, to reduce ricochet against hard, angled surfaces. The coating itself did not add any armor-piercing abilities to bullets under normal circumstances.

Critics kept complaining about Teflon's ability to penetrate body armor... In fact, Teflon cut down on the round's ability to cut through the nylon or Kevlar of body armor.

---

Actually I'm thinking about getting a pound to try out; whether it's teflon or not, it has some sort of friction modifier in it to make it slicker than normal powder coat which would be advantageous.

----

Too bad idiots had to misuse teflon and many states had to ban it.

----

Only a few states did, actually, and not full bans in all:

The federal ban on armor-piercing pistol ammunition uses only the composition of the bullet's core to determine legality. However, many individual states have legislation restricting various kinds of coating materials. For example:

North Carolina state law specifically forbids persons in that state to "import, manufacture, possess, store, transport, sell, offer to sell, purchase, offer to purchase, deliver or give to another, or acquire any Teflon-coated bullet".

Teflon-coated bullets are illegal in Oklahoma under some circumstances.

Oregon state law forbids the "[possession of] any handgun ammunition, the bullet or projectile of which is coated with Teflon" while committing or intending to commit a felony.

South Carolina state law specifically bans "ammunition or shells that are coated with polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon)".

Virginia state law specifically bans "bullets, projectiles or other types of ammunition that are: coated with or contain, in whole or in part, polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon) or a similar product" while committing or attempting to commit a crime.


So no such laws exist here in NE, they might actually *help* body armor, probably not a federal issue.  Checking the wikipedia link would prolly help if it includes a reference to body armor tests.

Moving along...

[DangerousDrummer]

Today was spent casting ingots in a muffin tin. Not very exciting but I needed harder lead for the SOCOM bullets. Hope to make some PC bullets and experiment with plating this weekend. Of course the muffin tin I stole from the kitchen was the one that belonged to my wife's grandmother. So much for choosing the old beat up one!

[unfy]

Of course the muffin tin I stole from the kitchen was the one that belonged to my wife's grandmother.

Eeek!

Sounds like some jewelry is in order heh.

I still haven't found a muffin tin for ingot casting.  Proper tins that are single piece (rather than cups being individual pieces pressed / spot welded on) are really expensive, and thrift store crawling hasn't produced a result yet.

Granted, much of my lead is currently in the form of failed copper plating and already-ingotized by SFG ... so not too big of a concern ATM heh.

I've been pondering my proposed PC rig.  3.5 inches is kinda tight.

3.5 available
0.5 inch bullet height
--------
3.0 available for stuff
0.5 wingnut/bolt height (locking nut + wingnut)
-----------
2.5 available now

So... i've got 2-2.5 inches to work with for clearance from the pan and clearance to the top of the jig.  Both pan and jig clearance is important because need to get powder between both, etc.

I'll hope the half inch wide aluminum angle iron / U-flashing-nut-thing aint gonna cause shadowing problems, same with being able get bullet noses coated... although the huge ground plate being not so far away, powder coat will prolly be drawn to it.  I just dunno, gonna have to prolly just build it and see.

If I had 4 inches of clearance I wouldn't care 


edit: grammar fail

[DangerousDrummer]

My bullet casting and loading are done to occupy my time so I am not concerned with cranking out high production. I even use my progressive as a single stage and weigh every charge. Every case is hand polished after tumbling as I want each cartridge to be a functional piece of art.

[SemperFiGuy]

unfy:

I loaded the twenty (20)  180-grainers last night that you gave me.

Usually, I try to get away without belling/flaring the cases, but these cases (mostly) went through the flaring die so that the coating wouldn't get scraped off, should such event occur.   Turns out, by habit I loaded the first cartridge with a 124gr RN plated bullet from my standard setup.   So now I was short one (1) flared case.

Nineteen (19) of the coated 180gr bullets loaded slickly.   Literally.   Coating just lets the bullet slide right into the case.   However, because of the initial loading error, I was one flared case short.   So I just let 'er rip and used a non-flared case.    The coated bullet slid right into the cartridge case just like the other nineteen.   No shearing of the coating occurred.

I checked them in my Wilson .40S&W cartridge sizing gauge.   They didn't seat completely.  [Kinda like we had previously discussed.]   My guess is that the force of a cycling pistol slide will bang them fully into battery and they will shoot OK.

We'll see next week.

sfg

[unfy]

I checked them in my Wilson .40S&W cartridge sizing gauge.   They didn't seat completely.

The 10 rounds (5 base coat, 5 nose coat) I brought with me to Perkins during coffee slid into the chamber on my Sig P229 with zero effort / gravity.  Sounded just like the critical defense hornady ammo I carry.

I've got a crimp die that is either 10mm or 40s&w (I believe same die does either?) ... if ya need to borrow it I can loan it to ya (I crank my seating die down pretty far so it crimps pretty heavy already...).


In other news, marked up a cookie sheet for where to drill holes for nails, marked up one of the 5x7 roof flashing singles as well (had to use a nail on that thing... polished metal + sharpie = ha ha).  Went to hardware store and picked up some 1-1/4 inch roofing nails as well just for the fun of it.  Figured maybe 1-1/4 inch from the cookie sheet and 1 inch from the jig would be good and give plenty of clearance.

After work I'll go home and draw on some aluminum then take a drive back to work with tools to drill holes in everything so I can assemble stuff.

Oh fudge!

Uhhhh gotta run to hardware store.  Forgot something.

Anyhoo, hopefully tomorrow can test out jig.


edit:

Grabbed some extra 1/2 inch and 3/4 inch machine screws just because heh.

That makes everything I could possibly need for the jig AFAIK.

[unfy]

Got distracted last night.

Anyhoo, been here at work cutting and drilling and all that.

An immediate note: cheap cookie sheet without it's rolled edges is quite flimsy heh.  I'll have to do something to strengthen it a little.


Well.... it's... hmmm.





40 s&w round for size comparison.

Ignore the top / bottom not being aligned - not attached yet etc.

With 1 inch centers, the top rails end up being half inch wide and half inch in between.  Shadowing is going to be a problem.

Jig fail, I think.  I'll eyeball it some more and debate if to continue or not.


edit:

Alright, I've got a work around I think.  It'll involve wire at only low / moderate tension to grab in the lube grooves.

Drilled out some rivets to remove a couple of the bars, waiting 45min for hardware stores to open.

New jig will only do 24 bullets instead of 64-80... but... whatever, it's an attempt at a rig style.


Do note: drilling hollow points in the lead would prolly be easier / faster hehehehehe

I wonder if ya pre-drill some tiny holes in a 1x3, and line it up with some bigger holes below... if ya could use it as a drill guide to quickly drill hollow points.  Perhaps even to the point of maybe a 2x2 ... tiny hole all the way through, then fatten up one side to hold the bullet.

Actually, such a thing would be better done with some mill work or something.  A steel rod with the hole through middle.

Wonder if a 1x2 or something would do better... this way ya do it so a bit of the base of the bullet sticks out from out of the wood, ya use some clamps to squeeze jig + bullet to other piece of wood or something to keep bullet from spinning.

Hell, put a 1/4 inch or bigger screw/bolt into the piece of wood and then drill through it.  Instant guide hole that's easy to manufacture.

[DangerousDrummer]

I powder coated my first full batch yesterday. There was no problem with shadowing at all. I made 4 passes from each side while rotating sides. These bullets turned out beautiful.

Full load in the oven.


A bag o bullets. The ones in the front are an experiment in ballistics tipped. Cut a nose mold on the lathe, coated with Froglube, squeeze in some hot glue, shove in the bullet, hold a second, ballistics tip.

[bkoenig]

Looking good.

[GreyGeek]

ballistics tip

Would those be of any real value at normal handgun ranges? 

[unfy]

Dangerous: lookin good!  ya should build yourself the metal lazy susan that I did... makes spinning your plate of bullets much easier while powder coating and will only set ya back $7-$11.

Looking at the short lagbolts available, i wasn't that happy... so just picked up some 5/16th's steel rod instead (cutting that is gonna suck... may require dremel'ing it...).  Also grabbed a couple sizes bigger than 3/32's drill bit to make the guide with down the middle of it (think i went with 3D nails, which are 3/32's in size according to drill gauge holey thing).  A 2x2 as well.  For getting sized hole for lead, will prolly just do 3/8's and do some work with a dremel (or rather, putting a dremel sanding disk in a lower speed portable drill) or by hand to make it bigger.  Anyhoo, hopefully can get a hollow pointing jig made up soon.


For my failed jig, drilled out rivets in every other cross bar and dropped those away.  Using 2" machine screws / stove bolts and such, should be able to attempt a wire-lube-groove thing.

Picked up some 17ga electric fence wire (stuff is dirt cheap heh... and they sell it by the quarter mile or more if ya want heh).  Aluminum, might be a bit too thick to work with, I dunno.  Will prolly end up using some spare copper wire I've got from the cat3 cut up I did for copper plating a couple years ago.  If I can make the aluminum wire work, that'd be preferred though.  I'll have to fiddle.

[unfy]

Messed up my weekend after the jig fabrication .

Sat down tonight and decided to get more serious about bullet casting.  That'll be in a different thread.  Anyhoo, cast around 1000 bullets. Yay.

Doing some looking around my supplies, I came across some 20 gauge galvanized wire.  I'm not sure exactly where I found it... walmart or hardware store.  It's not got any insulation on it and I'm not entirely sure what purpose it's supposed to fill.  Anyhoo, it's easier to work with and I'll be using it for the revised PC jig.

I'll be taking a hopefully short nap... then either going to work... or fiddling with PC jig stuff.  We shall see.

[bk09]

After seeing this thread I have spent my morning researching this and may be making an investment in a powder gun and air compressor... Now I will be able to shoot cast bullets out of my glock with no worries of excessive leading.