NFOA MEMBERS FORUM
Ammunition & Hand Loading => Cartridge and Shotshell reloading => Topic started by: unfy on March 28, 2013, 05:03:52 PM
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Another alternative....powder coating bullets. I'm SERIOUSLY interested in this. They just look so purty.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?171403-Powder-Coating-Boolits (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?171403-Powder-Coating-Boolits)
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_6_42/395802_Powder_Coating_Cast_Bullets_.html (http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_6_42/395802_Powder_Coating_Cast_Bullets_.html)
Sounds like a lot of work for handgun, but for rifle bullets it has a lot of potential. I have a toaster oven sitting in the basement that's never been used...
So full kudos to bkoenig for this thread. He was going to try it out, but is waiting a few weeks possibly... I'm not that patient >:D.
Going from the castboolits thread (didn't read the ar15 thread...).... I figured sure, why not. I've always wanted to get a powder coat set up anyway. Do read the CB thread, it covers a lot of ground and is really handy.
So, went to Harbor Freight here in Omaha (90th & Maple) and gathered stuffs. Came out to around $190.
Powder coat gun: $60 (plus a 2 year warranty for $10-$20 or so).
3 gallon air compressor (oil-less): $70
3 lbs of different colored powder coat: $15
25 foot air hose: $9
air hose accessory stuff: $9
I picked up the air compressor cause I dunno where my little one went. I went oil-less so didn't need to worry about an oil separator / filter. This particular compressor also has pressure regulator which will be handy for getting the 15-25psi folks have reported the gun liking.
The hose & accessories: just because I dunno what all I've got at home for stuff. Well, I know I got cheap hoses, wanted something a little bit better.
3 colors: red/white/black. HF offers 4 colors (yellow being the other), but I didn't want yellow for whatever reason.
What's left to buy:
Some cheap aluminum baking sheets: I've got a plan on how to orientate the bullets nose down so that the base of the bullet gets a decent coat. Prolly $4-$8 ?
A cheap toaster oven that can do 400F for 20min. Variable temp might be kinda cool if it's necessary to pre-heat items. Anyhoo, $20-$40 walmart ?
Process:
Cast bullets, or clean old bullets with acetone. Dry completely.
Place on thick aluminum foil or something (basically conductive).
Powder coat spray a decent coat.
Carefully move to toaster oven and bake at 400F for 20min.
Peel off of aluminum foil.
Done.
You can size before PC and after PC just fine apparently.
Benefits:
Appears to eliminate leading.
Possibly slight velocity increase.
Issues:
Possible problems with accuracy, possibly more so on rifle rounds.
I'll be building a jig / plating tray thing that will hold TC bullets nose down so that the base of the bullet gets a good coat, and also eliminates "painted-stuck-to-something" issues.
Again, all hail bkoenig for discovering the CB thread. I hope to be trying this out friday night or this weekend.
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Wow, I didn't think it would be so cheap to get into. I figured it would be a few hundred bucks, at least.
What do you use for a power source to charge the bullets so the paint powder sticks? Is that part of the special powder coat gun?
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http://www.harborfreight.com/10-30-psi-powder-coating-system-94244.html (http://www.harborfreight.com/10-30-psi-powder-coating-system-94244.html)
That's the HF powder coat gun. Needs an air compressor. Includes the charging / static system with it.
The CB thread mentions that crafstman might have a cheap electric only gun (ie: has it's own fan / air compressor built in ?) ... but i've not seen it and people complained about it being 'cheapy'. Granted, I doubt the HF product is 'quality' heh.
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Here is the Craftsman system they mentioned in the thread: http://www.amazon.com/Craftsman-Complete-Portable-Powder-Coating/dp/B004YEAYCW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1364517600&sr=8-1&keywords=craftsman+powder+coating+system (http://www.amazon.com/Craftsman-Complete-Portable-Powder-Coating/dp/B004YEAYCW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1364517600&sr=8-1&keywords=craftsman+powder+coating+system)
About $180.
Eastwood automotive also have some lower cost guns but require an air compressor.
http://www.eastwood.com/hotcoat-powder-coating/powder-coat-guns.html (http://www.eastwood.com/hotcoat-powder-coating/powder-coat-guns.html)
About $99 for cheap gun, $169 for a nicer one.
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The Craftsman gun was on sale for around $30 for a while last year. They must have been clearancing them out. Sounds like they're not a very good gun, but work just fine for small pieces like bullets. If you plan on using it for anything else the Harbor Freight one looks like it's a better tool, and its still very cheap.
I'm thinking drill a hole in the baking sheet that's just slightly smaller than the diameter of the bullet in front of the first driving band, then set the bullet nose down and coat. You'll still get a little lip of powdercoat, but when you size after coating it should get knocked off.
Question: If you coat a boolit is it still a boolit or is it now a bullet?
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Question: If you coat a boolit is it still a boolit or is it now a bullet?
Ballet ?
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Ballet ?
No, that's where my money goes when it's not buying guns for me.
My daughter, not me, you sickos......
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You guys got me interested in boolit casting...perhaps a morning boolit casting jam session, followed by a noon time BBQ get together? I wanna learn.
I keep a old stove in my small detached garage for the wife to do her canning. Lots of oven space and I have thought about a powder coat set up before...hmm
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I have thought about a powder coat set up before...hmm
Whatever you cure your powder coat in you never cook in again, muck like anything that touches lead is never cooked with again....
Picked up a cheap toaster oven, some tools, and something else for the PC rig I wanna build. I'll be cutting, drilling, and all that other tool stuff tonight hehehehe :P.
Although I *can* simply use the aluminum foil method and get started ASAP if I really wanted to.
I'd rather get the rig built, though heh.
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I've been going back and forth whether it's even necessary to coat the bottom. FMJ's typically have an open bottom, and as long as the full bearing surface of the bullet is coated you shouldn't have any leading.
Now for bullets you want to expand, I think putting them nose down and coating the base is a good idea. You could then leave the nose uncoated which would facilitate expansion. I shoot truncated cone bullets almost exclusively in my 9mm's so that would be easy to do.
But, going back to the "fillet" of powder coat that forms around where the bullet rests on the foil.....if they're bottom down that little nub will pop right off when you run them through a sizer. So that gets me thinking again that a bare bottom :o is the way to go.
What I would really like to find is a good way to make cheap bullets out of soft lead for my 300 Blackout subsonic loads, that will expand when they hit and not be so dirty. Right now I'm shooting a pretty hard alloy for my subs, and while I don't get any barrel leading they introduce a lot of crud into my gas system, enough that if I don't lube the heck out of it my bolt carrier group will cake up and start malfunctioning after 50-75 of them. I think a lot of that is due to bullet lube, and I could get rid of that by powdercoating. Expansion would also be nice - last fall I shot the subs into a sandy hilside, with a 5 gallon bucked at 100 yards. They started tumbling as soon as they hit the front of the bucket and entered the berm sideways so they would still do some nasty damage, but they didn't expand. I'm hoping a pseudo jacketed soft alloy will.
Or maybe I'll just wait for Unfy to experiment and find the best way......
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It's 22:30 ... my neighbors will be asleep and I'd rather not run my air compressor in the dead of night in an apartment (kinda rude). So tonight will be mostly construction, and possibly bullet casting ;). Spare bullets for the copper plating experiments is getting a little low... need to cast a bunch more heh.
I'll undoubtedly aluminum foil it up and load some and take'em to the range ASAP. Who knows, with pistols the bottom might not matter at all. Of course, this all assumes that I *don't* get the rig built tonight heh.
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Honestly, I wonder even with rifles if an uncoated bottom would help with accuracy. It might let the bullet bump up to bore size.
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You guys got me interested in boolit casting...perhaps a morning boolit casting jam session, followed by a noon time BBQ get together? I wanna learn.
I keep a old stove in my small detached garage for the wife to do her canning. Lots of oven space and I have thought about a powder coat set up before...hmm
Where do you live? A group casting session followed by BBQ sounds interesting.
Except usually when I organize something like this everyone just ends up standing around the garage drinking beer and not doing any actual work.
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We've got Lincoln, Omaha, Nebraska City.
A triangle heh.
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The small toaster oven i picked up can handle a tray of about 7.5 inches by 9.75 inches.
At one inch spacing on centers (i have no idea if that's enough ?), this tray will handle 80 bullets at a time and leaves about half an inch between boolits.
I'll prototype it on aluminum foil first to see how it coats at that distance.
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I read all of the pages at castboolits. Looks perfect for my needs. I had just ordered a 1.2 to 35 v variable dc power supply ($15) that will handle up to 5amps in order to start copper plating. PC might just eliminate copper plating if the application problems can be overcome. I have a 9x20 lathe and cheapo milling machine so building jigs and fixtures is pretty easy. I should be able to get started powder coating this weekend after a trip to harbor frieght and Wallyworld today. There is also a company that sells larger quantities of paint in some really cool colors, most prices run $15-$20, but the number of boolits that could be coated is very high.
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For pistol plinking PC might be totally awesome.... we shall see.
I'll continue the copper plating experiments, but this is a nice diversion ;)
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Someone on another board pointed out something - don't coat them blue, since that's the color used for simunitions.
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I have a 9x20 lathe and cheapo milling machine so building jigs and fixtures is pretty easy.
I think Unfy and I have found a kindred soul.
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Quote from: DangerousDrummer on Today at 06:26:38 AM
I have a 9x20 lathe and cheapo milling machine so building jigs and fixtures is pretty easy.
I think Unfy and I have found a kindred soul.
I have a book that contains plans for a 9mm machine gun that can be made in a home work shop using parts from a hardware store. Milling machine not necessary. The guy who wrote that book spent four years in a British prison for doing so.
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I have a 15x40 lathe, 9x20 lathe, small mill, large CNC mill, Drill press, CNC 4x8 plasma table, TIG welder and lots of other machines/tools in my back yard garage. Downloaded an AR receiver model in CAD. May have to end one shortage for myself... ;D
Now I may have to add powder coat to my tools.
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I think Unfy and I have found a kindred soul.
It was actually Unfy's determination to solve the plating challanges that caused me to join this forum. Although I am a Alabamian, i was born in Omaha! And I confess, I like to build stuff, and am not intimidated by complex problems. Here is the last project i did before I got into shooting.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-xbLw_63FNU4/UNHe2_7yIvI/AAAAAAAAALc/-VAPnf6qhEQ/s400/2010-09-23%252019.55.44.jpg)
The above is an underwater ROV with a 420p sony camera, 30 lb thrust motor with 6 fwd speeds and 2 reverse, 2 - 800 candlepower LED spotlights capable of depths to 70 ft. I am currently redesigning the steering to use ND magnets to magnetically couple steering thrusters instead of magnetically coupled rudders. I have tested in the pool, but not in the Gulf yet. The pros say "never put anything in the water that you are not willing to lose". I want the steering to work better before I go live!
I have also built a lot of loading tools. I believe in functional art, in other words not only should stuff work, but it should look good too! I picked up a PC gun at Harbor Freight today and will get the Walmart toaster oven tonight. I intend to coat my last batch of Muzzleloader bullets tomorrow, and then will start on my 458 SOCOM 350 gn bullets after I modify my mold base plug to include a pin that will allow me to pin mount my bullets for spray coating and baking.
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I have a 15x40 lathe, 9x20 lathe, small mill, large CNC mill, Drill press, CNC 4x8 plasma table, TIG welder and lots of other machines/tools in my back yard garage. Downloaded an AR receiver model in CAD. May have to end one shortage for myself... ;D
Now I may have to add powder coat to my tools.
Ooh, 15x40 lathe. Sweet. My 9x20 is not quite big enough to perform barrel work, and my skills are not good enough to trust doing it if it was.
Have you seen the AL reciever "paper weights" for $25? A coworker bought 5, and will give me one if I help him mill/drill one for him. They also sell a jig for setup if you can't do layout.
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You guys are making me feel inadequate with my little 7x12 lathe. I'm going to have to go buy a Corvette or a Harley to compensate.
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*drool at tools*
One day :P. I've considered the tiny $200 table top mini lathe. But I said 'no' because I knew I would just want a bigger one.
GreyGeek: wonderful thing that internet ;). Depending on topics chosen, I'd suggest TOR btw. Although ya got nothing to hide (a book is just a book after all)... take a step or two to avoid hassle down the line prolly aint a bad idea.
Dangerous: where about in AL are ya ? I lived in Pensacola, FL for many a year, have a few friends in AL, and we do some business/work in AL (yay tech industry). Also, by all means post pics of PC experiments :).
BK/color selection: good idea. My original thought was indifference to color... it's all just lead. But blue is actually a wise color to avoid due to civilian typical use for training etc. Kinda sad that can't do some RWB booooooolits just to be all American and stuff hehehe.
I'm gonna wake up, have a cup of coffee, and then give first stab PC a try with just some aluminum foil. Sadly, it's nearing 1800 and the BH will be closed so can't go try'em.
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Have you seen the AL reciever "paper weights" for $25? A coworker bought 5, and will give me one if I help him mill/drill one for him. They also sell a jig for setup if you can't do layout.
Have you tried to buy a "paper weight". I can't even find laser ammo to try out my new laser target recorder.
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http://arlower.ray-vin.com/ (http://arlower.ray-vin.com/)
Has a .pdf "book" on doing the machine work on a blank forging.
Sorry, back to boolits.
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Unfy: I am 60 mi from Pensacola in Mobile, but grew up in Gulf Shores.
Ss: I did not know there was a shortage of paper weights. I will be glad when 3d printing gets a little cheaper, then we can build anything, or at least until the government bans 3d printing. Have I mentioned that I am not exactly a fan of government bureaucrats?
Off to get an oven.
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Depending on topics chosen, I'd suggest TOR btw.
Here's TOR: https://www.torproject.org/ (https://www.torproject.org/)
It has "About" and other info which points out its limitations.
TOR (The Onion Ring) isn't as secure as people think. I used to run TOR but after researching its insecurities, and the fact that government can control the admin at the exit server, I decided it wasn't worth the hassle. Wikiepedia lists some of the problems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_routing#Weaknesses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_routing#Weaknesses)
and more than one criminal has been brought down trusting in TOR:
http://www.emptywheel.net/2012/04/16/dea-busts-tor-operated-farmers-market-drug-market-place (http://www.emptywheel.net/2012/04/16/dea-busts-tor-operated-farmers-market-drug-market-place)
http://www.cso.com.au/article/431755/aussie_cops_silk_road_tor_anonymity_guaranteed_/ (http://www.cso.com.au/article/431755/aussie_cops_silk_road_tor_anonymity_guaranteed_/)
Here is a tutorial on how to hijack a TOR network:
http://youtu.be/A7cop7BuN5g (http://youtu.be/A7cop7BuN5g)
Personally, I would NEVER use the Internet to transfer information I wanted to keep secret except in one circumstance. Developing a GPG 4096 encryption key to encrypt stuff I wanted to keep secret and/or transmit to others. Manually give the public key to those whom I wanted to access the info. Then I could encrypt the info and email it to the person I gave the public key to. However, if he betrays me ....
As far as owning a book about how to make a machine gun from hardware store parts, without the need of a lath, I still have the 1st Amendment. Having the information is not yet illegal. Making it is, unless I get a license from the ATF. Then it is legal. If that doesn't work then the ball game is over anyway and we have bigger problems. As far as making them for some clandestine militia ... that's not my ball game.
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I did a $30 cheap oven.
Do note, a bigger oven means more bullets cooked at once, or other PC objects ;).
As a first go, it's more than good enough though.
I'll get pics posted soon.
First run: kinda ugly, but hey... I can't even use a rattle can lol :).
I'm impressed so far.
The fillet problem might be more pronounced than we might think, or I used really cheap 'heavy duty' aluminum foil, or my coat was too thick or something.
Pushed a coated bullet through a lee press mount push through sizing die and it didn't care one bit. I did touch it with just a tiny bit of case lube of course.
Hit the PC finish with a wirebrush by hand and it didn't care.
This looks like a winner so far ;)
edit:
typo correction, heading to work, will discuss more when i get there.
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Oh, I figured I was doing a small bit, 20 bullets or so... that ... it wasn't going to be a big deal, but a paint hood or something is wise. put down some cardboard first or other stuff etc etc etc
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Did the sizer knock off the fillet?
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I will be glad when 3d printing gets a little cheaper, then we can build anything, or at least until the government bans 3d printing.
Yeah, uhm...search 3d printer seized. Not government, but still. You can make your own guns, just don't look like you might make anything for anyone else. The BATF will come.
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I have a 15x40 lathe, 9x20 lathe, small mill, large CNC mill, Drill press, CNC 4x8 plasma table, TIG welder and lots of other machines/tools in my back yard garage. Downloaded an AR receiver model in CAD. May have to end one shortage for myself... ;D
Now I may have to add powder coat to my tools.
Wowza..quite a impressive back yard garage! I think get a wire EDM for doing the mag. well, would make the job easier...might as well
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(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-1a.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-1b.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-1c.jpg)
I can strike it if press really hard with a car key, but it's pretty durable stuff.
The buckshot thing was thrown in just for fun ... wouldn't suggest actually powder coating it that way since ya gotta re-melt the sprue which wouldn't be cool with PC on it.
In the second picture, shows fillet problems.
Center bullet shiny surface is aluminium foil that stuck to it. To the left of that is another bullet that had similar issue. Slightly below that is a bullet that has a dark spot on the wall. Dunno what that's about.
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So far, some notes:
Safety, blah blah blah. Powder coat powder aint good for ya, grab some cheap face masks or better yet a proper gas mask / respirator. Some latex/nylon/nitrile gloves are also a requirement. Use in a ventilated area. When ya cure/bake the stuff, it'll smoke a little (not a lot), and it'll be fumey. Do so outdoors or in well ventilated shop etc.
a) I didn't pick a bullet that had a fillet issue when I sized it (only sized one, was in a rush). I don't think it'd necessarily strip it off -- the PC is kinda like... well.. slightly rubbery plasticy paint after it's done. Super fine sand paper would prolly get it off without much issue. I'll go through and size and load them tonight and will report how sizing handles things.
b) taking a sheet of metal and screwing / soldering / whatever bolts or sheet metal heads to it would prolly do fine for getting bullets lifted up off of the 'ground' so that the fillet doesn't form. this was discussed a lot in the CB thread, dunno if anyone actually did it. Real simple to do though.
c) spacing might have been fine... there are some that I didn't get a super duper great job on the coating perfectly... but again, i suck at rattle cans so that was to be expected. I'll assume 1 inch centers will do just fine.
d) with the pictures above, yes i did powder coat some normally-would-reject bullets as well. was low on cast stuff so just went with it.
e) it's like painting with heavy smoke or with a powdered sugar gun. you'll want a 3-4 sided bit of cardboard / project board to help keep overspray contained.
f) 20psi worked wonderfully i think, do note: total newb
g) i gave the lead an acetone bath and thorough dry time before doing this to remove any finger oil
h) this was down right easy to do... and not that time consuming. bigger oven for more curing at once is prolly gonna be in my future much later... and getting some time in actual PC spraying will improve quality of coats etc.
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TOR (The Onion Ring) isn't as secure as people think. I used to run TOR but after researching its insecurities, and the fact that government can control the admin at the exit server, I decided it wasn't worth the hassle.
This is undoubtedly a discussion for another thread... but for two cents:
The Silk Road busts weren't accomplished due to problems with TOR - they were done via old fashion police work and social engineering.
Also, Silk Road operates (or operated? i dunno if it's still up or not) entirely within the TOR network, it doesn't use exit nodes. There are plenty of tor-only sites.
Many of the issues discussed concerning TOR sites or breaks in them etc are the work of other faulty software, not TOR itself. This would be idiots that take a link found in TOR and open them in a normal browser, or security holes in browsers/pdfs/etc blah blah blah.
I think the only useful attack against TOR related stuff that I've seen is in relation to packet size / finger printing of common stuff. Kinda like the wireless encryption breaking stuffs (a common packet repeated enough lets ya break it eventually... ie: you can identify what it's contents are with near certainty due to how common the packet is like a connection open / SYN, then work out the key from there).
Lastly, there's always freenet if ya don't like TOR :).
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Oh yeah, wanted to post a note.
Federal law has some guidelines on ammo that aint allowed. A jacket that comprises more than 25% by weight of the bullet, steel (or certain other metal) cores, and things that are basically designed to defeat body armor.
Rifle rounds don't have similar limitations... and my old man joked about getting a 30-06 or 303 round with a tungsten core in it.... I never made such a thing, but it shouldn't be too hard to make heh.
Annnnnywayyy...
PC bullets don't defeat body armor or anything like that. They do have lower friction stuff according to the CB thread - people were reading higher chrony values out of PC bullets compared to lubed lead bullets under same charge. They also showed a PC bullet strike against a metal plate... it didn't do anything fancy or penetrate or anything like that.
So... PC bullets don't run afoul of the federal hand gun bullet limitations.
Just an FYI ;)
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Hurry up Dangerous, I wanna hear your take on it :).
I'll be going to walmart tonight to pick up some ultra cheap baking sheets to attempt my nose-down jig.... and then casting a bunch of bullets when I get home so that I can continue experimenting tomorrow.
And yes, tomorrow I'll be going to the BH to test fire these things :).
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First batch loaded.... I must admit it looked weird doing it and it looks weird in the tray :)
175-185gr of wheel weight lead, powder coated, 6.0gr of unique.
Loaded to jacketed pressures just cause I wanna beat the hell out of it ;)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-1stbatch.jpg)
And now a series of pictures for BK. In each series (separated by lines) -- First pic = before sizing. Second pic = after sizing.
Didn't knock anything off really.
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-2a.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-2b.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-2c.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-2d.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-2e.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-2f.jpg)
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In preparation for tomorrow.... grabbing usb pen microscope, my barrel currently looks like:
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-3-barrel-pre1.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-3-barrel-pre2.jpg)
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3d printer seized
All that did was cause those folks to move to home made 3d printers:
http://reprapbook.appspot.com/ (http://reprapbook.appspot.com/)
and here:
http://www.bitsfrombytes.com/content/rapman-32-3d-printer-kit (http://www.bitsfrombytes.com/content/rapman-32-3d-printer-kit)
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Went to the range today. Yay.
I don't believe there's any leading in the barrel. Below are a couple of pics from the microscope (which makes things look much worse than they might be heh). I'll run some cleaning patches through in a sec and report on any lead flakes etc.
Accuracy: I was starving, kinda shaking, so that's hard to tell. At 25 feet my first 5 were about par for me. It then continued to get worse. I did shoot one resting on the lane bench, it was as it should be.
Stopped at hardware store to pick up a cabinet lazy susan thing. $5. A couple 12 inch round pizza pans from wally world for under a $1 each, and a couple cookie sheets for under a $1 each. Pizza rounds & lazy susan: turn table. Will be attaching the ground clamp to the bottom and assuring some conductivity to the top. Should make PC application easier.
Also started pricing an oven build.... more on that in the other thread after gun cleaning heh.
The pics:
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-3-barrel-post1.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-3-barrel-post2.jpg)
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My first small batch turned out perfect. I made a tray out of heavy sheet metal, drilled holes in a grid pattern on 1 " centers, staggering the rows and welded roofing nails in the holes. I then chucked my lyman case sizer in the lathe and drilled small holes in the points of the bullets creating mini hollow points. Placed the bullets point down on the nails and powder coated a small batch. Popped them in the toaster and twenty minutes later I got yellow bullets. I tried muzzleloader (REAL, rifling engraved at loading) and you can just barely see where the bullet was kissing the lands. I think this changes everything for bullet casters. No more gas checks, no more sabots for muzzleloaders, no more leading. Here are pictures from today's efforts..
In the oven
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-pHPHYVLtE7o/UVeLLZrcY7I/AAAAAAAAASw/iaiHoYvEsvM/s400/2013-03-30%252019.22.02.jpg)
Out of the oven (no aluminum foil used, and lifted off with no effort)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-UFfQcgIF1SI/UVeLMMzD_VI/AAAAAAAAAS8/B7gaCWJMkUw/s400/2013-03-30%252019.39.30.jpg)
Single bullet, if you look close you can see the rifling marks.
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-uxn8f_A7Dvc/UVeLW7ObQ9I/AAAAAAAAATI/hxV7psfk794/s400/2013-03-30%252019.47.22.jpg)
The mini hollow points.
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-A8vZBxEbD5w/UVeLZP0eObI/AAAAAAAAATQ/DaSwM-dyhR0/s400/2013-03-30%252019.48.41.jpg)
Tomorrow I will modify the base plug of my 458 SOCOM mold to create a small hole in the base. Those bullets I will coat nose up. I'm loving this!
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Dangerous: awesome!!! Love the pics too. Did you actually fire the muzzle loader or cleaning rod ram a poncho'd bullet through ?
And... ponchos ? nah, not a great name.
Cleaning my sig p229 40s&w barrel... after about the 20 rounds i put through it at the range... there was *some* lead, but not much, and far less than missouri bullet company lead (that were shot at lower loads even!).
I'll note my coat wasn't perfect, and I didn't get the bases coated.
I'll be taking a different approach to base coating ... don't feel like chucking a drill to anything and don't want lead shavings. The approach i've got *may* work, we'll see. Sadly, my approach will be much more mold-specific heh.
Off to mark stuff and make plans ;)
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Well... lazy susan assembled. Should do as needed <3.
Got something of a tray finished. My original goal ... well.. yeah, not gonna be built with these materials or tools.
I'll note that there might be some concern, I dunno. Basically... the walmart cookie sheet is a thin steel. Thus, the holes aint perfect and since the thin sheet metal is a bit wibbly.... getting uniform cut off point will be a no-go.
I dunno if the lil bit of PC difference from bullet to bullet will make a difference or not.
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-3tray.jpg)
edit:
lead's fairly soft, i wonder if shallow and really thin thumb tacks / brads / whatever in the nose of a bullet are possible ? here lead, time to go fiddle.
basically, i wouldn't care about the lip/filet on the nose...
edit again:
ok, yeah, not that soft :D
These TC bullets do stand on their nose fairly decently though. I might have to buy a file to keep specifically with the lead pot to rub bullet noses on if they aint flat.
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Unfy, if you want to drill the holes and get the nails, I can weld up the design mentioned above.
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The tray and lazy susan. The ground clamp goes to the base of the lazy susan, and 'just cause I can just to be sure' - alligator clip the tray to the top of the lazy susan.
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-4tray.jpg)
The cheap cardboard box and stuff 'paint hood' heh.
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-4hood.jpg)
How the bullets came out:
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-4a.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-4b.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-4c.jpg)
For bkoenig: I did another 'sitting on foil' batch as well. Got the PC a bit thicker and the filet problem was more pronounced. Peeling off stuff worked decently for big stuff, and indeed sizing die did knock off quite a bit. I've got a small ring of powder coat at the base of sizing punch.
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Looking good.
I'm going to try some rifle bullets when I get set up.
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Went to the range today ... put 21 base-coated bullets through. Leading looks to be less than the nose coated, no failure to feed issues, and they're pretty good accuracy wise. I'll get pics together when I get home tonight.
I do have ideas on getting a complete coat done, more on that later too
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Hmm...so I wonder if the ones with the uncoated bottoms were getting some leading from the powder vaporizing the base of the bullet. Interesting.
I was thinking today, if you're going to set them in the holes nose down I bet you could the take a flat board or sheet of metal and set it down on the bases to straighten them all out. That would give you a more even coat around the nose.
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I was thinking today, if you're going to set them in the holes nose down I bet you could the take a flat board or sheet of metal and set it down on the bases to straighten them all out. That would give you a more even coat around the nose.
Possibly. Maybe. If ya look at the thing I made above... and just visualize it yourself a bit too... you'll note that the cookie sheet aint exactly a perfectly flat sheet with holes drilled in it. It warps and bends and stuff.
If it was a thick piece of weldable steel or something, then it'd be all kinds of precise and shouldn't warp.
I'll note that the cookie sheet thing didn't warp during cooking... which they usually do (I use others of the same for cooking at home) ... and DD's post shows his sheet metal warping in the oven.
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To copy/paste from the CB thread:
Actually... take your spring loaded idea and instead have:
|B|--- --|?|SSSS|B|===
Where B = a metal bar, --- is a tack / nail / etc, S is a compression spring, and ? is some way of attaching the spring loaded nail/thumbtack/whatever to the spring, === being the bit of the spring guide rod that free floats out the other end.
If your guide rod is |===== shaped, a small folded over bit of metal in a C shape would possibly do.
This would get you to tack/nail points to press against the tip and nose of the boolit with a quick release mechanism for sanity.
Would have to make sure the tack/nail/brad you use is of decent length so that it doesn't shadow / interfere with the PC application.
I'll hit hardware store and eyeball this. Springs through local sources can be difficult to be had at 'sane' costs (we are talking 50-200 springs).... but can be had online at better prices. Barring a spring, if the bar is tapped, a bolt with an easy-enough-to-grip head would be a valid alternative (welding wingnuts sounds applicable)... you should only need 1-2 revolutions to apply enough force on the pins.
Sheet metal / whatever base, has tacks / nails on 1 inch centers.
Bars are held above it that have either a spring loaded contraption or just a threaded holes that push another nail / tack downward.
Thus, you have a bullet nose and base being held in place via a couple 'needles'.
Make the bottom nails long enough enough that the PC gets under it just fine...
As far as 'easy to grip bolt head' -- i'd venture a wingnut between two other nuts would work as something to manipulate with fingers ?
A fun question with something that's threaded like that... how does powder coat in the threads affect stuff ? :)
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I was trying to imagine using a reloading press to press a hole in the base or tip of a bullet allowing it to set on the bead of nails type holder. Seems to get too complicated.
Seems it would be simpler to set up a fixture on a drill press and just drill the holes with a small bit.
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I was trying to imagine using a reloading press to press a hole in the base or tip of a bullet allowing it to set on the bead of nails type holder. Seems to get too complicated.
Seems it would be simpler to set up a fixture on a drill press and just drill the holes with a small bit.
Ya might be able to get away with a VERY small hole when using a press... but... otherwise ya gotta be careful. Swaging dies have hollow point tips and stuff, but the dies are all kinds of beefy :).
Lastly, if you press a spike into a bullet, where does that excess lead go ? You'll be sizing the bullet eventually anyway... but... yeah. Still a valid concern probably.
A 40s&w 180gr bullet is about 1/2 inch in length if I recall correctly. At pushing a nail in 1/4 of an inch, how much are you deforming the bullet ? Do you really need 1/4 inch ? would an 1/8th or 3/16ths do ? I dunno.
Lots of folks chuck their case trimmers to portable drills or such and trim cases WITH POWER heh. Never been a fan of that idea myself, but I don't trim ALOT of cases anyway. Anyhoo, you can usually chuck a drill bit in the case trimmer just fine as well ... case trimmer cutting edges have a hole with a tension bolt that's used to change out mandrels for different caliber cases - why not throw a drill bit in there ? etc ...
In fact, if you look above, DD did just that, put a drill bit in his case trimmer ;).
Cabela's has the lyman case trimmer for $99 (seems high?):
http://www.cabelas.com/product/Lyman-Universal174-Carbide-Case-Trimmer/753206.uts (http://www.cabelas.com/product/Lyman-Universal174-Carbide-Case-Trimmer/753206.uts)
A powered one for $230ish i think. A drill adapter for $30. RCBS powered one is $300 i think ?
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That is why I said it seemed too complicated. It started looking like the swage process you described with displacement and all.
Still, maybe stab a tack in the base with a press to get a quick repeatable set. Just thinking out loud...typing...whatever.
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That is why I said it seemed too complicated. It started looking like the swage process you described with displacement and all.
Still, maybe stab a tack in the base with a press to get a quick repeatable set. Just thinking out loud...typing...whatever.
Might be possible to build something to goes on top of the punch for the lee push through sizing die. a brass nut with a piece of metal inside (preferably tool steel / drill rod material)... how to get it to sit center on the post is interesting as well as how to get the 'nail' in it sturdily and centered ...
then the joy of what holds the lead bullet in place.
plenty of stuff to be worked out, i'm sure *something* could be constructed.
Hell, i almost wonder if ya take an old reloading die and somehow rig up a a drill bit and crank handle if ya could make a press-based-drill.
random thoughts... all require tooling that is possibly beyond what i can do atm.
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Pen microscope feels like light bleeding stuff today, dunno what's up with it. Whatever.
Barrel after the base coat rounds:
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-4-barrel-post.jpg)
As far as accuracy... the target from the range (25ft):
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-4target.jpg).
Shooting glasses were fogging up on me and I didn't bother to fix... prolly why it started to wander to the lower left.
Oh, and the hole in the top ? 10ga shell for first test shot of the 10ga side by side (30-ish inch barrels with fixed full choke) ;). Had to improvise the shell using 12ga press, a dowel, and pliers. 20 of the 'pretty much 00buck' pellets on top of 38gr of blue dot. Kicked kinda harsh but not too bad... that gun is gonna frighten me when I start cutting it down (unless I sell it to someone before doing so heh).
I'll edit this post and report cleaning results of the pistol barrel.
that promised edit above:
Yup, only a couple tiny ball point pin ultra tiny flakes of lead. Coat the bases bkoenig!
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and while I don't get any barrel leading they introduce a lot of crud into my gas system,
Actually.... is lube crud any better than PC crud ?
I've not had ANY red on ANY patch i've run through my pistol barrel... but that's an entirely different beast than a rifle ?
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Hey unfy,
Got a $15 1.2 -30 v, 5 amp adjustable power supply with fan. Have you read the bullet plating paper on CaswellPlating website. The writer was using a kit, but there is no need to spend the money on a kit, but his bullets looked good. The trick to even plating seems to be low voltage, low current. I intend to build a holder out of a plastic cutting board. Like you, I am not giving up on plating for powder coating. I know PC will work for larger slower bullets, but will have trouble with high speed smaller calibers. I WILL conquer plating for 7.62 and 223.
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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 ;)
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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.
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-needle1.jpg)
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... :)
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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.
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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 (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).
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Unfy, you remind me of Thomas Edison! 8)
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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.
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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
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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".
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I was thinking that it could help reduce friction in the barrel.
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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.
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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.
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Too bad idiots had to misuse teflon and many states had to ban it.
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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...
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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!
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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 :angry:
edit: grammar fail
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-tray2a.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-tray2b.jpg)
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.
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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.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Z0kDiMG75kg/UWCWfI2aAII/AAAAAAAAAT0/0fYm-ZtJVJA/s400/2013-04-06%252011.14.09.jpg)
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.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-MEZ9qznJlw4/UWCWfPYeuAI/AAAAAAAAATw/BDIlkCf2lyM/s400/2013-04-06%252016.29.05.jpg)
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Looking good.
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ballistics tip
Would those be of any real value at normal handgun ranges?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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brad: if ya don't end up doing it asap, lemme know when your next shift at cabela's is and i'll drop by for a bit of show and tell so ya can see what you're getting into.
It's easy, some folks have had great luck with the base down aluminum foil method (i suppose i could try reducing charge a bit if jig don't work out). Although they could also be running a harder alloy than what I am.
As per my regular suggestion: post pics! :)
My short nap turned into a regular sleep :(. So off to work, and will fiddle with jig tonight after work.
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I work Friday morning. I would be interested in seeing how they turn out. I will probably try the basic method with the lead exposed on the bottom. Would be nice to cast 40 for my Glock and then PC them. If it turns out well then I will try it with my 500mag and then I won't have to mess with gas checks. BTW does anybody know how to make their own gas checks? I have seen pop can gas checks but I'm not sure if that's a good idea, would aluminum be more apt to scratching a barrel?
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would aluminum be more apt to scratching a barrel?
Aluminum oxidizes very quickly. The oxide coating is very hard and is what makes aluminum basically self-protecting. However, that coating is aluminum-oxide...yep, the stuff they use to make abrasive paper (sandpaper).
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I'll be by Friday, then :).
The aluminum foil method is easy and gets you a starting point (which might be good enough for you). Everyone should give it a go when they first start out.
Folks have all kinds of good luck with pistol rounds. Rifle rounds appear a different thing all together (seemingly random reports). Your 500s&w produces insane pressures and stuff in pistol round form, I can only imagine that PC won't be enough. Would be interesting to hear how ya make out.... and if base coat helps any.
There's a guy that makes a gas check maker for use in small arbor presses. Freechex is the name IIRC. There are some plans online for machining your own (including youtube videos). Several folks here have mentioned having lathes and mills and stuff :P
As long as you planned on shooting them 'soon' (a few months), I don't see aluminum being too evil. Cans are pretty thin and if ya face the "painted" side out, it should have plenty of corrossion resistance. Zinc flashing or similar can be had.. and zinc is supposed to be decent as a gas check. Some folks claim it leaves a thin lining on barrel to help further reduce leading. Note: zinc plated washers would be a no no - that's *steel* with a bit of zinc on top heh. Copper stuff can be had, but the flashing I work with for roofing would be a bit too thick.. you'd need to come up with a thinner gauge sheet of copper that didn't cost a fortune.
edit:
I love the guy's intro (first 30 sec) to this video... hilarious and sounds like me :)
Machining the check maker pt 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLhTWNls-Mw#ws)
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Converted failed jig into bullet lube groove holder using the 22ga wire. Seems like it might do okay, I dunno. Part of the fun will be seeing how the PC/wire separates at the lube grove (will a huge flake stick to the wire?).
Jig flips over easily for coating the nose of the bullets, and the bullets don't fall over or anything.
The wire isn't ultra high tension... but it's enough to cause the jig to bend/warp a little (dunno if it shows up in the pics). You can adjust the wire by hand to get it more how ya want it.
Is this fairly easy to work with ? Sure. Is it something I'd wanna do 1000 bullets with ? Not particularly.
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-tray2c.jpg)
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Pardon my ignorance ... Is powder coating lead bullets cheaper than buying Copper jacketed bullets, or making Copper jacketed bullets?
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Pardon my ignorance ... Is powder coating lead bullets cheaper than buying Copper jacketed bullets, or making Copper jacketed bullets?
Jacketed bullets aint cheap. Well, still makes hand loads 1/2 or less the cost of factory ammo (for pistol... save even more for rifle).... but compared to lead or plated/gilded... they aint cheap.
Berry's bullets are pretty cheap, they're copper plated...
Lead bullets are even cheaper.
Casting your own lead bullets ? Dirt cheap assuming you have inexpensive supply of lead. At $2-$3 a pound for lead, that's between 5 and 6 cents a bullet. There are cheaper places to get lead than those prices though.
Powdercoating - you can get a pound of powder coat powder for $5. That $5 coats ALOT of bullets. There are more expensive powders ($10-$20 is fairly normal) too if ya really have to go that route.
So, yes... powder coating your cast bullets is cheaper.
More importantly though - it removes the leading factor / problem for lead bullets.
Well, at least in standard pistol cartridges it does.... and I've not noticed any particular drop in precision / accuracy.
Been varying degrees of success with rifle (some folks lose any form of accuracy, some do wonderfully).
We'll have to see what bradkroll gets out of his s&w 500 :).
Lastly, customizing ammo is fun.... as is tinkering.
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Brad - I use aluminum gas checks on cast rifle bullets with no problems. I buy them from thegascheckstore.com. I thought about buying a DIY tool but they're cheap enough that it wasn't worth it to me.
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Off topic, but i've looked into making own primers as well... or reloading existing primers. Can be done, but the only 'simple' mixture for ease-at-home and not too special ends up being corrosive primers (not a problem assuming you clean your gun after every range trip or day of hunting). Was going to take this further into looking into reloading 22lr heh.
I'm currently steering clear of it - got too many other things I'm working on ... and it requires a lot more attention to detail than I think I can easily give it at the moment.
Completely practical ? Not necessarily (although continued ammo and component shortages are making it more so). Very feasible, yes. Fun in customizing your ammo more completely ? Oh yes. Having more control from start to finish... or rather doing more of it yourself can be fun.
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Thanks for the info, Unfy.
BTW, I really enjoy your postings about your experimentation, and they've been highly informative as well. They make me wish I still had a brain.
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Thanks for the info, Unfy.
BTW, I really enjoy your postings about your experimentation, and they've been highly informative as well. They make me wish I still had a brain.
Glad you enjoy them. And informative is something of a pet peeve... seen plenty of posts / videos in other forums / blogs / etc and such where folks don't explain dick and it's infuriating. By attempting to explain some of my lunacy, others offer their own ideas and things improve overall. Been awesome :).
Annndddd... I'm sure after a year of reloading again you'll start to itch with ideas on stuff... and will hopefully start to safely tinker as well (and post things here about it hehehe) :D.
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Bullets sat in the jig "overnight" (rather, through a sleep session)...then took them outside and PC'd them. Getting them into the jig required a little bit of work on my part. Not a whole lot mind you, but a bit.
Anyhoo, so... my tension isn't super tight but tight enough to warp the jig a little. The bullets generally sat with wire in lube groove fairly easily. There was enough slack in the wire to be able to fiddle with the wire to get things better (or make worse). An example of making things worse worse, attempting to squeeze the wire so that it cupped the lube groove better would usually end up causing less tension on the bullet and it would fall through.
Most bullets did alright. There was some thin spots that I'm willing to blame on myself rather than shadowing (I can't even use a rattle can correctly heh).
One bullet did end up cockeyed in the jig... it's visible in the left of the first picture and right of the second picture... and on the right of the very last picture (obvious line on ogive). I'm not sure when the cant took place - if it was after flipping the jig over to coat noses ... or if it was when flipping it over yet again to stick into the oven base up.
Several bullets have wire contact marks touching where the edge of the lube groove meets the base driving band.
One bullet did actually slip out of the lube groove (second picture of row of bullets, third bullet).
It was getting late (as first few pictures show it's dark with a light) so I didn't bother attempting running another set of bullets through the jig (air compressor noise / neighbors). Wire seems like it'd do just fine for more runs. Dunno if will need to address conductivity or not (ie: the wire is now powder coated as well).
Now, if I were to suggest a better way to make this existing jig ...
a) don't use long bolts for the wire tension, deflection / warping is a concern
b) chainlink steel tension bars are probably better for holding the bolts in place than the 1/8th x 1/2 x 1/2 aluminum angle bar i was using (note: converting failed jig etc). chainlink tension bars are cheap and decent if ya don't care about how they look.
c) place the "table" so that the "top" is in the middle and "legs" stick out 1.5 inches on either side (ie: so you can flip it over)... like a |-------| shape.
d) use short bolts akin to the wood setup where the screw is screwed all the way in (should help reduce deflection, increase tension, etc)
I brought supplies with me tonight to work on making the hollow pointing jig after work. We shall see. Hollow point molds can be had for $80-$120 though.
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-5a.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-5b.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-5c.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-5d.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-5e.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-5f.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-5g.jpg)
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You can also modify your existing mold to drop hollow point bullets.
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Looks like some painkillers in the background of the last picture UNFY. Giving you a headache figuring this out? lol
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Looks like some painkillers in the background of the last picture UNFY. Giving you a headache figuring this out? lol
ROFL. Taken at my desk at work ;). And yeah, ibuprofen. More for my back than headaches hehehe. Sorry about looking a mess, been a long night at work and then a bit of fiddling with hollow point drill guide stuff.
You can also modify your existing mold to drop hollow point bullets.
*You* might be able to... I don't have a lathe nor a mill nor ..... :)
Hollow pointing jig.
* 2x2 piece of wood
* 5/16th's steel rod, cut to 3/4" in length
Found the drill size that matched some 6D nails (what I chose for PC jig). Then picked a tiny size or two bigger to act as the drill guide. Yeah, it's a one-off bit ya gotta buy separate.
Drilled a slightly smaller than 5/16th's hole in a 1x3 to hold the rod while was drilling the guide hole.
Anyhoo, attempted to drill down the center of it using a not so great drill press at work. it's a bit off center :(.... but.. for proof of concept I'm content. Also, the bit I was using has a 1 inch cutting depth... so ended up snapping the bit towards the end (original goal was a 1" guide hole, not 3/4" heh).
In the 2x2, drilled a slightly smaller than 5/16th's hole all the way through, then on the opposite end drilled a 13/32's hole. 13/32 ~= .406, I'm working with .40 bullets... so... yeah. Turns out that PC without sizing them first - it's a snug fit in the hole (I forgot to bring an uncoated unsized bullet with me... unsized virgin casts fit properly).
Anyhoo, bullet base sticks out of the bottom of the board, allowing ya to push / clamp the piece of wood to something flat, thus holding the bullet in place (instead of free spinning).
Then use a hand drill (preferably slower speed) to drill out the hollow point.
I'll stick a nail or drill bit through the hole and use my calipers to see if I can spin the steel rod to try to center it better.
As of right now, the thickness of the wall of the hollow point at the outer tip of the nose/ogive is 0.105 along 3 axis, and 0.110 along the 'long' fourth axis.
We've got a better drill press at work, when I re-attempt it, can try with that thing.
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-hp-guide1a.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-hp-guide1b.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-hp-guide1c.jpg)
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I actually found a link a while back on how to convert a mold with a drill press. I'll try to look it up tonight.
I plan to make a tool that I can chuck up in my lathe or drill press which will cut a HP cavity in my subsonic blackout bullets.
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I actually found a link a while back on how to convert a mold with a drill press. I'll try to look it up tonight.
I plan to make a tool that I can chuck up in my lathe or drill press which will cut a HP cavity in my subsonic blackout bullets.
CB forum seems to have hints / mentions / instructions / etc.
They use the removable plug on opposite end of the cavity... a concept i'm not keen on at all.
The molds that have pins along the sides of the block that push the hollow pointing studs away from the blocks would be about the only thing i'd have an interest in personally ;). IE: you don't keep inserting/removing a spindle/plug by hand.
edit:
(http://www.fiveshot.org/images/repairedCramer25AHP.jpg)
Actually... that kind of thing i *might* be able to do.
last edit:
we do have a metal lathe and mill at work, but with how the employee of that area beats the **** out of the tools and doesn't clean ****... i'm not going anywhere near those tools. i'd clean everything but he'd just **** it all up again. the mill i *might* be able to get workable.. i dunno. there's another drill press that's beefier and might be more true and deflect less.... i'll have to eyeball it all... but needless to say i'm not happy with the shop section at work due to 'that one guy' ...
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Now that's an interesting way of doing it. The DIY ones I have seen all had the removable pin.
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Am I right in assuming that the only place the powder really needs to be is where the bullet makes contact with the lands in the barrel?
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Ok, now that I'm viewing this on a HD screen, that is one rusty, nasty looking mold.
Am I right in assuming that the only place the powder really needs to be is where the bullet makes contact with the lands in the barrel?
I would say both the lands and grooves, so anywhere it makes contact with the barrel. Leaving the base uncoated might lead to a little vaporization and lead deposits, but from what I've read a lot of guys do just fine with it set that way. I think the bearing surface is a much bigger contributor to leading.
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Hey UNFY can you send me the link to the gun you got at harbor freight? Might make a trip up there tonight and practice on fishing jigs.
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I plan to make a tool that I can chuck up in my lathe or drill press which will cut a HP cavity in my subsonic blackout bullets.
I would recommend a collet. Depending on your lathe or even the drill press, a collet can be used to grip a bullet holding it very centered while not putting any damage on the OD. A "center drill" bit would make a very nice hollow point cut and are available in different diameters followed by a 60 degree chamfer. The collet is installed in place of a chuck on the lathe or drill press. I imagine a holder could be made for an RCBS puller collet if one wanted.
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http://www.harborfreight.com/10-30-psi-powder-coating-system-94244.html (http://www.harborfreight.com/10-30-psi-powder-coating-system-94244.html)
On the north 90-whatever-th store here in Omaha, it's along the left hand side of the store, possibly on the isle *facing* the far left wall. edit: left as in you walked into the door and are looking at the store. Near air compressors and air hoses / attachments.
Make sure you have pc gun, an air compressor, some face masks (like nurses), safety goggles / face shield (not just shooting glasses), a toaster oven (find something $30-$35 or something... ya don't want the smallest oven they make basically... i got that, its a tad annoying heh), powder, air hose, maybe air fittings. I'm also using a cardboard box (bought one for a buck) as my paint hood.
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I would recommend a collet. Depending on your lathe or even the drill press, a collet can be used to grip a bullet holding it very centered while not putting any damage on the OD. A "center drill" bit would make a very nice hollow point cut and are available in different diameters followed by a 60 degree chamfer. The collet is installed in place of a chuck on the lathe or drill press. I imagine a holder could be made for an RCBS puller collet if one wanted.
I used an unsized case for a collet. Split it down the neck in 3 places, then chuck the case up in the jaws. My SOCOM case worked well but I can imagine some big rimmed cases might not work. A center point drill is what I used to create HPs. That being said, it is a pain to drill each bullet individually so I am trying something new in the morning.
I modified my 458 mold this afternoon to create a semi-boat tail bullet with a 1/8 hole centered in the base. This was done by creating a new base plug (the second since I started this project) that has a 1/8 pin about 3/16 long. This will allow placing the bullets nose up in my coating tray and the boat tail should ensure that the base of the bullet still gets a good coat of powder. I will take pictures tomorrow after I cast and coat, then it's off to the range for some testing. I will try to compare grouping and record speeds of uncoated and coated. I do not have a sizing die for the 458s so I hope I dont have seating issues, but will not know until I cast, coat and load.
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I would say both the lands and grooves, so anywhere it makes contact with the barrel. Leaving the base uncoated might lead to a little vaporization and lead deposits, but from what I've read a lot of guys do just fine with it set that way. I think the bearing surface is a much bigger contributor to leading.
For bk/gg: You're spewing a powder sugar cloud of 6-8 inch diameter out of the gun. You aint gonna have precision.
Anyhoo, the bearing surfaces of the bullet are a requirement, and with the softer alloy / high-for-lead-charge I use, the base really helps as well.
The CB thread had a recent post of a guy loading up ~500 powder coat bullets just sitting on the aluminum foil bases down and they shot fine for him and a buddy. Unaware of the charge or alloy or bullet size he was using.
The HP mold with the push pins... I *think* i can make that with a drill press (assuming I can get my hands on a drill press with minimal play/wander). Might also want to fetch the vice that you can chuck a drill into (holds drill steady) to make a cheap and far from accurate lathe ... but with a gentle touch I *should* be able to get *something* of a cone using that and a file. Should also allow me to make the grooves for the E-rings (so the pins are captive).
I've not done a lot of reading on the subject matter, but I assume the HP stem itself would be a brass rod... possibly the ejector pins as well ?
I won't be attempting any of this any time soon -- I don't have spare molds I can afford to munge up heh.
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http://www.harborfreight.com/10-30-psi-powder-coating-system-94244.html (http://www.harborfreight.com/10-30-psi-powder-coating-system-94244.html)
On the north 90-whatever-th store here in Omaha, it's along the left hand side of the store, possibly on the isle *facing* the far left wall. edit: left as in you walked into the door and are looking at the store. Near air compressors and air hoses / attachments.
Make sure you have pc gun, an air compressor, some face masks (like nurses), safety goggles / face shield (not just shooting glasses), a toaster oven (find something $30-$35 or something... ya don't want the smallest oven they make basically... i got that, its a tad annoying heh), powder, air hose, maybe air fittings. I'm also using a cardboard box (bought one for a buck) as my paint hood.
Thanks, looked at that one and it seems to get some of the better reviews of ones HF carries. Now I gotta figure out what I'm going to do for a compressor... Pros and cons of oil and oil-less?
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Thanks, looked at that one and it seems to get some of the better reviews of ones HF carries. Now I gotta figure out what I'm going to do for a compressor... Pros and cons of oil and oil-less?
While I was there, I picked up their 3 gallon hotdog compressor with regulator.... it was on sale as well and I dunno where my other lil compressor went. It's link:
http://www.harborfreight.com/13-horsepower-3-gallon-100-psi-psi-oilless-air-compressor-69269.html (http://www.harborfreight.com/13-horsepower-3-gallon-100-psi-psi-oilless-air-compressor-69269.html)
You'll want a compressor with a regulator, without a doubt.... and no sense in buying an ultra cheap compressor and then buying a regulator to add on to it. Buy a (cheap) compressor that has a regulator on it.
For PC, it's generally suggested that you fetch an oilless.
If you get one that takes oil, you'll want to also pick up an oil separator. Cheapies can be had for $8-$15. The HF gun claims the black bulb at it's air inlet is a water separator or whatever, but I wouldn't put too much stock in it getting rid of oil as well.
I've not got that much experience with air compressors. Bother had a big one back in the day, we use big ones here at the shop... but outside of looking at numbers for output and size of tank, I'm a bit... 'eh?'.
For the PC stuff, the lil 3 gallon compressor has enough oomf just fine. Takes ~2-3min (i think) to come up to pressure and kicks on a second time when doing the 8x10 sheet of bullets. I wouldn't call it quiet either.
The manual for the PC system says it wants 3.5CFM @ 30psi. Just about any small "normal" compressor can do that, but the hobbyist airgun things won't (they're 0.5 @ 20psi usually).
My old pancake compressor i had in a cardboard box with 1/4" styrofoam sheets around it. It could still breath, but that knocked the noise down a fair bit (don't get me wrong, still loud). I'll be looking into making proper wooden box for this compressor with some sound deadening ceiling tiles (i hate noise... and am a minor audiophile heh).
If you're looking for something quieter, a belt driven oil compressor is more in line with what you want... and most belt drive compressors tend to last longer and are quieter and stuff (and they'll all be oil based btw).
If ya want something that will power a bunch of air tools (it's tempting to go that route heh... and in fact I *will* be when I get my own place) - you'll prolly want a 25 - 30 gallon tank minimum... prolly closer to 50-60 or more :).
If ya do build a box for your compressor, remember it needs to breath (and that you need to be able to get to it). Heat can also be a very bad thing. When I build the box for my lil compressor, it'll have a window for the gauges, external air hook up port, and a quiet AC fan in it for air circulation.
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Was going to go to the Lincoln coffee thing, but didn't have jig making and other stuff finished up in time :(... owell.
The hindu foot rest is built (76 posts, 1 inch centers, staggered rows). used a 12x18 sheet of 26ga galvanized steel (cheap, pretty sturdy). Used some 6D nails as the posts. Did clear off the sheet metal sheer at work (see another post about me crying)... and got it cut to size, then cut another one. 1 sheet for the holes to stick nail through, the other sheet as a backing (to avoid welding).
Do note - I didn't plan my riveting... thought at first '4 will do' like a simpleton. So... it's kinda ugly (and self defeating pic to demonstrate heh). Plan the riveting holes if ya aint gonna tack weld nails in place.
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pincoushin1a.jpg)
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pincoushin1b.jpg)
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Hey UNFY can you send me the link to the gun you got at harbor freight? Might make a trip up there tonight and practice on fishing jigs.
Concerning the little hotdog air compressor I picked up:
Air delivery: 0.6 CFM at 90 PSI, 1 CFM at 40 PSI
This is quite a bit less than 3.5CFM @ 30psi. The airgun suggests
You've been warned ;)
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A good thing about CFM is that you can get by on less provided the use is not continous. In other words, spraying is often in short bursts and the tank reserve will keep up for the most part.
Air tools that run for a long period of time (sand blasting, die grinder, etc.) tend to quickly use up the tank reserve and the pump can not keep up with the demand...then you need a bigger compressor that is compatible with the intended load/use.
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Drilled new holes for the hollow pointing jig, works good now. 0.106 - 0.1.07 all the way round now :)
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Ok, I didn't get to the range because I just ran out of time. My pin in the mold base plug was too long which made it hard to drop the bullets out of the mold, so I incrementally shortened it and also added some taper.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-hpJZ2iszizY/UWnIRuDYU0I/AAAAAAAAAUo/5JFhwFHUpfM/s400/355-PC1.jpg)
I checked pressing into a case and adjusting my SOCOM dies using a case guage(the SOCOM is VERY unforgiving). Then cast enough for a full PC batch. I also used my MagLight to make sure I did not see any shine through the coat. The loaded tray in the oven..
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-NYI-xa1ewpo/UWnISfUeZuI/AAAAAAAAAUw/-a-jUWLM0IY/s400/355-PC3.jpg)
Out of the oven. This shows the semi-boatail bottom with pin hole. The coverage is good.
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-IxtYLjhrv0E/UWnIop1N-zI/AAAAAAAAAVA/y-0476CJ-8U/s400/355-PC4.jpg)
Ten test rounds loaded. Note the FrogLube, I use it as my bullet lube. Did you know it will not burn? I use it on my molds also. It disappears when cold and reappears when hot if initially properly applied. It ain't grease and ain't oil so you cannot mix it with either. It MUST be applied when the surface is hot so that it can absorb in the molecules of the metal.
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-jaW_pujAG2Q/UWnI_C2Qq7I/AAAAAAAAAVY/Sq4lzVykU_o/s400/355-PC8.jpg)
Ready for the range. The PC bullets along with the hollow points cut with a center drill. Gonna rain tomorrow, so maybe next week I can test with the chrono.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hGM882k0H3k/UWnISxtWczI/AAAAAAAAAU4/jIMhLUm1YYI/s400/355-PC10.jpg)
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looking sweet, dangerous! i know folks are curious how things behave in rifle, and big bore is a noted exception to what ppl have repoted :P
my drill guide jig thing is a failure. the guide is too close to the bullet nose face, thus the material doesn't really have anywhere to go and... yeah... :(
pushing it back didn't help either.
trying a few case trimmer hollow points (3/8ths or so ?) ... they wibble wobble on the nails which aint cool.
i'm at a loss for the moment on HP jig / nail setup. i *really* don't wanna drill out all those rivits and replace the nails with something bigger-hp friendly (for when eventually getting hp molds maybe).
for now this means the wire lube groove jig.
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looking sweet, dangerous! i know folks are curious how things behave in rifle, and big bore is a noted exception to what ppl have repoted :P
my drill guide jig thing is a failure. the guide is too close to the bullet nose face, thus the material doesn't really have anywhere to go and... yeah... :(
pushing it back didn't help either.
trying a few case trimmer hollow points (3/8ths or so ?) ... they wibble wobble on the nails which aint cool.
i'm at a loss for the moment on HP jig / nail setup. i *really* don't wanna drill out all those rivits and replace the nails with something bigger-hp friendly (for when eventually getting hp molds maybe).
for now this means the wire lube groove jig.
I have a saying.. "perserverance beats brilliance". It has served me well over the years while working R&D in fishing rod design, and especially software design and programming.
There are two main concerns that I have.
1. How well does the coating hold up on the lands? I should probably allow a longer curing time before loading or shooting.
2. Balance? As near as I can tell, the coating is more perfect than the casting imperfections.
So back to perserverance. When struggling with a process design, the first question to ask is what is my final goal?
Shoot inexpensive cast bullets with no leading and no gas checks.
As far as I know there are three ways to achieve this
1. Plating We are still working on this process
2. Powder coating. Our current process R&D
3. Old school sabots. Yes these will work in cartridges also.
Both 1 and 3 have more process steps so they are more complicated, which leads us to powder coating which is relatively simple and inexpensive.
So what are the process steps?
1. Cast and inspect the bullets.
2. Size if needed. I think sizing is not required for larger calibers and sizing risks adding lube to the bullets which should be removed prior to coating.
3. Clean the bullets
4. Coat the bullets. (this is the step that determines the final quality). There is one main objective of coating. Uniformity! We want 100% coverage while covering all sides the same amount. The faster the bullet and spin the more this is critical.
5. Bake the bullets. Ding! Bullets are done.
Step 4 is the critical step, and the one that is the hardest. So the problem is, how to hold the bullets while coating which allows direct transfer to the oven with the least disturbance?
Obviously a tray that fits into the oven is required. Easy decision
Now how to hold the bullets? Bullets with lube grooves seem the obvious choice. But remember, we want uniformity for balance, so can we really use the grooves and expect coating uniformity? I do not think so. The only way to achieve balance is to hold the bullets from the center because any place that the holding jig is touching the bullet will not get coated. So if you want balanced bullets, I think the lube grooves are out. So hold the bullets by the center.. There are only two ways to achieve this.
1. Some sort of clamp with pins.
2. A single pin which will require some sort of centered hole.
Which is simpler (kiss is always best for processes)? A single pin.
1. Mount pins to the tray. Relatively easy. BTW I like your method better as there is less warping.
Now mount the bullets on the pin.
2. Mount the bullets on the pins. A centered hole is required for balance. Hollow point bullets are perfect if you have a hollow point mold. Unfortunately, neither of my molds are HP, so I have to come up with a way to put centered hole in a bullet. Luckily I have a lathe, because without one you may be able to put a hole in either the base or point of a bullet but it likely will not be centered. For the muzzleloader I chucked each bullet and drilled. Hole is centered and with drilling soft lead there is no dust but the bit does tend to grab, but this is very time consuming. For my 458 mold, it had a core plug which I was able to replace with a plug that has a pin. In your case, without a lathe, you are pretty much restricted to HPs.
So you have HPs but the pins are too small for the HP holes. Two options..
1. Replace the pins. Lose all the fine work you have done installing them? I don't think so!
2. Find something to use as a bushing. Sounds a lot easier to me.
So a bushing..
A. OD matches ID of one part, bullet end
B. ID matches OD of the other. Pin end
Your nails are pointed so B is not a critical demension but a bushing that will fit closely to the largest diameter of the nail will prevent wobble on B, and an OD that closely matches the bullet Id is best.
What comes to mind first is a pellet from a pellet gun. It is lead so resizing may be possible, and it has a hole which could be used as a center hole for drilling if required. Another thing is a spent shotshell primer. Maybe some brass beads used to make necklaces.. Brass tubing from Hobby Lobby.
I think tubing will be best. OD of B, ID of A.
1. Shorten your nails so it does not take as much.
2. Purchase OD to match ID of HP.
3. Wrap nail with wire to match tubing ID.
Solution! Hope this helps. My bullets are perfect and I am sure will shoot well as both calibers are shot at fairly slow speeds. All that remains to be seen is how much they prevent leading. I am not worried about vaporized lead as even paper patching prevents vaporization, so all that remains is lead on the lands. Will know for sure next weekend. I still intend to persue plating now that I have a good power supply.
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Well, i did a round of wire jig with lube grooves. Went fine.
Then decided to just go with the holes-drilled-in-cookie-sheet jig. Seeing as how it did just fine at the range last time... and allows 3x as many bullets coated at once.
I've noted I have a fair amount of powder on my lazy susan and 'paint hood'. Will fetch a small brush and attempt to recover it. It's been out in the moister, so I imagine after recovery it'll need some very violent shaking for an extended period so that it's broken back up etc. I'll keep it separate from regular powder so can see how it affects things.
Now, as for DD's awesome breakdown on suggestions....
I too was thinking along similar lines. Powder coat is definitely easiest and seems to work wonderfully on the single bullet type I've bee able to test it with. I've been pondering plating some more, but trying to avoid getting too involved in it... too many complicated things at once is bound to mean a mess up... and already wanna get my air compressor box built. It's funny, my box is gonna end up costing more than the compressor ... sigh ...
I will note, for pistol rounds, I don't think the lube groove weight imbalance is such a concern. On rifle from 100-300 yards, it undoutedly is.
The original design of the rig that became lube-groove-wire jig... I think is a plausible concept. This would be two needles/nails pinching the bullet on from base & nose. Maybe not in the vertical form that it was done in... it prolly needs to be horizontal... and then there's the obvious trade off of losing bullet density per tray. For human simplicity, it would prolly also need to be a spring loaded design. The wire-groove stuff has been through the curing process twice, i'll try spinning bolts to see if they move at all, i'm willing to bet they don't :).
But, the hollow pointing approach really does seem to be the ideal way to go.
My HP jig appears to be a bust.
A) For some reason there's a fair bit of play in the guide hole now.
B) The lack of being able to eject removed material is a huge problem
C) The bullet will still spin in the cavity, even with a decent amount of force applied downward on the jig.
D) You *can* use some vice grips (set to not be very tight) to hold on to the bullet base without deforming it
E) Lead is harder to drill than I thought.... the amount of force required really does hint at wanting to use a drill press to avoid snapping bits and getting better holes
F) If using a drill press, there'd have to be something done to grip bullet bases. Bolts pushing on a ==( shaped thing come to mind.
G) All of the hollow pointing drill guide jig stuff really wants to be made out of metal rather than wood, thus it's beyond me (darn lack of tooling).
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So. Hollow point molds. Bought reconditioned lee/lyman/rcbs molds or from-factory-with-hollow-points will all have large HP cavities for their terminal characteristics.
Yes, the nails are too small for typical hollow point cavities.
So you're right
A) tear apart jig
B) bushings
C) tubing ideas
Tearing apart the jig is a valid solution, and possibly the 'most proper'. Having proper spindles is just 'correct'. Buutttt.... it doesn't allow for much in the way of modularity / re-use.
Bushings are an easy work around and do offer some modularity. While more permanent ideas include DD's most interesting pellet idea... to wirewrap .. to... etc... Aluminum foil might quite possibly make for a just fine temporary one ;).
And now for the idea that I really like, and prolly wouldn't have come up with on my own, the brass tubing.
6D nails are 1-7/8ths of an inch in length. I like that height - makes getting the lower portion (nose in this case) easier. That said, a point doesn't exactly lend itself to very much given that I have to toss my current HP jig idea. A pair of bolt cutters to snip off some ends might be in order.
But the thought of being able to take different brass tubings that have been designed to fit different HP cavities is down right awesome. There's extra work in having to tool up all of the tubes for each style... but... one jig and a box of sheath tubes is so much better than a half dozen jigs.
I'll have to measure the 6D nails again to figure out what their diameter is... if it's a really weird size that doesn't have a matching tube size.... euhhh... we'll deal with that later (tearing apart jig anyway, or even something as simple as good ole aluminum foil again heh... or a wire just to fill up space, etc).
So... for sizing up.... I imagine a center punch or cold punch could get minor sizing done easy enough.
I dunno how ductile brass is. Could the tip get a cross cut put in it, then the 4 sections folded back over itself (much like how a HP 'flowers' on impact) ? This way you could adjust size and possible conicalness via the 'petals'. Maybe it'd have to be annealed first ?
Lets go an opposite direction for just a second.
Take one of your cast HP bullets.
Make a plaster of paris mold of it's cavities (doing proper negatives first, edit: or by removing the hp pins if easy enough).
You should now have a tiny lil thimble sized mold that when filled should match the cavity of your hollow point.
Drill some holes / cut some slits in the end of some brass tubing.
Drop some lead into 'thimble' plaster of paris mold, stuff slitted/holey end of brass tubing in mold, let freeze. Wallah, a lead ball semi-perm attached to end of brass tubing that perfectly matches your hp cavity.
Sizing down shouldn't be a problem. Some of the tiny high speed rifle bullets might require fixing a thumb tack to the end of the tube hehehe (can prolly solder it on).
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I'm really digging the brass / aluminum tubing idea. Really am.
Anyway...
Went shopping today. Picked up tiny lil brush and dust pan from walmart to attempt powder recovery (rolls eyes) ... it'll be worth a laugh at least :).
Grabbed a small jug of plaster of paris for some mold making down the line.
Also, I've been picking up materials to build a box to throw the compressor in. I just hate noise. 6 sheets of 2x2 cheap not-quite-plywood. Some 1x3's, some corner braces, some 1/4 bolts/nuts/washers/lock-washers, a tiny sheet of clear plastic for a picture frame (so can view gauges), and some chest handles. Haven't laid out the design just yet, it'll be something like 12-16 inches wide, 18 inches long, and 22 inches tall or so. Plan on having a side 'pocket' on it for holding power chord and air hose.
Also grabbed a cheap 3 conductor extension chord to chop up, a light switch, a 2 outlet .... outlet, a couple electrical boxes for outlet and switch. Extension chord wires into switch which we be mounted facing the outside of the box... wires from switch will run to the outlets which will be mounted inside the box. Planning on plugging air compressor and a small AC fan into the outlet.
After it's built, if it's necessary... I also picked up a $10 twin sized foam liner thing and some spray on adhesive to act as additional sound absorption.
Finding a local & cheap fan has been hard. Radioshack has some for $20-$30. No thanks. Cheap bathroom exhaust fans are kinda large but only cost $15 and are relatively quiet (it may end up being this, i dunno). We've prolly got some 'proper' AC fans (designed like computer fans) at work ... and I can prolly steal one. We prolly only pay $3 each heh.
This weekend I'll prolly order a HP mold, or maybe next weekend, we'll see.
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Ordered a mold from:
http://www.hollowpointmold.com/ (http://www.hollowpointmold.com/)
Looks to be high quality, "home made" (akin to the Sharp Shooter USA mold I bought)... so I'm really looking forward to giving it a shot.
.....
Gonna be fiddling with air compressor container over next few days (been getting days/nights straightened out so haven't done much work on anything). Basically building a box for it to live in to reduce it's noise output and make my life a little simpler. Only missing a few things, but it should turn out nice.
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Swept up powder from lazy susan and paint hood.... looks like it should recycle just fine.
Waiting on the mold to arrive.
Do have plenty of bullets to load and test in the mean time. Maybe tomorrow.
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I hope to get to play with the hollow point mold this weekend. Certain things have come up that have made it difficult for me to do so at home heh.
Anyhoo....
BKOENIG ... have you gotten to fiddle with this yet ? Surely tax season is over by now ?
The CB thread has had a lot of success heard from those shooting big bore and AAC and slower 30cal stuff. Including some posts from DangerousDrummer.
A few folks have had even had good luck with 223.
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I hope to get to play with the hollow point mold this weekend. Certain things have come up that have made it difficult for me to do so at home heh.
Anyhoo....
BKOENIG ... have you gotten to fiddle with this yet ? Surely tax season is over by now ?
The CB thread has had a lot of success heard from those shooting big bore and AAC and slower 30cal stuff. Including some posts from DangerousDrummer.
A few folks have had even had good luck with 223.
The high speed are going to have to be pretty precise for accuracy. My 285 gn came out sideways at higher speeds.
I think we should not call these bullets "powder coated" anymore. Instead let's call them "Jihadi Lipsticks" just to piss everyone off. Just sayin... After all it is not illegal to be politically incorrect... yet.
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The high speed are going to have to be pretty precise for accuracy. My 285 gn came out sideways at higher speeds.
I think we should not call these bullets "powder coated" anymore. Instead let's call them "Jihadi Lipsticks" just to piss everyone off. Just sayin... After all it is not illegal to be politically incorrect... yet.
I still giggle at the pic ya posted under thread of same name ;).
Was it BKOENIG or BRADKROLL that was supposed to be experimenting with this by now ? Mmmmm ????
Anyhoo, I'm about to go play with hollow point mold.
GOSH DARNIT! I forgot some matches. Haven't smoked the mold yet. RAWR. (doing this at work).
This means I gotta put everything inside the door here at work, go to wally world, buy some stinkin matches... come back to work, dig everything back out... etc. At least I haven't turned on the pot yet \o/
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BKOENIG ... have you gotten to fiddle with this yet ? Surely tax season is over by now ?
Haven't had a chance yet...got taxes paid, but now it's trade show season at work and planting season on the farm, plus a few weddings and other miscellaneous obligations. I haven't had a free weekend in ages and the weeknights have been just as busy.
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I forgot some matches. Haven't smoked the mold yet.
Disposable butane lighters (or similar) work as well to smoke mold cavities. Less messing around.
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Disposable butane lighters (or similar) work as well to smoke mold cavities. Less messing around.
I use a map gas torch without any O2, it really smokes it good, almost too good as I had it so thick in one spot you could see it very slightly deformed on the bullet nose on the 420s. I think it is amazing that something as light as smoke, can stay in the mold in spite of something as heavy as lead. Must have something to do with molecular size and not molecular weight.
I also preheat my mold with a propane torch. Not too much on the AL but pretty hot on the steel.
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Ran to wally world, 97 cent box of matches did just fine heh.
I've been tempted to start using stand alone electric burners to heat molds... but the lead pot seems to do just fine. Perhaps it's not as exacting, but it's free and works just fine.
I'm not entirely sure how the soot works... just know that it does. I'd have to guess it nestles in nicer ... so... molecular size is probable. Then again, is it the soot itself or some kind of liquid-ish-fume that does the lubrication ?
Never really considered a lighter... didn't seem to put out much smoke so discounted it immediately. Will have to give it a try if I have a lighter handy next time need to do it.
Some folks claim ya don't need to smoke your molds... particularly with hollow point molds. I dunno... it's easy to do and seems to work great... so... whatever. I'll continue to smoke'em :)
bkoenig: grrrrr :P. Understandable, but grrrrrr
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(http://i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee412/alemonkey/21258d1305119165-necro-thread_crap_wont_die_re_mega_zombie_forum-s300x371-97014-580_zps6c4c0bcc.jpg)
Ok, I FINALLY got around to picking up a powdercoat gun from Harbor Freight today. Used the 20% off coupon and got it for $48 before tax. Of course, my air compressor crapped out a while back so I needed a new one, and then I needed the powder, and a regulator, and.....
So for the price of a few thousand Berry's bullets I am now ready to start coating. Oh well, I needed a new compressor anyway. Hopefully I'll be able to give it a try yet this weekend, otherwise I'm on the road for work next week. I had considered just staying with plain cast bullets since they shoot pretty well and I really don't get much leading, but I've gotten tired of all the smoke from the lube.
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Another data point in the old axiom: "When it rains ... it pours!"
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Hm, I picked up their little 3 gallon pancake compressor. I think it was 3 gallon ?
I dunno, but didn't need a regulator - has one on it... and it's been working fine.
I've been a bit busy with real life and horrible budgeting concerns (ie: haven't had internet at home for 6 months ?) ... so haven't played with SCIENCE much lately. I'm sure DangerousDrummer is looking for me to comment on his copper plating success hehehe.
I haven't made the sheath/bullet holding pin whatever things for the powder coating jig yet. For a moment, I thought I was gonna get away with just PoP nubbies on the metal tubing -- but forgot need an electrical contact as well. *sigh*.
Anyhoo, BK - ya should be able to grab an old cookie sheet or whatever sheet that comes with an old / cheap toaster oven - grab some aluminum foil (non-stick is better, and non-stick should face towards the lead... but regular will do too) - and that will give you an easy and quick intro to powder coat goodness that is still mostly effective ;)
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Yeah, I unboxed the compressor this afternoon and it had a built in regulator, so I returned the one I bought.
If I get time to cast some bullets tomorrow night I'll try to get them coated on Monday.
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recap:
* you can prolly use freshly cast bullets without any concern, but a 2 min soak in acetone prolly doesn't hurt
* tray that came with toaster oven or similar, with a sheet of aluminum foil over it
* any aluminum foil will do but nonstick aluminum foil is best, with nonstick side facing bullets
* ground clamp from gun goes on tray / sheet with bullets on it
* you want 1.0 to 2.0 inches between bullets, prolly 1.5 is good.
* rotate the tray a time or two to try to get more complete coverage while coating
* regulator on the tank should be putting out ~20lbs (i think! check prior in thread!)
* regulator on the gun works surprisingly well, too.
* it's messy, especially while learning, don't powder coat on any 'serious' floor
* i used a 3 sided (plus bottom) card board box as a cheap "paint hood" to good success
* don't use a tray or a toaster oven you'll be using for food ever again
* don't use kitchen oven
* don't bake indoors - fumes will kill you (possible exaggeration)
* bake at 400F for 20min
* my coatings are typically on the heavier side (prolly due to inexperience heh) but don't seem to affect things
* i don't pre-size the lead, i size it after baking (and cooling heh)
* i have a couple large plastic store bags that I keep the gun in after use ... cause it will still get powder everywhere when trying to store it etc heh
Most important:
take lots of pics, and post updates to thread!
:)
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Yeah, I'll definitely take some pics.
Interestingly enough, I was at the USPSA match in Louisville today and I found a round laying on the ground that had a powdercoated bullet.
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Well, I tried it tonight and it was an utter failure. I couldn't get the powdercoat gun to apply evenly. Apparently even if you have the feed turned way down you still have to feather the trigger, or it initially dumps a whole bunch of powder all over your work before it starts spraying. I ended up with about a 1/4" layer of powder on top of my bullets. I'll try it again when I get back from my trip.
I did read of another method which seems to be much less labor intensive - just mix the powder with some acetone and tumble lube like you would with Alox, let them dry, and then bake. This would be no more work than my current process, so I'm seriously thinking of going that direction.
Edit: Here's a thread on TN gunowners about coating with powder + solvent. This guy says lacquer thinner is the way to go, and from looking at his pics it really doesn't take much powder or solvent. After reading some more I'm really wishing I hadn't spent the money on a powdercoat gun. I'm definitely going to try this. Oh well, I have a new tool now, and a man can never have too many tools.
http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/topic/66713-powder-coating-the-easy-way/ (http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/topic/66713-powder-coating-the-easy-way/)
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Did... hm
You're kind of sifting powdered sugar over donuts. Not really spray painting. letting the static charge pull the powder to the bullets
Does that description help ?
Is your powder damp ?
Are you holding the gun upside down (unlikely) ?
Did you over fill the powder container ? And tell me you didn't directly hook up new can of stuff to the gun directly ? I typically have about 2 inches of powder in the canister.
There will be a spurt at the beginning or whenever it grabs a clump, but it shouldn't be catastrophic.
edit: If ya were in Omaha I'd come over and take a look at what you're doing to see if I could help :(
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I dumped about half the container into the gun, so maybe it was overfilled. Once the initial clump of powder came out it did dispense evenly, but that one time was enough to make a huge mess.
I'm really excited to try the acetone method. I think it will be a significant time saver.
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too much in the container then yeah.
curious how acetone works out!
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Results are looking good! I followed the instructions from the TN Guns site and used lacquer thinner. Just dump a little in a bucket along with some powder and tumble around for a couple of minutes until the solvent evaporates, then dump out onto some wire mesh and bake. I'm waiting for the bullets to cool down but so far they look good. Not as shiny as when applied from a powdercoat gun, more of a flat black. Pics coming tomorrow.
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Ok, here we go.
Tumbling in the lacquer thinner / powder mix:
(http://i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee412/alemonkey/E37FA5DF-D7A5-43EC-BE00-0C73A43EC342-688-000000CABFE41D0A_zps2cb9d4f0.jpg)
Dump them out onto some mesh and let them dry, then bake 20 minutes at 400 degrees.
(http://i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee412/alemonkey/3DC29671-47C9-4CA9-B4EF-A8D14781DE8B-688-000000CACD5E3293_zpsf4d0e702.jpg)
Baked and sized:
(http://i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee412/alemonkey/IMG_1844_zpse4b42908.jpg)
The finish is definitely rougher than when applied with the gun. It's also not as even. We'll see how they shoot, either later today or tomorrow.
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I decided to give the powdercoat gun another try this afternoon so I coated about 50 bullets and I have them baking right now. It's definitely a lot more labor intensive than the solvent method, and a lot messier. The upside is that the bullets have a nice smooth coat. I'm going to test both and if I get acceptable accuracy with the solvent coated ones I'll stick to that method.
I'm thinking for rifle bullets the gun method might be the way to go. I'm interested to try this on some of my 7.62x54R / .303 Brit and 300 Blackout bullets.
Also, I tried the speed casting method that Unfy posted a while back and with a 6 cavity mold you can really crank out the bullets :D
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Last update for today. Here are the bullets that were coated with the gun - much smoother looking.
(http://i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee412/alemonkey/IMG_1845_zpsa8f254b7.jpg)
I plan to get to the range tomorrow so I can try them out.
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.....
I'm thinking for rifle bullets the gun method might be the way to go. I'm interested to try this on some of my 7.62x54R / .303 Brit and 300 Blackout bullets.
So, am I right in assuming that powder coating the bullets is a way of replacing Copper with a plastic in order to avoid the cost of Copper and to prevent lead fouling of the barrel?
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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.
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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.
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Cool! That solves the "when Copper is as expensive as Gold" problem! (Which seems to be rapidly approaching!)
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Yeah, now I need an easily to melt and low cost lead replacement in case they ban that....
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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 (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.
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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/
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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.
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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
(http://unfy.org/misc/nfoa/pc/pc-tray3.jpg)
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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:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7xc7BNbBnc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7xc7BNbBnc)
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).
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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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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.
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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.
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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
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I just realized bkoenig already did the lacquer tumble!
Woo!
Way for me to read own threads :(
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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 ....
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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.
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From what ive read, even runs in the coating can affect accuracy. how do you dry them?
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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 :D
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Interesting way to coat bullets with very little equipment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WObkDKIVYSw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WObkDKIVYSw)
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Not bad.
Tempting to try.
I'll admit to being happy with the solvent method.
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Currently at
85 bullets, 1/2 tsp powder, 1 tablespoon lacquer thinner.
Mixing time is 5-10 min.
Bake is 20min / 400f.
Paying attention to tackiness of PC gel / bullets is important. Like making real fudge. Too runny or too thick produces an uglier coat.
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Currently at
85 bullets, 1/2 tsp powder, 1 tablespoon lacquer thinner.
Mixing time is 5-10 min.
Bake is 20min / 400f.
Paying attention to tackiness of PC gel / bullets is important. Like making real fudge. Too runny or too thick produces an uglier coat.
This seems to be a decent recipe for what I've been working at. It gives a decent-enough coat for plinking ammo without being "thick". The thinner coat makes sizing go easier, too. Shaking time is probably 2-5min, not 5-10min. The home depot paint mixer cup is holding up just fine and honestly seems to be a great size for the wet process.
Cut out a few more trays for bullets from 1/4" steel mesh. Just to speed up the process a bit.
I've got about 6 quarts of coated bullets that I've started to load.
Starting with just 5.9-6.0 grains of Unique, which I had good luck with before. Hope to get out to a range and make sure the new bullets still don't cause any leading issues (otherwise, pan lube or a lubrisizer is in my future).
I'll admit, my Hornady LNL AP & rcbs dies has been quite cranky in trying to get back into the swing of things. About the only thing that hasn't been fighting me is the case activated powder die/tube/dropper/filler/thing.
I'd give the vibrate case tumbler & bake thing an attempt - but the wet process seems to be working fine for me in a nice relaxed pace.
Drummer had mentioned his previous plating attempts with some success. I will hopefully give plating another attempt this winter. All depends on free time (which I don't have much of). His setup and some of the stuff I've grabbed should yield a less hokey environment.
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Finally made it to range today.
50 powder coated bullets sitting on 6.0 grains of Unique went down range with no leading of the barrel. These were the liquid method PC bullets.
Very happy ... especially since I've loaded and boxed 1000 rounds of it so far :D