New 247 gr HP Help

[Oldphart]

GunFunZS, just finished watching your video. Yep, I believe you are right, making this way harder then it should be!!
I've cast 300 good bullets and I've had to recast them all, so yes I'm learning the hard way. I'll be following your advise and try to powder coat per your suggestions. So back to the drawing board for me, but I'll be back.

Thanks,
Phil

[GunFunZS]

Glad to help.

Sorry you had to suffer through that video. It really was not my best work.

[Dolomite_Supafly]

If you want we can talk on the phone and I can help you out. I have probably been powder coating bullets 6 years now. Powder Buy The Pound is about the best powder I have used. I use the 400 degree TGIC powder. I have tried Harbor Freight and could never get any positive results. I shoot coated bullets exclusively in all my guns. I don't think I have shot 100 jacketed bullets in the last three years other than subsonic tracers.

I tumble the cast bullets naked first. I tumble them for about 3 minutes or until they get dull, whatever happens first. Then I add very little powder and let it run until they look uniformly coated. If the coating doesn't look thick enough add very little. The worst thing you can do is add a bunch of powder, it is better to add a little at a time until you get a uniform coat.

Also, it doesn't need 100% coverage to work. I have had some that were less than 50% coated and they worked just as good, and no worse, as bullets that were completely coated. You want just enough to prevent leading.

And when baking there is no need to separate or stack them separately. If the coating is applied thinly you will not have any problems separating them.

Who made the mold?

[Oldphart]

Dolomite_Supafly thanks for your reply have seen many post by you and several others here. I bought the mold from NOE my first aluminum mold all my others are steel. After I bought this mold I did everything NOE said to do to break it in, although I've never taken so much time in breaking in any of my other molds!

I haven't bought jacketed bullet in 30 years, but I just got back into shooting my rifles and would like to shoot nothing but cast in them also. My family and I use to shoot 3,000 rounds a month all cast bullets, for pistols.

Thanks for your suggestions and I will be trying different ways to powder coat per you and the others suggestions. I appreciate the offer to talk personally and I look forward to doing that in the future.

Again Thanks,
Phil

[yondering]

As for powder coating, I made one of the older videos on the topic, if not the first. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... WuEo7pgz8w

Yours is one of the first videos, but I beat you to the first write-up by about 9 months, not that anyone's counting.
http://10mm-firearms.com/reloading-10mm ... e-leading/

My point in saying that though is that after I posted that (one of, if not the first to figure out dry tumbling), I've watched other people add steps to the process that complicate it, make it slower, and don't give results as good. Simply following the directions I posted (and have revised since in posts on other forums) will give a much thinner coating than what the OP is struggling with.

I definitely agree with you about keeping it simple, but I feel that using a tumbler is even an extra step that's not needed. Just use a little powder, shake for 15-20 seconds hard, and if it's not enough, add more. If you have powder left over, you probably used too much. (That is one detail I've revised since making that original post.) If your coating adds more than a couple thousandths, you definitely used too much.

[Oldphart]

Man do I have problems with this mold.
1st cannot get good bullets unless the bullet is frosted, have never had problems like this; been casting 40 years

2nd after casting driving bands are .312 and bore riding portion is 300 - happy with that but there are feathers around the HP portion of the bullet

3rdafter powder coating, shake and bake, the driving band is .318 - .320 and the bore riding portion is .308 - .310 I know this is not good, but I'm new to powder coating and can't believe I'm getting such a thick coating!

I've tried to sizing the bullets, in several steps, before coating but all the sizing I'm doing is distorting the HP. And no trying to get an OAL that will fit in the chamber is useless, because the bore riding portion is way too big.
Oh, and I see I'm going to need to polish the feed ramps. Going from the magazine to the chamber is not working...but I can fix that.

Thanks for any help, thoughts regarding my casting problems and powder coating problems would be very helpful

It has been a rough month for me, learning wise! I've cast and shot 30 caliber bullets in the past, but not as long as the ones I'm trying to use in my Blackout now AND to add to the learning problems starting to learn to powder coat all at the same time. I want to thank all those that have chimed in to try to get me going in the right direction.

I've figured out how to cast these bullets AND what to look for when inspecting the molds. I wasted lots of powder coating and had to recast lots of lead this past month but dammit I've learned!

Here's what I found out.

Casting the bullets is easy now, probably it just took a little time to break in the mold. (although I never had that problem before)

2nd.. The first time I cast these bullets the dimensions, out of the mold, were correct. Had problems with the hollow point when sizing so had to recast the 200 I made. The second time I cast them I didn't check the dimensions, I assumedthey were correct. They were not. The pins for the hollow point had lead build up all around them, the mold didn't close all the way, so the bullet were cast .318 at the driving bands and .306 at the bore riding portion!! So when I sized them thru the Lee sizing die (.3115) it took everything I had to size them. THEN when I use the Lyman Luber Sizer to get them to .310 I though they were good. All I measured was the driving bands didn't check the bore riding part. So I powder coated them and when the driving bands were .313 I figured sizing to .310 will fix this and it did but the bore riding portion was like .310 NOT GOOD!! I blamed this mostly on the powder coating.What I failed to tell you is the lead I'm using is harder then it should be Brinell of 22, really to hard for what I need. OK so I gave up on this because Dolomite_Supafly was sending me a mold of his new bullet design and I needed to get ready for this project. When the mold came in I went straight to casting, did like 200 just to get started. As cast the dropped at .312 driving bands and .299 - 300 bore riding area. So I sized them all .3115 with the Lee and sized 5 thru my Lyman Luber Sizer to .310. on the 5th on I noticed something strange, the bullet looked bowed!! It was AND it was .020 shorter. The light bulb finally came on. Sizing with the Lyman distorted the bullets severely. Anyway I bought a Lee .309 sizer and honed it out to .310 and everything is great.
(All this happened because I wasn't paying attention. This cost me a month of my time but man did I learn!)

Also, after powder coating they only grew .0005 to .001 just what everyone here told me!! Now the only problem is sometimes when cooking and the bullets stick it will pull off the powder coating; not all the times but it happens more then I would like.

Again, Thanks,

Phil

Phil