I've popped my boolit casting cherry

[Jim Timber]

Until the HPA passes, or I somehow come into so much extra money I have the insatiable urge to give the gov't more of it, there's no pressing need for me to get efficient at powder coating boolits. This really is a shits'n'giggles proposition.

I figure baking on a screen rather than a tray is a good way to leave less powder edge flange at the base of the boolit. It also separates the loose powder from the projectiles at the same time so it's actually removing a step.

[Dolomite_Supafly]

I have a Lyman tumbler. I dump the bullets in the tumbler and let them run for a few minutes. You can see their color change from kind of shiny to kind of dull. That is when I add the powder. It takes another 2-3 minutes and the bullets have a nice even coat that looks flat. I dump them either straight onto the basket or I dump them in a sieve. If it is a smaller batch I dump them directly into the basket. If it is a bigger batch then I dump them into the sieve and shake off any excess powder stuck in between the bullets. I do not lay them out, they get baked in a big pile and come out in sort of a loaf. They are easy to take apart. I have tried adding airsoft BBs but I could not tell a difference.

I have used pretty much every method and dry tumbling is the easiest. I have used the solvent method using acetone, lacquer thinner and pretty much anything that might work. I have also hung the bullets individually from wire and then use an actual powder coating gun. That method made prettier bullet but they did not work any better. Definitely wasn't worth the hour it took per 100 bullet batch.

All I shoot is powder coated of Hi Tek coated bullets through my silencer and I do not see any problems from deposits.

Something very interesting about coated bullets is how clean they are. After shooting most jacketed or plated bullets it takes a bunch of work to remove the copper fouling and the normal crud left behind. It takes solvents and hard work to clean a barrel after shooting jacketed. With coated bullets the bore is CLEAN, as in super clean. The first patch will have the normal carbon on it but I have yet to have a second patch come out dirty. That is another big reason I like coated bullets, they do not foul the bore.

About the same time I was getting into coating bullets I was also copper coating my own bullets using copper sulfate that is in tree root killer for septic tanks. And after some experimentation I decided coating bullets was much easier and much quicker.

I have tried every harbor freight powder and none of them work well. It is a constant battle and often times you loose. But if you are using Harbor Freight powder you will be amazed at how easy the it is to use good powder.

[Jim Timber]

I was watching some guy who used safety wire to string up chains of boolits to then spray and bake. It just about made my nerve damage start acting up just watching all the manipulating of the wire for so few boolits; but it did make my head hurt thinking about how inefficient his method was.

Don't get me wrong here guys, I'm listening to your years of experience. I'm just going cheap and easy (HF is 6 miles from my house) for now to see how it goes. If we end up with tax and gov't-free cans, you can bet your asses I'm going to get real serious about coating lead pills.

I think the HPA is going to pass, it's just a matter of "when" not "if" at this point.

[yondering]

Jim it sounds like you're confusing baking on a screen vs using a screen to sift powder off your bullets. Baking on a screen is good, that's what I do and recommend. Sifting the "extra" powder off - not so much, it's counterproductive unless you've dumped way too much powder in with the bullets.

Also, the recommendation to use a better powder is not about being efficient, it's about using a coating that will actually coat well and be tough enough to resist the trip down the barrel. You probably will have issues with harbor freight powder; that doesn't mean there's a problem with the shake and bake process, it means the powder is junk.

A few pictures for you, in order:



about this much powder for a couple hundred bullets, don't need any more than that.


Shake it by hand like you're trying to kill it for 10-20 seconds, this is the result:


Dump them on a tray with screen to prevent flat spots. Do not agitate the tray to "sift" excess powder off; if you did it right there will not be any excess.


After 20 minutes at 400*F

[Jim Timber]

The HF powder will at least let me try my boolits prior to modifying the mould. That's my main priority right now.