Horrible Freight strikes again - you guys were right; and other musings

[Jim Timber]

The coating ended up too thick and uneven since I reapplied when they were sticky due to not getting a good coverage when they were cold.

Spent some time beating the plunger to extract them from my luber/sizer after they went in and didn't want to come back out.

I've got a 330gr Gould Express mould coming Monday, so I'll be at it again powder coating before too long.

I didn't get to loading up any more ammo, so the 490's never got culled or anything for that matter. I did process a bunch of my scrap lead and wheel weights though.



I've still got 2/3 of another bucket of unprocessed wheel weights that came with my casting pot, and another 30# of ingots that were made in pop cans from my buddy. Just trying to get to where I only have good material on hand so I can throw out the clips and be done with it for a while. Sure is nice having the exhaust fan in the shop for melting this stuff. I had about 10# of old boolits that had lube on them and that smoked up pretty good before catching fire.

[Jim Timber]

I could never get HF powder to work worth a damn.

I'm getting to that point myself.

6 boolits are loaded that have been coated. I tried coating another 25 .459's and a dozen .311's tonight with two different methods (pre-heat and plastic bb's in the tub) and neither produced. I'm not even going to bother baking the .311's and the .459's went back in the melt after coming out even worse than the first batch.

Sad thing is I have another mold coming Monday, and I do want to get up to production on those so I can use them for muzzle device testing (save some $$$ on early function checks). The 480gr mold I have now is a pet project kind of thing for later utilization. I'm fine if I never shoot a subsonic round without a can, I'd just like to know if my 10.5" shoots this boolit well enough to hack up the profile to make it a socom specific shape. I may just wax the damn things at this point.

So do I get the powder gun again (had one years ago), and do it traditionally, or do I hold out and get some Powder By the Pound?

I just can't figure out why so many people are able to get this stuff to work and we can't.

[plant.one]

isnt the TGIC 400* stuff from powder by the pound pretty much considered the holy graile of PC for bullets?

[Jim Timber]

No clue on that stuff. I did get an applicator gun today and will give the HF stuff one last go before writing it off.

My 330gr mould arrived this morning so I'll be cranking those out here in the next day or two. I've gotta meet up with my forester later this week, so I'd like to have some of these made up for that trip to the property in the event it's not as chilly as they're predicting. -6 (lows) to 12F (highs) is a bit below my threshold of comfortable air on the lungs for precision work.

I still want to take the .458S carbine out yote hunting and see how that PA scope does in the woods. The weather sounds about perfect for that, and I have lots of Nosler BT's loaded up and ready to go.

[plant.one]

viewtopic.php?f=185&t=86939

dolomite's thread on powder coating - aka everything you ever wanted to know about powder coating, but were afraid to ask

[Jim Timber]

I'll grab a pic of what my boolits look like with shake'n'bake application. Added bb's trying to increase the static generation, and that outright failed just as bad as the bare boolits. I can't pet the cats without shocking them, but I also can't for the life of me generate a static charge out in the shop.

I really wish I'd saved some of my powder from when I had the professional grade stuff years back. I had multiple 60# boxes of it from an auction; cost me $2!

[Jim Timber]

Finally got around to using the HF powder coating gun and a rack I made for the 330gr HP GE boolits. First batch could've used a little better coverage, but my overall impression with them is "outstanding!"

I've got batch 2 in the oven now. I'll bring my phone with me when it's time to take them out of the oven and get some pics.

[Jim Timber]

This is going to work slick!





I water dropped the first batch, so those need to dry out before I can load them, but the second and third batch were left to cool and those are good to go.

[bangbangping]

Nice. And your rack looks much more professional than mine, which is just a baking sheet with 6d finishing nails tacked on.

[Jim Timber]

I grabbed a couple of these chunks of diamond plate out of the $1.25/lb bin at the steel yard thinking they looked "about right" to fit in my oven without cutting. Then just scribed the grid lines and drilled the holes to fit tig rod and welded them in from the back. Didn't take long at all to get it done.

I'll probably make one to hold my big boolits by the bore rider band ahead of the crimp groove. No need to have the ogive coated anyway.