Hi tek bullets recovered, what should they look like?

Toprudder said:

I am a firm believer that the roughness of the forcing cone and barrel can have a significant impact on the performance of bullet coatings. While I have had great luck with coated or plated bullets in most of my guns, I have a Ruger Blackhawk that simply did not work well with either coated or plated bullets. The coated bullets leaded the barrel quite a bit. I saw evidence of plating failure (small shards of copper, and leading in the barrel) when using plated bullets, even when kept to 1000 fps. The forcing cone had visible machine marks on it. I have since started using Zero jacketed bullets and have no problems. I figure once I shoot a few thousand rounds through it, it may be worn smooth enough that I can revisit coated bullets.

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You could always lap the forcing cone, and/or the barrel too

edit: Random 8: call/email MBC and I'm sure they will make this right, if you have already...never mind

He has increased his offerings over time, both in calibers offered as well as grooveless designs. I now buy from a friend who makes most of my common bullets, but when I need bullets for some of my low volume calibers I check all my usual places including MBC.

Havok7416 said:

I see. As you have discovered, your coating was obviously not applied correctly.

I remember reaching out to MBC via email before they offered coated bullets (2014 according to my email message) to ask if they planned to offer some eventually. Brad responded (copied from my email): "Not at this time. The Hi-Tec process is extremely labor intensive and we wouldn't be able to do any volume using it. You have to size the bullets, cook the bullets, then size them again. Not doable!
Thank you.
Brad"

Less than a month later they were offering Hi-Tek bullets!

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It's not recommended to size the bullets before coating with Hi-Tek. Also you have to cook them twice. Apparently he had never read the directions for using Hi-Tek.

1. Coat
2. Cook
3. Coat
4. Cook
5. Size

Actual time involved in the coating and cooking is about a minute. If you sit there and watch them dry and cook then it's obviously going to take much longer. Most people can multi-task and do other things while they dry and cook.

Texas10mm said:

It's not recommended to size the bullets before coating with Hi-Tek. Also you have to cook them twice. Apparently he had never read the directions for using Hi-Tek.

1. Coat
2. Cook
3. Coat
4. Cook
5. Size

Actual time involved in the coating and cooking is about a minute. If you sit there and watch them dry and cook then it's obviously going to take much longer. Most people can multi-task and do other things while they dry and cook.

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At the time he may not have known all the details, hence his reply to me. I remember being aware of the process during that time.

"Not at this time. The Hi-Tec process is extremely labor intensive and we wouldn't be able to do any volume using it. You have to size the bullets, cook the bullets, then size them again. Not doable!

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I am just doing them at home on a very small scale but I can coat them, as fast as I can make them, as fast as I can size them.

I would not size them first then coat, you want the bullet as cast to coat, size after.

The time consuming and labor intensive part is getting the lead and turning it into usable ingots.

I have been shooting the Hy-Tek coated cast boolets for about 4 years now . At first I was buying them coated then I realized there lead is hard enough that we dont need to buy there boolets coated they shoot fine with no coating BUT .........I started to make my own cast boolets and THOSE needed to be coated and or lubed as they were leading the heck out of my barrels . I now only buy MBC Hy-Tek coating powder from them and I coat all my boolets that I make and I have never had one single problem with them at all but one of the things I do is I wash my boolets in Acetone before I coat them so as to get off any oils etc etc then I do 2 LIGHT coats of the coating liquid and I bake them at 400 degrees for 12 minutes not the 375 for 10 they say to do and after that I let them cool then I do the rub method instead of the crush method meaning I soak a cotton ball with acetone and then I rub the coated boolet for 30 seconds and if any color comes off then it is a failed coating but the other way to test them is the crush method and I have done that one and it will work also I just like the rub one as it tells me how the coating fared then if that shows a little color but not much then I crush it to see how that batch went . I have coated somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 to 60 thousand boolets maybe even more as I have sold a large amount of the ones I make and I have only had an issue one time with the coating at it was my fault as I put to thick of a coating on the boolets and was not letting them cool off enough before coat's and this is a no no. The directions say to follow them to a "T" and your best bet is to do just that . The only thing you can do that is not per directions is to use a little more acetone then the directions call for but be aware that you will need to do a coat or 2 extra per batch but it is always better to have to thin a coat and to do a few more thin coats then it is to have to thick a coat . By the way the hy-tek method the boolets dont need to be sitting upright or not touching etc etc like the powder coated ones need to be . That is one reason why I never PC my loads as the process of keeping them from touching was way to time consuming and tedious. With the Hy-Tek method you dont need to keep them separated just remember when you pull them out of the oven to shake them while there hot so they separate and dont stick to each other . Ron

Hi-Tek says to bake 10 minutes at 400°. Not sure where you got the 375° from. 200C = 392°.