Anybody here powder coating their cast bullets?

[silicosys4]

I have been using the lacquer thinner with Powder by the pound coating paint. It is great. Accuracy is good and the two biggest bugaboos of bullet casting are now out the door! You can ignore the dark arts of bullet alloys and secret lube formuli using eye of newt and frog hair. Simply cast you bullets with whatever lead you have on hand and powder coat.

Good to 3,000 FPS with no leading or powder coating left in the barrel.

If you are serious about this new method, follow this thread:

http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/topic/66713-powder-coating-the-easy-way/

Dark art? Lol....I didn't know I was a master of tumble lubing and wheel weight alloy to get no leading and great accuracy.....it's not rocket science.

Is powder coating 20,000 bullets less costly than tumble lubing them with the $15 worth of lube tumble lubing costs?
Does it take longer to powder coat than the 5 minutes per 1k bullets to tumble lube them?
How do you resize home cast bullets for powder coating...? After they are coated? Before? How do you lube them for the sizing die if before?

To me, powder coating offers no advantages over tumble lubing for my reloading. Perhaps if I were loading cast bullets for higher velocity rifle loads...but the sizing issues still remain as far as I know

 

[jmorris]

I dip lubed before and used a machine I built right after I finished the casting machine. It uses the same collator that my presses use, just has a device to flip them from base down to nose nown for sizing.

The coated bullets just get me less smoke, that is a bonus for the gun games I play. Powder coat was just too slow.

The cost is less than $12/1000, using the bayou coating.

I will say that I had no problem with regular cast bullets for decades before the smoke they put out were less than ideal for what I was using them for.

 

[Tommy Van Alen]

Is anybody shooting the Bayou Bullets coating through a USPSA open gun or through a .300 Blackout suppressor?

Anybody doing the same with the powder coat?

I picked up a tub of fluorescent green powder coat last night. I am about to head to the hardware store to get some mesh/screen.

Thanks again for that write up supa-fly. I am going to glance over it one more time to see if there is anything else I need from the store.

 

[flashhole]

What information is available on the hardness of the powder material? Is barrel wear or excessive throat erosion a concern? The powder coating will be a lot harder than conventional lubes and probably harder than the lead bullet. Have you ever recovered a powder coated bullet and examined it?

 

[popper]

PC applied with the HF gun & powder works fine. Clean bbl, 1" 20 rnd groups @ 50 from a LR308 carbine @ 2240 fps,GCd, basically a mag dump off sand bags. Same results with 30-30 PB ~1800.

 

[jaysouth]

I did an anvil test on a powder coat/lacquer thinner bullet cured 10 minutes in a 400 degree oven. The powder coat stays on the bullet even after being flattened with a large hammer.

Depending on depth of coatine, I may resize in a Lee push-through die.

For lack of experience, no comment on long term wear on barrels/throats. I know a fellow tinkerer that shoots .223 coated bullets at 3,000 fps. No leading or powder residue left in the barrel.

 

[jmorris]

Have you ever recovered a powder coated bullet and examined it?

Powder coated




The top one is one I coated with the bayou coating.

The bottom one is a Precision Bullets coated bullet.

This was a test using a bayou coated bullet next to the same cast bullet uncoated on an aluminum plate. The heat was removed when the first bullet began to melt.

And the hammer test.

 

[Garyshome]

Just started PC'ing. Haven't shot any yet, still too much to learn before I load a bunch up. Seems if I am going to learn about lubes, maybe just skip that part and go with PC'ing. Them boys at cast boolits are talking 2400 fps!

 

[M1GarandDeerHunter]

Thanks for the info guys! I read the thread that fully explains the process and pitfalls and I'm thinking about trying it. A friend that was a commercial reloader (now retired) gave me some 30-30 cast with what he called a powder coating to try. I am going to load them and see what they do now. Sounds really promising.

 

[Field Tester]

What are the pros and cons to coating? How/why did it originate? Was there a need for it or was someone just trying to come up with something a bit more colorful?

Am I to understand the coating acts similar to a gas check?

 

[jmorris]

I started coating for the same reason Precision bullets, bear creek bullets, bayou bullets and others sell coated bullets, you don't have to use a wax lube that smokes and it is simple/cheap relative to plating (I tried that too).

 

[Thompsoncustom]

No mess, lower smoke, you can push softer alloys faster.

 

[tyeo098]

.30 Carbine, in red

 

[flashhole]

Looks like a tube of lipstick.

 

[AABEN]

YES it does what will they come up with next?

 

[tyeo098]

I've got a bunch of .358 RNFP's lined up for this afternoon as well.

 

[flashhole]

Use silver paint and you cold be the Lone Ranger.