Pure lead powder coated boolits

The Glass Black has worked excellent for me especially if you want to bump up the bullet dia. a smidge for bore fit, it has consistently given me almost double thickness that blue (the next thickest), red, pink ,or yellow will with one coat.

I have sized immediately after cooling (within an hr.) and after "aging" for a week and see no difference in finished product. I do dry size every bullet before PC to finished size I want to "uniform" them all and then finish size after PC. I have found that if I don't uniform all bullets to the finished size first then if the bullet is a slight bit "fat" the PC can be peeled off and the bullet is harder to "center" in the sizer as well. I am only talking rifle bullets here, I don't pc any pistol bullets....unless I'm bumping .452 swc up to shoot in a .458 bore...LOL
 
LOL... over on CastB the catch term they are promoting now is Poly-Jacketed. I tried PP a few years ago and prefer PC...works with any boolit (that I've tried anyhow) and much less labor intensive.
 
Thanks for the advice Auggie D. Got some tool blue and a pound of bottle green. The bottle green was on sale and just starting out did not want to waste the good stuff. I managed to mix some of the green in with the blue, strangly the powder looks green blue, the boolits came out blue and adhesion was a bit better. Anyway had a few challenges, but did get some PCed boolits down range. I was suprised at the accuracy right from the first shot. It is fun and easy. My old mosin did really well with lees 160gr TL sized to .313 under 4.5gr of unique.
be safe
 
For you guys doing rifle bullets, what speed can I load up to? Are we talking jacketed speeds,over 2000fps? I am interested in doing this for bullets that cost more to purchase then cheaper pistol fodder.
Thanks
Cooner
 
I have no chroni i assume at least 2000fps. last week I tried my M305 cast load with PC worked fine. Accuracy was not that great but will work at it.
30 hunter, water dropped WW, sized to .310 after PC, H4895 (all rounds functioned flawlessly),
 
leebuilder said:
I have no chroni i assume at least 2000fps. last week I tried my M305 cast load with PC worked fine. Accuracy was not that great but will work at it.
30 hunter, water dropped WW, sized to .310 after PC, H4895 (all rounds functioned flawlessly),
Click to expand...

Tests by others have shown that water dropping is of no benefit to a bullet that is to be PC'd. The cooking temp of the pc process removes any tempering from the lead, returns it to almost original alloyed hardness (tested many times). To have a hard cast PC boolit the tin content must be present in the mix at time of casting. There seems to be mixed opinions by the "experts" as to weather a hard alloy is still needed for cast & pc'd boolits that will be driven at the upper range of cast velocities. Some have reported very good results with pure WW at over 2200 fps, some, and I don't remember the alloy content, but they rave about being able to shoot un-checked cast at 3200 fps with absolutely no leading. Personally I have only shot pure WW at up to 1700 with no leading.

Millions of pistol bullets with PC coating have been fired & satisfactorily tested so far but the higher velocity rifle stuff, with all its more complicated intricacy's is still basically in its infancy and being tested every day. Anything we can add or report on will be helpful so keep at'er boys.
 
You are right. I water drop all cast rounds it is what I am used too. After PC they are pretty well anneled you can test this your self. Take a boolit unPCed and one PCed from the same batch. Now put them both in a vise side by each and squish, you will see how soft oven treatment is.
I am still on the fence about softness and hardness, lube mixtures and size. I have not experienced alot of leading, bore condition is the biggest factor.
By the way these were the first PC I have shot out of the M305, the bore was near spotless. No PC in the gas system.
Be safe
 
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One thing that was published in the CB site, on the PC paints, is that the paints are harder than the lead compounds we use, and the soft lead is "collapsing" ( and that description hasn't been defined well ,yet) under the PC coating. What I picked up on, in what I have seen,the boolit compound still has to be more or less what you would use for the lubed versions. Ya, people have driven PC boolits at speed with soft compounds and no gascheck, but, they didn't publish what the results downrange were, other than saying they weren't great. For rifle apps, you really have to do some careful reading, very few are playing with 1800+ so far, and a lot of those threads are polluted with sub 1800fps answers, at short ranges, like 50yds and 75yds, and many guys that are shooting pistols chiming in on those threads. I still have not seen the magic trio of no leading, speed and proven consistent accuracy, with gascheck speeds, on a broad basis with PC rifle boolits , yet.
 
fingers284 said:
yes they have but all reports basically agree that the pC coating cooking process doesn't get the lead hot enough to bring the hardness up any appreciable or noticeable degree.
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Good to know. I assume I could achieve this if I put them in an oven for 45 minutes after they were finished and try to get the hardness up but then the whole exercise becomes more work than it is worth. My 9MM bullets aren't leading the barrel now using PC so I think I will leave well enough alone. I tried the Hi-Tek product and have had no luck at all in 9MM. I have used it in 38spl with good results but no better than the PC method which is a less involved process.

Take Care

Bob
 
Read up a little bit on the subject and the main theme from people that have tried to re-heat and water harden already cast bullets is that the a temp must be achieved that is almost hot enough to cause the bullets/lead to almost become soft to a near slumping form (prob somewhere around 550 deg).. At this temp, the PC becomes just a carbon crust that is useless for its intension
 
fingers284 said:
Read up a little bit on the subject and the main theme from people that have tried to re-heat and water harden already cast bullets is that the a temp must be achieved that is almost hot enough to cause the bullets/lead to almost become soft to a near slumping form (prob somewhere around 550 deg).. At this temp, the PC becomes just a carbon crust that is useless for its intension
Click to expand...

Again good to know. That saves me the effort and it makes sense, Thanks.

Bob
 
I know NOTHING about powder coating (but am interested) but just noticed that Princess Auto is carrying powders and equipment, if that helps anyone. Again I have NO idea if the PA paint/equip is any good.
 
209jones said:
One thing that was published in the CB site, on the PC paints, is that the paints are harder than the lead compounds we use, and the soft lead is "collapsing" ( and that description hasn't been defined well ,yet) under the PC coating. What I picked up on, in what I have seen,the boolit compound still has to be more or less what you would use for the lubed versions. Ya, people have driven PC boolits at speed with soft compounds and no gascheck, but, they didn't publish what the results downrange were, other than saying they weren't great. For rifle apps, you really have to do some careful reading, very few are playing with 1800+ so far, and a lot of those threads are polluted with sub 1800fps answers, at short ranges, like 50yds and 75yds, and many guys that are shooting pistols chiming in on those threads. I still have not seen the magic trio of no leading, speed and proven consistent accuracy, with gascheck speeds, on a broad basis with PC rifle boolits , yet.
Click to expand...

Jones
Thanks for posting this. I asked about rifle PCd bullets and most of the guys here are talking about pistol and speeds under 1500fps. If accuracy sucks with rifle bullets then Ill stay with GC lubed bullets. I think the cost saving with PCing would be with rifle fodder ? when were paying $50 and up for a box for bullets in Kanada here. SO I ask has anybody shot PCing AT higher velocity,WITH good accuracy ?out of rifles?
 
cooner said:
Jones
Thanks for posting this. I asked about rifle PCd bullets and most of the guys here are talking about pistol and speeds under 1500fps. If accuracy sucks with rifle bullets then Ill stay with GC lubed bullets. I think the cost saving with PCing would be with rifle fodder ? when were paying $50 and up for a box for bullets in Kanada here. SO I ask has anybody shot PCing AT higher velocity,WITH good accuracy ?out of rifles?
Click to expand...


You might want to check with the guys on the Cast Bullet Forum. There are folks there using PC bullets in their rifles with good results.

You may need more than pure lead though. My results reflect pistol bullets only using PCing. I get good results now using GC regular lubed bullets in my rifles so likely will not make the switch. Same is true with pistol with and without gas checks. It is a hobby and the PC bullets look cool. :>)

Take Care

Bob
 
From what I have been able to pick out of the Castboolit stuff and elsewhere, PC for pistol boolits is a no questions asked proposition, do it. For non-gaschecked speeds in a rifle, for plinking purposes out to 100yds, with irons, people seem to be 50/50 on the accuracy side of things. What they are happy with for accuracy with a lubed bullet, was suspect to start with, in many cases. Therefore I tend to dismiss a lot of those posts. Depends entirely on the individual as to what they want to achieve, for what they call accuracy. It is when they hit into gaschecked speeds, which very few do, that it gets really vague, leading issues are not an issue, as far as I can see, PC works in that dept. I just haven't seen anything reliable enough, that says you can take average cartridges from say a 7x57 to a 35Whelan and run it in a good barrel in a scoped rifle, at gaschecked speeds, say 2000-2200, and do better than 3", most have not achieved that, many have got worse,or not better than what they had with lubed bullets, and what they had with lubed boolits was not necessarily all that great to start with. And there are a fair number that tried it and went back to lubed boolits, likely with their existing moulds.
I am theorizing, and I am seeing a few others thinking this way, a person will have to get a mould and a lead blend that casts at the proper size to use with PC, and avoid anything more than .001 sizing, to make it work. With the paint harder than the lead, sizing a PC'd boolit may be causing problems at the gaschecked speeds. That could certainly be overthinking as well though. There are not enough published results out there to judge anything from for sure, in that arena. And that can be an expensive experiment. For myself, I'd like to try a mould that casts about 409 on the nose with say 1/20 and #2, which will be two moulds most likely, and two sizers, and that will be a 250-300.00+ bill, which puts me into a 400.00+ investment overall. I can cast and lube a lot of boolits for that. At this point it is more than I want to spend on an experiment. I think there are a lot of people in that boat. That is for my 450/400NE, it is fussy about nose size, my Ruger has a bit of a short throat, the bullet I have is a bit long and needs to be seated too deep for my taste, without resizing the noses, they have to be 410 up to the bands. What I have tried so far with those moulds that I have, isn't going to work, for me, with PC.
 
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