Powder coating, here I come! SUCCESS!!!!!!

kjohn said:
Pardon the dumb question, but has anyone powder coated copper jacketed bullets. I have the feeling I'm going to get a barrage of "why would you do that????". Just curious, that's all.
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I would think could try to get .308" jacketed bullets up to .310" for 7.62x39, or perhaps to .311" / .312" for 303 British or 7.65 Argentine? if you try to do so, let us know how that worked - might "tip me over" the edge, to try it ... Might even work to create .228" bullets from .224"? For extreme, I have a 0.282" groove barrel, perfectly chambered for 270 Win - so typical .277" bullets are like .005" too small ...
 
Falconflyer said:
I don't know anything about powder coating but a recent article I read says that PC adds nothing to the diameter of the bullet... for what that's worth.
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I'm going to say bull####. It's a coating, everything adds thickness.

There were people complaining about x metal hi tek coating causing their guns to jam as it was over sized.
 
OkayShooter said:
I'm going to say bull####. It's a coating, everything adds thickness.

There were people complaining about x metal hi tek coating causing their guns to jam as it was over sized.
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While it does add size to a bullet, if you are trying to upsize a bullet where mostly the powdercoat is engaging the rifling, be mindful that due to it's shear strength compared to that of the actual bullet material is going to be less; also keep in mind that even firing a few multiple shots can bring the barrel temperature above that of the melting point of the coating and coupled with barrel friction you should not be counting on your plastic coating to either seal off the bullet in the barrel, or to drive the bullet rotation from the rifling. Same reason no one uses cast lead in high velocity loads; it melts and fouls the barrel.
 
Meroh said:
While it does add size to a bullet, if you are trying to upsize a bullet where mostly the powdercoat is engaging the rifling, be mindful that due to it's shear strength compared to that of the actual bullet material is going to be less; also keep in mind that even firing a few multiple shots can bring the barrel temperature above that of the melting point of the coating and coupled with barrel friction you should not be counting on your plastic coating to either seal off the bullet in the barrel, or to drive the bullet rotation from the rifling. Same reason no one uses cast lead in high velocity loads; it melts and fouls the barrel.
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Makes sense to me that if the powder coat can melt at toaster oven temperatures, then it will see similar temperature on the trip up the barrel. In the case of that 270 Win that I have - the only point, for me, for a 270 Win, is 130 or 140 grain bullets circa 3,000 or 3,100 fps - too many other options if I want a slower bullet of similar weight. My "last ditch" attempt is going to be some 0.277" Partition bullets - I have some 140 grain, 150 grain and 160 grain - I have not tried them yet - I am hoping that open lead rear end might want to spread out to seal to those grooves, better than the various other types of jacketed bullets that have been tried - another CGN'r and I were getting circa 4" groups at 25 yards with it - that I know of, no bullet ever recovered to know if they are stripping or not - a third CGN'r suggested that old barrel was likely for a 276 Enfield or similar - 0.270" bore, but 0.282" grooves - and the neck in the chamber is too skinny to accept 7 mm bullets (0.284") loaded into "normal" 270 Win cases. Plan "B" (or "C" or "F", by now) is to try to make a swage to skinny down some 7mm bullets to chamber and work?
 
Meroh said:
While it does add size to a bullet, if you are trying to upsize a bullet where mostly the powdercoat is engaging the rifling, be mindful that due to it's shear strength compared to that of the actual bullet material is going to be less; also keep in mind that even firing a few multiple shots can bring the barrel temperature above that of the melting point of the coating and coupled with barrel friction you should not be counting on your plastic coating to either seal off the bullet in the barrel, or to drive the bullet rotation from the rifling. Same reason no one uses cast lead in high velocity loads; it melts and fouls the barrel.
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To a degree, I can disagree with most of your assertions through 8 or more yrs of testing a lot of PC coated slugs.
The two that I cant contest are the "hot barrel" melting the covering or the "high velocity" will tear the coating...I have done neither purposely in my testing.
I can say that coatings are tough enough for all conventional cast bullet velocities. And I can atest to this at any thickness I have tried, from single coatings adding .0015 thickness up to 4 coatings that can add .008 to a slug ( I routinely coat .452 pistol slugs up to .459-60 and shoot them in 45-70's). These "up-sized slugs are the most accurate shooters I have ever used in some of my .458 bore rifles.
I have yet to see any residue left in a barrel from any coatings I have used.
 
OkayShooter said:
I'm going to say bull####. It's a coating, everything adds thickness.

There were people complaining about x metal hi tek coating causing their guns to jam as it was over sized.
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The article said that it depends on how thick the PC mixture is that you put on the bullet but went on to say that a thin mixture didn't add to the diameter but was enough to color the bullets completely. Not my words but in the article I read, I've never done the powder coating myself so I'm not talking from experience.
 
Falconflyer said:
The article said that it depends on how thick the PC mixture is that you put on the bullet but went on to say that a thin mixture didn't add to the diameter but was enough to color the bullets completely. Not my words but in the article I read, I've never done the powder coating myself so I'm not talking from experience.
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Common sense would dictate that this can't be true. It might be closer to correct if powder coat acted like a surface stain (think gun bluing) but it isn't. It's extra material (melted powder) being added to the exterior of the bullet. No matter how thin it is it HAS to add some degree of thickness. Since a powder coated bullet has thickness added to it's entire circumference by powder coating even .0005 (half of one thousandth) added to each side of the bullet would increase the diameter by a total of one thousandth (so from, for example, .356 to .357) and even that minimal degree of extra bullet diameter can affect performance.

Powder coating vendors such as Emerald Coatings even post recommended thicknesses for their products which typically run between 1.5-3.5 mils. None of them recommend 0 mils.
 
OkayShooter said:
i kinda expect to have to rough up the finish for the PC to stick.
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You might be right but some of my cast lead bullets are really shiny after I put them through the initial sizing and the PC seems to stick to them just fine. I would be more concerned about ensuring there was no oil residue or other contaminant on the bullet which would prevent good PC adhesion.
 
ted_dent said:
Common sense would dictate that this can't be true. It might be closer to correct if powder coat acted like a surface stain (think gun bluing) but it isn't. It's extra material (melted powder) being added to the exterior of the bullet. No matter how thin it is it HAS to add some degree of thickness. Since a powder coated bullet has thickness added to it's entire circumference by powder coating even .0005 (half of one thousandth) added to each side of the bullet would increase the diameter by a total of one thousandth (so from, for example, .356 to .357) and even that minimal degree of extra bullet diameter can affect performance.

Powder coating vendors such as Emerald Coatings even post recommended thicknesses for their products which typically run between 1.5-3.5 mils. None of them recommend 0 mils.
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I have never done powder coating, but have sized a few cast bullets. If I ran a cast bullet through a sizer and got - say 0.356", then added .002" of powder coating thickness, and then ran that back through the same sizer, I would have expected similar 0.356" diameter - to me, I would expect the lead inside to "squish" smaller, to allow that .002" coat to exist - else the coating would get scraped off in the sizer? Or is sizing after powder coating not commonly done?
 
ted_dent said:
Common sense would dictate that this can't be true. It might be closer to correct if powder coat acted like a surface stain (think gun bluing) but it isn't. It's extra material (melted powder) being added to the exterior of the bullet. No matter how thin it is it HAS to add some degree of thickness. Since a powder coated bullet has thickness added to it's entire circumference by powder coating even .0005 (half of one thousandth) added to each side of the bullet would increase the diameter by a total of one thousandth (so from, for example, .356 to .357) and even that minimal degree of extra bullet diameter can affect performance.

Powder coating vendors such as Emerald Coatings even post recommended thicknesses for their products which typically run between 1.5-3.5 mils. None of them recommend 0 mils.
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Yeah that makes sense to me.
 
First batch didn't do well at all. This is the second batch. All blotchy. I'll keep trying.

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I am no powder coating expert, but I'm sure someone will come along with more ideas than I have.

Perhaps your powder didn't wanna bond? Did you mention which powder exactly that you got? I don't remember for sure.
Even my first batches where I used the wrong type of plastic recyclable containers and didn't bake long enough came out better than that.

I'm sure those would be shootable but better coverage would be nice. Someone will be along who knows more about it than me.
I just do the "Elvis Ammo" method up until now. Since my friend showed me his latest PERFECT bullets (Ffs!) I am considering adopting his
method of picking the bullets out of the powder with rubber gloves and arranging them so they don't touch....but man, that sounds like work.

Still, his were perfect.

Someone will be along with better ideas than I can give you.
 
Some powders (even particular colors) just dont want to stic. I have emerald powder in black that stick awesome and emerald mirror blue, don't work at all.
I suggest you visit castboolits forum. It as a huge quantity of good information on powder coating.
A guy there (smoke) sell awesome powder that performs very well.
 
Good points! I got off to a good start - the oven manual was still tucked away in the oven, so it set to flame while I was warming it up!. I probably didn't warm the bullets enough, maybe didn't have the heat set right, plus 92 other things. Although the bullets in the above pic look bad, I will size then and shoot them anyway. I am watching YT videos and getting lots of good info.
 
buckbrush said:
I find Emeralds “Tool Blue” works great and is their cheapest powder. The price drops even more if you buy a few lbs.
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I gather that, but at $40 for shipping, I don't think so. I don't think I need to blame Eastwood powder for my first try. Others get along just fine with other brands. I will get my hands on some Emerald some day and give it a whirl.

Edit: I see I made a mistake, Emerald Tool Blue 1 lb, plus shipping is $41 plus a few cents. I may have to order some, but I will hone my skills first.
 
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I find that my powder coating adds 1 to2 thou and order my molds accordingly, shake bullets in a margarine tub, wear nitrile gloves with powder on them, set them on a parchment paper and bake at 400 for about 18 minutes. You can tell the powder coating is done right by taking a bullet, set it nose up and smash it almost flat and the PC doesn't come off. Sizing doesn't bother the PC at all, a minuscule touch of lube makes sizing quite a bit easier. Never seen fouling from PC in 416 Rigby, 450/400, 45/70, 375 H&H, 45ACP and 9mm.
Does take a bit of trial and error to get right amount of PC in the tub for a batch.
 
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