Powder Coat Source?

flashman2 said:
Oops. Thanks for that. I've been doing 12 min after the oven is at temp. Interestingly, with perfect adhesion as per the hammer test. But good to know you can't go wrong baking longer.
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I'm roughly 400°F for about 20 min. I prewarm the tray of bullets on top of the oven and pop em in when the oven reaches temp.

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flashman2 said:
Oops. Thanks for that. I've been doing 12 min after the oven is at temp. Interestingly, with perfect adhesion as per the hammer test. But good to know you can't go wrong baking longer.
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One thing to remember with PC'ing whether you S & B or gun spray if you have splotchy covering before cooking you will end up with a splotchy covering after...no "more heat or longer cooking" will cover up a bad coating...if you don't have a good covering before cooking with a 30 second shake, change your bowl or your powder or your bb's until you have an easily inspected pleasing covering.



A poor shake cant be fixed with a good cook but a good shake can be ruined by a poor cook....
 
fingers284 said:
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One thing to remember with PC'ing whether you S & B or gun spray if you have splotchy covering before cooking you will end up with a splotchy covering after...no "more heat or longer cooking" will cover up a bad coating...if you don't have a good covering before cooking with a 30 second shake, change your bowl or your powder or your bb's until you have an easily inspected pleasing covering.



A poor shake cant be fixed with a good cook but a good shake can be ruined by a poor cook....
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For sure. That's why I like using the BBs and a very very small amount of powder. I find the BB media helps apply the coating more evenly. And you're always using fresh PC. It's like the BBs knock off any clumps. There may be some in the grooves but a quick tap knocks them out. I've definitely found different bowls perform way better or worse. I have a couple set aside that seem to perform the best in terms of not having the pc cling to them and applying a more consistent coating.
 
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Nope...not worth the expense of a machine when a 30 second shake with a $ 0.15 used margarine/coolwhip tub will do the same thing,nor is the cleanup time worth it...unless you plan on doing pail after pail of bullets in a commercial application

However 10x's suggestion of the ABS pipe got the cogs of "inventive gearing" working a bit. I could see the benefits of having a #of identical ABS tubes made up with blank glued ends on one end and one of their "clean-out" threaded end on the other for different colors and make a simple "two roller" cradle affair that could be turned by geared hand crank or by a slowed down motor gearing.
 
fingers284 said:
However 10x's suggestion of the ABS pipe got the cogs of "inventive gearing" working a bit. I could see the benefits of having a #of identical ABS tubes made up with blank glued ends on one end and one of their "clean-out" threaded end on the other for different colors and make a simple "two roller" cradle affair that could be turned by geared hand crank or by a slowed down motor gearing.
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This ABS pipe is brilliance... I knew I shouldn't have given away my wife's moss-covered treadmill... coulda had ten tubes rollin on there at once... sigh
 
Rivardo said:
I've seen a few different videos on YT of guys using a tumbler. Are any of you guys tumble coating your bullets?
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Ya, no way. It'd take longer to load up the tumbler and clean it out than to just use an old container. I have a rotary tumbler for brass and don't even bother. The nice thing about a small tub is there's basically no mess, no cleanup and it's a lot easier to pick bullets out of a shallow thing than a deep thing.
 
Now that hunting season has wrapped up and old man winter appears to be around the corner ready to pounce, I decided it's time to take the PC plunge! Just picked up a 1/2lb each of blue, red and black from Princess Auto. I've got an old toaster oven that has been taking up space for many years, just couldn't throw it away as someday I knew it would be useful. Well that day is coming! The plan is to take a day or two and go on a casting binge, as I've acquired a couple new moulds to try out, then go on a PC'ing binge once I've done a few smaller test batches.

Thanks to all who have posted some of their knowledge for all to see. I'm going to try to keep soaking it up!
 
Nice.

Just remember to take precautions with TGIC powders, like wear a mask, gloves and ideally coveralls. Obviously there's not much dust from shake and baking but you don't want to inhale it or get it on your skin.
 
Prairie Plinker said:
Now that hunting season has wrapped up and old man winter appears to be around the corner ready to pounce, I decided it's time to take the PC plunge! Just picked up a 1/2lb each of blue, red and black from Princess Auto. I've got an old toaster oven that has been taking up space for many years, just couldn't throw it away as someday I knew it would be useful. Well that day is coming! The plan is to take a day or two and go on a casting binge, as I've acquired a couple new moulds to try out, then go on a PC'ing binge once I've done a few smaller test batches.

Thanks to all who have posted some of their knowledge for all to see. I'm going to try to keep soaking it up!
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That day has come for myself also. As soon as Princess Auto opens I am off to see what they have. I have made some beautiful 300 gn. WFN 44 Mag bullets to try out.
 
Went to Princess Auto and bought black and blue powder , plastic bb's and stopped at Safeway to pickup from non-stick aluminum foil. Warmed bullets up to about 150 F and made sure the powder and plastic bb's were are room temperature.

Put 50 300 gn .44 mag bullets in a empty cool whip container with 500 bb's and 4 teaspoons of black powder. Swirled for about 1 minute and checked it and decided to swirl again for another 2 minutes. Looked coated so I picked each one out with a needle nose pliers and set them on their bases on the tray and baked at 400F for 20 minutes. Once the bell went off I pulled them from the toaster oven and dropped them into a bucket of water. Not bad, the odd place there was a freckle or two but that was about it. Run them thru my .430 sizing die and they look really good.

Now repeated process with the exact same number of bullets in a different container with the same ingredients other than it was blue this time. Came out not as nice as the black but still usable.

Then I decided to do what I see on YouTube and did another 50 black bullets and just dumped them on the tray after dropping them on a mesh screen to get rid of the excess powder. Same temp and time and into the bucket of water after. As was expected where ever the bullet was touching the tray was a bald spot as well as where ever bullets were touching each other there was no coverage. Huge failure but I just had to try it to see if it works.

Same thing with blue only worse and totally unusable.

So the moral of story is black works great as long as they are stood up on their bases. Blue not so much.

I would like to try some powder from the online suppliers to see if there is a difference with the piled on clump of bullets and see if they come out without powder missing like the Princess Auto powder does when just thrown on the tray as you see on YouTube.

I tried the smash test with a hammer and no flacking or rubbing off as well as when I ran them thru the sizer there was no coating that was missing afterwards.

Maybe slightly faster than the lubesizer but not by much as you have to pick each bullet out and stand it up. If a better powder is obtained that works when the bullets are just thrown in a pile then it would be faster. Princess Auto powder is not up to the task for the pile on method.
 
I use princess auto black as well as other powders. No bullet warming. Just dump them in a container with powder and bb’s. Shake for 30-40 seconds. Dump them in the basket on a single layer (mine will do 120 ish bullets in the basket on a single layer). Soon as they are out of the oven roll them loose. They look perfectly fine. The odd one has a speck of powder missing but nothing that will hurt performance.
 
hometownhero said:
I use princess auto black as well as other powders. No bullet warming. Just dump them in a container with powder and bb’s. Shake for 30-40 seconds. Dump them in the basket on a single layer (mine will do 120 ish bullets in the basket on a single layer). Soon as they are out of the oven roll them loose. They look perfectly fine. The odd one has a speck of powder missing but nothing that will hurt performance.
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Basket might be the trick as I was just dumping them on a tray. I will make myself a basket and give it a shot.
 
hunter64 said:
Went to Princess Auto and bought black and blue powder , plastic bb's and stopped at Safeway to pickup from non-stick aluminum foil. Warmed bullets up to about 150 F and made sure the powder and plastic bb's were are room temperature.

Put 50 300 gn .44 mag bullets in a empty cool whip container with 500 bb's and 4 teaspoons of black powder. Swirled for about 1 minute and checked it and decided to swirl again for another 2 minutes. Looked coated so I picked each one out with a needle nose pliers and set them on their bases on the tray and baked at 400F for 20 minutes. Once the bell went off I pulled them from the toaster oven and dropped them into a bucket of water. Not bad, the odd place there was a freckle or two but that was about it. Run them thru my .430 sizing die and they look really good.

Now repeated process with the exact same number of bullets in a different container with the same ingredients other than it was blue this time. Came out not as nice as the black but still usable Then I decided to do what I see on YouTube and did another 50 black bullets and just dumped them on the tray after dropping them on a mesh screen to get rid of the excess powder. Same temp and time and into the bucket of water after. As was expected where ever the bullet was touching the tray was a bald spot as well as where ever bullets were touching each other there was no coverage. Huge failure but I just had to try it to see if it works.

Same thing with blue only worse and totally unusable.

So the moral of story is black works great as long as they are stood up on their bases. Blue not so much.

I would like to try some powder from the online suppliers to see if there is a difference with the piled on clump of bullets and see if they come out without powder missing like the Princess Auto powder does when just thrown on the tray as you see on YouTube.

I tried the smash test with a hammer and no flacking or rubbing off as well as when I ran them thru the sizer there was no coating that was missing afterwards.

Maybe slightly faster than the lubesizer but not by much as you have to pick each bullet out and stand it up. If a better powder is obtained that works when the bullets are just thrown in a pile then it would be faster. Princess Auto powder is not up to the task for the pile on method.
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4 teaspoons will easily do 500 slugs , with only 50 slugs per batch you would have better luck with 1 (or even less) teaspoon as the more powder you have in the mix the more static electricity it takes to penetrate & charge it, hence probably why you had to shake 3 min., I only have to shake .45 sec. at the most with any I've done. A small 1/2 lb. of powder will do many 1000's of boolits.
 
fingers284 said:
4 teaspoons will easily do 500 slugs , with only 50 slugs per batch you would have better luck with 1 (or even less) teaspoon as the more powder you have in the mix the more static electricity it takes to penetrate & charge it, hence probably why you had to shake 3 min., I only have to shake .45 sec. at the most with any I've done. A small 1/2 lb. of powder will do many 1000's of boolits.
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I do 1 tsp and can use it for 200-300 bullets (9mm and 30cal)
 
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