fingers284
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Alberta Cowboy Ranges
I bought an Electro static PC gun 3 years ago and was only able to use it a couple of times before some health issues came up that really curtailed my PC testing hobby.
Somewhat recovered now I was anxious to get back at er' so dug the stuff out of the drawer for a bit of a "extended" test run.
Shake & bake has been very good to me but with a few foibles I wanted to improve upon if I could. S & B is very much cheaper for doing small batches...a margarine tube, tablespoon of powder and a roll of parchment paper and your in business. You need a cooking devise but you need that whichever method you use. The cons of S & B are mostly cosmetic in nature but can also ,if un-remedied, con effect performance. One of the foibles I have found with S& B is the thickness of the covering can very from .001 to .004 from batch to batch...sometimes this is a benefit if you are trying to "bump-up" a bullet dia. to fit a particular bore but if your aiming for a nominal size a quick trip thru any of the sizer machines will "uniform" your slugs. Most of us coat our bullets and then stand them up on a flat surface for cooking and this results in probably the most often complaint of PCing, that being " uneven bottom flashing". The side flashing is again very easily removed by a quick sizing but the "uneven base is there to stay more or less. All this being said I can't really say that I have noticed any accuracy issues with an uneven PC base once the side flashing is removed.
Now a bit about the ES gun. The initial cost may be a big factor if your a "small batch" user but if you want to coat hundreds of bullets then one may be a good investment. If you already have a compressor in your garage then the $125 for an entry level gun might not be a drawback.
An ES gun actually adds a lot of diversity to how we can improve the product, especially with bullets smaller than .357. With .357 or larger dia slugs they are easy to stand up on most any flat surface for cooking, anything smaller are a bugger to keep standing. This winter I took the opportunity to make some cookie pans ($1.25 each at Dollarama) for myself and another CGN,er into bullet cooker pans by sizing a bunch of holes in them to suit the bullet nose that I will be coating...they worked beautifully for a bunch of .30 I coated.
The perforated pans and the ES gun work excellent together...the uniformity of the coating on the base and riding rings seems to be very consistent from slug to slug. The coating measured a very consistent .001-0015 on every slug I measured and again a quick trip thru the sizer uniformed them all to .001 over uncoated size. They are .003 over bore size and even with only .001 coating thickness they withstood the "hammer" test without any flaking. Another benefit of the perforated pans is for anybody using a mold custom cut to throw a "bore riding nose" bullet, the nose stays clean of PC so no interference chambering them.
The other "pro" for the gun method that I found was speed of coating, if you are a prolific shooter that wants to coat large batches. The one test I did I used two pans (135 holes in each), one for spraying and one for cooking and without hurrying I did over 350 in 40 minutes from starting to spray to done cooking. I have to say that with my oven ( an old kitchen range, very much overkill I know but it was free) ) that will easily hold 4 pans at a time and I am sure I could spray and cook 800 or more bullets an hr with this set-up and enough pans (prob 2 yrs of shooting for me now LOL).
The reason I use two pans per batch, one a spray pan and one a cooking pan is that if you use the sprayed pan to cook with the overspray will cook to the pan and the next batch wont make electrical contact to create the static needed making the pans only good for one use. I can "tweezer" a batch of sprayed bullets to the cooking pan in 1/2 the time it takes to cook a batch in the oven so you don't loose any time...just stay busy while waiting for a previous batch to cook.
An ES gun wont be everybody's cup of tea but hope this helps anybody considering the investment.
Somewhat recovered now I was anxious to get back at er' so dug the stuff out of the drawer for a bit of a "extended" test run.
Shake & bake has been very good to me but with a few foibles I wanted to improve upon if I could. S & B is very much cheaper for doing small batches...a margarine tube, tablespoon of powder and a roll of parchment paper and your in business. You need a cooking devise but you need that whichever method you use. The cons of S & B are mostly cosmetic in nature but can also ,if un-remedied, con effect performance. One of the foibles I have found with S& B is the thickness of the covering can very from .001 to .004 from batch to batch...sometimes this is a benefit if you are trying to "bump-up" a bullet dia. to fit a particular bore but if your aiming for a nominal size a quick trip thru any of the sizer machines will "uniform" your slugs. Most of us coat our bullets and then stand them up on a flat surface for cooking and this results in probably the most often complaint of PCing, that being " uneven bottom flashing". The side flashing is again very easily removed by a quick sizing but the "uneven base is there to stay more or less. All this being said I can't really say that I have noticed any accuracy issues with an uneven PC base once the side flashing is removed.
Now a bit about the ES gun. The initial cost may be a big factor if your a "small batch" user but if you want to coat hundreds of bullets then one may be a good investment. If you already have a compressor in your garage then the $125 for an entry level gun might not be a drawback.
An ES gun actually adds a lot of diversity to how we can improve the product, especially with bullets smaller than .357. With .357 or larger dia slugs they are easy to stand up on most any flat surface for cooking, anything smaller are a bugger to keep standing. This winter I took the opportunity to make some cookie pans ($1.25 each at Dollarama) for myself and another CGN,er into bullet cooker pans by sizing a bunch of holes in them to suit the bullet nose that I will be coating...they worked beautifully for a bunch of .30 I coated.
The perforated pans and the ES gun work excellent together...the uniformity of the coating on the base and riding rings seems to be very consistent from slug to slug. The coating measured a very consistent .001-0015 on every slug I measured and again a quick trip thru the sizer uniformed them all to .001 over uncoated size. They are .003 over bore size and even with only .001 coating thickness they withstood the "hammer" test without any flaking. Another benefit of the perforated pans is for anybody using a mold custom cut to throw a "bore riding nose" bullet, the nose stays clean of PC so no interference chambering them.
The other "pro" for the gun method that I found was speed of coating, if you are a prolific shooter that wants to coat large batches. The one test I did I used two pans (135 holes in each), one for spraying and one for cooking and without hurrying I did over 350 in 40 minutes from starting to spray to done cooking. I have to say that with my oven ( an old kitchen range, very much overkill I know but it was free) ) that will easily hold 4 pans at a time and I am sure I could spray and cook 800 or more bullets an hr with this set-up and enough pans (prob 2 yrs of shooting for me now LOL).
The reason I use two pans per batch, one a spray pan and one a cooking pan is that if you use the sprayed pan to cook with the overspray will cook to the pan and the next batch wont make electrical contact to create the static needed making the pans only good for one use. I can "tweezer" a batch of sprayed bullets to the cooking pan in 1/2 the time it takes to cook a batch in the oven so you don't loose any time...just stay busy while waiting for a previous batch to cook.
An ES gun wont be everybody's cup of tea but hope this helps anybody considering the investment.
