Powder Coating Boolits

[Maximumbob54]

FYI, this has been another great use of the Lyman M dies for me. I used to use the Lee universal case mouth expander die for cast rifle loads and while it works I'm still shocked at how much better the M dies are even if I do now need one for all the different calibers I load. But then again I long ago stopped saying I'm reloading to save money. If you are still clinging to trying to reload to save money then the Lee offering does work.

[Beagle333]

If you are still clinging to trying to reload to save money then the Lee offering does work.

Clinging to? Why, I'll have you know that I'm going to save money! I just have to live to 614.

But back to the thread..... I just got my shiny new Lyman M die for 30-30 in the mail and am anxious to test it out! Now.... to wait for a day with no wind so I can coat a few boolits.

[Maximumbob54]

Amen, brother. I may need to last until the same age if I ever stop buying stuff.

I'm aout to get the M die in for 8mm Mauser so I might try and tumble up some in Harbor Frieght's finest matte black and get out for some shooting again. I still keep missing the .30 short M die when it's in stock.

If someone else was able to trim down the local deer population with some PC then I must need to get back at it and find a load that shoots accurate.

[gds]

I am sure this has been asked, but doggone I cannot find it. What has been the simplest method of removing conventional lube from boolits that have already been cast, sized and lube? So they can be powder coated.

I used some mineral spirits and then cleaned them up with paint thinner. but it was kind of time consuming.

[Edubya]

Boiling them in water if you just want to get the lube out. 200 degrees will melt the wax and it will float to the top then skim it off a couple of times. You might then want to clean up the residue with a solvent.

I am sure this has been asked, but doggone I cannot find it. What has been the simplest method of removing conventional lube from boolits that have already been cast, sized and lube? So they can be powder coated.

I used some mineral spirits and then cleaned them up with paint thinner. but it was kind of time consuming.

[gds]

Thank you that sounds easier and cheaper.

[bangerjim]

Boiling them in water if you just want to get the lube out. 200 degrees will melt the wax and it will float to the top then skim it off a couple of times. You might then want to clean up the residue with a solvent.

Sorry.........water still does not remove all the grease!!!!!!!

You MUST use laq thinner. Soak them overnight in a glass or non-dissolvable plastic container. Shake them a few times and pour off the contaminated thinner.

No......they are still not clean enough for PC.

Now rinse them in clean thinner. Pour it off and save for the next batch's 1st cleaning.

Now put them in REALLY HOT water with Simple Green in it as a degreaser (best stuff ever invented....don't trust Dawn!) Swish them around really good and pour out. Rinse again with plain water. Since you used REALLY HOT water, they will dry rapidly.

Now.........they are completely degreased and ready for PC'ing.

That is the PROVEN method of removing 110% of the old grease lube. You can use boiling water, but the last time I checked my chemistry, grease and hot water do not mix! Or dissolve! Grease will still be left behind...a lot of grease.

I have done hundreds and hundreds of rounds using this 3 step method with PERFECT PC'ing every time.

You can do it easy.......or do it right the 1st time!

bangerjim

[popper]

Attachment 89221
Recovered from a shale/chat pile. 30F. PC was still on the boolit except where it was scraped off. I scraped with a box knife and remaining PC was still stuck on good and was hard. I did notice one 40SW base had some cracks in the PC from impact shock. Retained wt > 90%. Recovered 2 GC from 308, no PC on them at all. GC below 40 has alloy on the back, guess I hit it with another.

[el34]

Sat and Sun I delubed over 3000 boolits tumbled with Recluse 45-45-10. Good lube but I want to PC them. I filled a full-size coffee can about 3/4 full and covered with new acetone. After soaking a few min I swirled by hand the top couple inches and pulled them out. Swirled the next few inches and pulled them out, repeating until the can was empty. Then did another batch, then another, about 4 batches to do all. Then tossed out the acetone and did the whole thing again with mineral spirits. Repeated a third time with new acetone to remove the spirits.

After they dried I did a test run of about 150 boolits and they PC'ed fine.

Then I went to Home Depot and got a jug of Simple Green, haven't used it yet but will use it for a final wash, maybe all of them simultaneously in a bucket or in batches if the water cools too much.

It didn't really take much time. Now I have several bottles of Recluse, cooked with love in an electric pan bought just for that purpose.

The fun never ends.

[BigBronco]

Please forgive me if this has been asked and answered before. However 88 pages on the subject is a bit much to read at this time.

Question.

What brinell or alloy are you casting. Hard cast or Straight lead for powder coated pistol boollits?

[Beagle333]

I'm using 90% pure, 10%WW for mine. My whole purpose for PC was to be able to shoot some nice soft lead faster in pistols than before.

(I like the non-sticky on the fingers, non-gummy in the dies, "prettier boolit" aspects of it all too.... but mostly just to shoot soft slugs fast.)

[BigBronco]

Thanks Just what I was wondering. I have much more pure than I do wheel weights. My monotype is limited. I think I am going to set up to give this a try. Hhhhm Christmas is coming and the kids keep asking what I want. The hand held sprayer just might be the answer.

[BigBronco]

I'm using 90% pure, 10%WW for mine. My whole purpose for PC was to be able to shoot some nice soft lead faster in pistols than before.

(I like the non-sticky on the fingers, non-gummy in the dies, "prettier boolit" aspects of it all too.... but mostly just to shoot soft slugs fast.)

Oh what calibers are you doing?

[bangerjim]

Please forgive me if this has been asked and answered before. However 88 pages on the subject is a bit much to read at this time.

Question.

What brinell or alloy are you casting. Hard cast or Straight lead for powder coated pistol boollits?

I cast ALL my slugs at ~12 bhn. Or there abouts. With PC'ing, you no longer have to worry about the exact hardness. ( it may be 10 today and 12 tomorrow!) Just do not use soft lead for standard pistol/rifle slugs. Only muzzles and shot gun slugs. For supersonic rifles, crank up the hardness a bit.

I use the ~12bhn for 223/9/30/38/40/45............with great PC success. I have at times used ~15+ for the 223, 30-30, & 30-06.



Have Fun coating!


banger

[Beagle333]

.357 and .45LC, and I intend to coat some .45-70s for my guide gun, but I don't have any fresh ones poured up.

[grumman581]

FINALLY! After 88 pages plus tons of links to other threads, I have finished this thread and have not seen what I was wanting to ask discussed yet. (I didn't want to be one of those people who ask a question that had already been discussed only 50 pages previously)

I'm curious how this process could be automated somewhat so that there was a steady flow of PCed bullets coming out of the system. I'm thinking an oven that was long, but not very tall or wide where the was some sort of trolley going through it where the bullets on hooks could ride. Kind of like a conveyor belt type pizza oven where the cook time is set so that by the time the pizza has made it through the oven, the cook time has elapsed. So, basically we would need either a slow trolley speed or a long skinny oven. The hooks could be made from some cheap thin wire (e.g. MIG welding wire @ 0.030" diameter is about $0.01 per 10 ft and you could make a couple of hooks per ft, so even if you don't reuse it, it would be cheap).

[NWPilgrim]

That is exactly how it is done with other commercial products. In fact it typically takes up an entire room. Doing that on a scale that fits reasonably into a typical home shop and is affordable is another thing. Granted, boolits are much smaller than fabricated sheet metal products but still it would take room for the staging before and after.

[Skip62]

Quiznos oven. They make smaller versions but they are rather expensive and I'm not sure whether they would go slow enough.

[grumman581]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that one of the options for getting the powder to stick to the object is to heat it up to around the curing temperature and then dipping it in a fluidized bed of the powder. Done correctly, I could see it resulting in very little powder waste. You would end up with one small ring inside a lube groove that did not have powder, but with thin wire, that should not matter. If you were using thin copper wire strands instead, i suspect that you could even cut the wire and leave it under the powder coat and in the lube groove.

I remember some people having problem with keeping the aluminum can gas checks on their bullets and having to resort to a drop of superglue or loktite between the gas check and the base of the bullet. I wonder if a bit of powder put in the gas check and run through an oven would also work for them.

Just for curiosity, has anyone tried weighing a bullet before and after powder coating to see how much is being gained?

Although I have been satisfied with tumble lubing, I recently encountered an indoor range that did not allow bare cast lead bullets and it would be nice to have a method that was quick and would satisfy ranges that had the mistaken notion that jacketed bullets result in less lead exposure (i suspect that they fail to realize that not all jacketed bullets have a jacket on the base of the bullet).

[WallyM3]

A good conveyor oven can be based on an appropriate length of wood stove chimney piping and mica strip heating elements (220).