Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Harbor Freight Red

Harbor Freight Red is no longer available. Stopped in yesterday to buy a couple of bottles & was told they no longer make it in red! Yikes, that's been my favorite for a long time. I know some don't like it but I've had great luck with it & probably taken at least 20-25 head of big game with red bullets, plus accuracy has always been outstanding for me.

Dick

WTF is Harbor Freight Red anyways? Never heard of it.

Per Yondering's Instructions:




I've been using Powder Buy The Pound products for 5 years. Yondering's green is the schizz.

Been to 2 HF looking for red, they are out. Only black and silver.

Powder by the Pound looks to be my next venture.

Maybe even a better choice, if my homemade work out. I would prefer err to use different colors for different calibers and loadings.

Yondering's Green from Powder by the Pound is a good start for anyone wanting to do the shake-n-bake method he describes. However, it's not the only powder that works.

I'm happy with the results and stopped right there without further experimenting. I have a friend who has taken it a step or two beyond. He's got a PhD in chemistry, so he's got the chops to seriously dig in on this stuff. He tells me there is a reason why the green works and some other colors don't work. It has to do with the chemicals that are used for the dye and their ability to aid or deter bonding to the alloy. The green that Yondering suggests has Titanium in it, and that bonds well with a wide range of lead alloys.

If you want Red, I'd look at Powder by the Pounds color list and find what looks like a match to the HF red and give that a try. Similar color may be similar dye materials. Just understand that each color will have its own bonding properties.

shaman, all good points and right on. I've used a number of other colors from PBTP that work well, a few are:
Kawasaki Green (similar to 6018 but brighter flourescent green)
Bottle Green (sort of a dark forest green)
Graphite Gray (kind of a gloss battleship gray)
Steel Blue
Olive Green

Those last two are not as good as the others but still work reasonably well. I'll try to update that list with part numbers later.

A couple I did not like were a white (forget the name?) and a candy blue; both coated OK but glued the batch of bullets together pretty well so they were hard to break the cake of bullets apart. I don't use them anymore because of that.

I did not have good success with red, but need to try some others. Haven't tried anything like safety orange or yellow, because I don't want anyone to mistake my ammo for safety trainers.

. . . and this only if you're using Shake n Bake. Guys who sprang for the HF spray apparatus get it done with a whole host of colors. Shake n Bake requires that the powder stick with no voltage differential, only what static potential you pick up from shaking in the plastic bin.

I have a bottle of HFR unused except for a teaspoon full. I would trade it or sell it or whatever....

Hello Longcruise, I'll take the bottle of HF Red, let me know what you want for it, PM me if you want. Thanks,

Dick

I’ve been using powder from this company. One pound packages. Very happy with results.

https://www.eastwood.com/hotcoat-powder-coating/powders.html

Really never price shopped so there might be better deals to be found. I started with HF red black and yellow. Red worked best. I do still have some somewhere.

Rob

Looks like those prices are about the same as or slightly more than Powder Buy The Pound; close enough that it makes no difference.

Considering that I'm getting between 10,000 and 30,000 bullets coated per pound of powder, I really don't consider the cost of powder coating to be significant and I choose based on how it works rather than what it costs.

True, don't worry about the cost of your powder, use what works, this is so much cheaper than bullet lube, not to mention all of the other plus's. Few things ever come along in reloading that really make a difference, this is one of them for sure, take advantage of it.

Dick

I’m going to try powder coating some bullets for the first time as soon as I get a cheap toaster oven. I bought a pound of Eastwood light blue after reading and watching lots. I’ve sized my bullets already to .358. How many of you guys size before or do you size after?

Bryan

After just as if you pan lubed.

I started with harbor freight red. Now I am using powder by the pound just for different colors.

I'm having real good luck with Eastwoods gloss clear.. Another good one I've used for several years is Powder By The Pound Wet Gloss Black.
I changed from a cheap toaster oven to a forced air circulation oven,( sorry can't think of the word at the moment) when I started having trouble curing 260 grain 45 caliber bullets. Made all the difference in the world.

Convection