Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Anybody powder coating?

I did a few batches close to 10 years ago, but my Lubrisizer just made more sense. Then again, I’ll always traditionally lube and size .357 and .45LC.

I’m looking at PC for my 200gr .45acp boolits from the MP mold.

Any earth-shattering advances?

No powder coating here. Not that I don't see the advantage for higher velocity, I just done need it.

If you're going to drive those 200gr. .45's at 800fps give or take, what's the point in PC'ing them.

no mess or smoke. that is what the pc gives you

My woman powder coats her face...lol !

A few reasons. I can’ t run them dry. They lead up horribly. I have to break out the Lubrsizer, warm it up and run them through it every time I pour boolits. While the tradition lube is little messy and since I shoot .45acp much more than .357 and .454C or .45 LC, the frequency of doing so is time consuming. PC appears to be less messy in the making, as well as handling the finished product.

BTW, I mis-spoke about doing it 10 years ago. That was Hi-Tek, which is a little more involved and requires 2 coats if you do it as recommended. Looks like PC is less involved if you get a quality PC powder.

If they lead up horribly you're doing something drastically wrong. I've shot a bazillion .45/200's and cannot honestly remember the last time I had to scrub lead out the barrels of the guns I shoot them in. And my bullets are ridiculously soft to boot.

Messy? Define messy. Get a little grease on the fingers? Meh. Gun gets a little cheesed up? Meh again, I clean them after every outing regardless. Smoke? - who cares? If someone b*tched about the smoke where I'm shooting I would patently ignore them.

At the end of the day I couldn't give a rat's patoot if a guy PC's or not. What I don't care to hear is guys rationalizing their way into it for no good reason!!

LOL.

Lets just say I’ve been doing this for a minute. Lets just pretend that the Lyman #2 boolits are sized 0.002” over a properly slugged barrel. Aaaaand lets pretend the load data (using several powders) came from a well broken-in Lyman’s 4th edition of cast bullet handbook. Then lets pretend the mouth of the case is an acceptable 0.471”.

Now…..I may not be as seasoned as some, but that’s enough information for a person so knowledgeable that they can clearly see I’m doing something drastically wrong to tell me what it is.

Didn’t ask your opinion about what happens when it smokes, much less when it happens where you’re at. Didn’t ask about your opinion on messy. Certainly didn’t ask for any snark about what you want to hear.

For the reading impaired, please read slowly and repeat, if necessary: I can prevent leading if I traditionally lube and I’m considering PC. Any new developments on PC? Feel free to not respond if you know a whole lot about everything except PC.

Mayhaps you need a remedial refresher course in reading also: you're the one who mentioned "messy", and another fella mentioned "smoke". Don't think the world revolves around you!! (Although it was you who said "I can't run them dry. They lead up horribly.")

As for seeing what you're doing wrong, I can see one thing right off the bat. But I'll not say anything - the chip on your shoulder is blocking your ears. Have fun. At this point I could absolutely not care less.

The world revolves around me? LOL. Pretty dramatic…and ironic. It would be more accurate to say the thread should revolve around the original question (i.e. the process), but quickly morphed into your opinion as to the need. I didn’t ask for that, either.

I guess the way to 23k posts is to enter a thread about a topic you know nothing about, ask loaded questions about why someone would want to do it, provide snide comments on the direct answers that are “Mentioned” and contribute nothing of substance in regards to the original question.

Good thing I don’t use my “Blocked ears” to read. I’d be forced to listen to you carry on about your vast, withheld knowledge to the tune of “I got a secret”. 🙄. A perfect example of quantity doesn’t necessarily mean quality, but you’ve added 3 more posts. Well done.

Anyway…for future searchers on the topic of advances in powder coating, I ordered the Easton powder. It would appear (by consensus of knowledgeable and forthcoming people elsewhere) that the Easton brand only requires one coat when some other brands require 2 or 3. That would be an improvement on the process I experienced with Hi-Tek. Don’t know about performance. Gonna see how it goes.

Don’t let anything I wrote stop anyone from bumping up their post count without actually contributing anything constructive, though. We wouldn’t want to dilute the narcissism. 🤡

cat fights. i am going to make a forum with compiled "cat fights" charge a penny a look and book a safari.
YMMV.

[quote=gnoahhh]If they lead up horribly you're doing something drastically wrong. I've shot a bazillion .45/200's and cannot honestly remember the last time I had to scrub lead out the barrels of the guns I shoot them in. And my bullets are ridiculously soft to boot.

Messy? Define messy. Get a little grease on the fingers? Meh. Gun gets a little cheesed up? Meh again, I clean them after every outing regardless. Smoke? - who cares? If someone b*tched about the smoke where I'm shooting I would patently ignore them.

At the end of the day I couldn't give a rat's patoot if a guy PC's or not. What I don't care to hear is guys rationalizing their way into it for no good reason!![/quote

Agree, never had a problem with 200gn lubed cast bullets. Soft lead, Lyman sizer, ready to go. My crimp is at .469, not sure if that's kosher but works for me. Sometimes I'll use Lee liquid Also on store bought lead bullets if they don't seem lubed enough. By the way, I love the smoke and smell of shooting cast bullets. Moreover, an indication of enough lube is a star like pattern of lube at the.muzzle. Well, enough incoherent babbling from an old fart. Good luck.

Perhaps it’s a poor lap on the full-size barrel. Don’t know. My Champion 1911 has no such problem. Accuracy is great in both.

Nothing wrong with .469 as long as the pulled bullet isn’t swaged down past 0.001” bigger than your bore slug measurement. I get away with .469 in the Champion. Going with #2 Lyman lead and .471 were measures taken to ensure gas cutting wasn’t taking place in the full-size.

Traditionally lubed, plated, FMJ and Missouri coated bullets shot fine. As a matter of fact, what I liked about the coated bullets was the lack of any fouling…lead, copper….and if using Vihta Vuori, carbon/powder, it looks as if it wasn’t even fired!

I am at the early stages of applying PC to my bullets and have encountered a few problems.

You need to make sure you don’t handle bullets prior to applying PC. Minor traces of oil from your hands results in a patchy PC coating.

PC adds a film all over the bullet and this may result in a PC film where you don’t really want it. However this can also be a bonus in some applications where moulds are undersized (eg 44 cal in rifles).

In a lot of cases with my trials I have had to run PC coated bullets through a sizer. The coating was not applied evenly.

I too have a 1911 in 45ACP and PC-ed some of my cast 200gr SWC bullets. I had to run these through a sizer, then load them a little deeper for them to cycle without jamming in the throat.

I’m going to continue my PC trials until I iron out all the wrinkles, but so far for me it hasn’t proven to save a lot of time.

Made the first batch and I have to agree, JFE. Times are too close to suggest either one having an advantage in that regard. Excluding equipment set up (pulling out equipment, setting up bench, etc), powder coating took 45-50 min for 100 rounds from turning on the oven until finished boolit. Traditional lube took 40-45 minutes from heating up the Lubrisizer until those boolits were finished.

The mess was a trade off (powder dust vs wax). Since equipment prep was specific to each process’s set up, I did not include mounting the Lubrisizer (since some may have their’s permanently mounted), changing Lubrisizer dies (which requires warming Lubrisizer up to remove/replace and then adjust) or adding a wax tube.

I had some botched PC rounds because I transferred too much powder to the oven tray and failed to adequately separate the projos, but they came out pretty decent for a rookie.




Hammer test showed good adherence. Once on nose. Once on side...




The traditionally lubed boolits sit ready to load. Don’t judge me! 🤣 I had to remove previously applied Alox for this experiment, so they’re a little dingy.



The first test….can I duplicate lubrication without losing accuracy? I made 40 rounds for comparative ladder loads: Five matched-weight bullets from each lube style using 4.7gr, 5.0gr, 5.3gr and 5.6gr of W231. Here’s the 4.7gr group…




Realizing the most accurate nodes may be different for each coating, I’ll be checking for leading and accuracy in the full-size barrel that suffers leading when shot between 800-900fps without any lube.

I powder coat everything I cast these days.......

Dick Thompson told me he does as well.

A single pound of powder coating material will go a VERY long ways. In fact I'm still using a pound of Flame Red that I bought from Smoke on Castboolits website and I have about 3/4 of it left yet!

Frog----OUT!

I handle my bullets with my bare hands all the time. I have never had problems with powder sticking to the bullets. If you do then you have another form of contamination.

I have had a couple of powders that take longer to apply. both are a translucent metal flake powder. You just have to use a little extra powder while spinning them and do it for a little longer.

And skip the beads. THEY ARE NOT NEEDED!!!!!

To the question of “Can PC duplicate lubrication of traditional wax lube?”, the answer is yes.

In fact these bore pics (and velocities) suggest PC is actually slicker and leaves less residue than traditionally lubed bullets. The left is PC after 20 rds. The bore got a wet patch/dry patch then 20 rds of traditional wax lube to leave the pic on the right.




The wet/patch after the traditionally wax lubed rounds didn’t come as clean as PC. If you look at the transition from the throat (in right-side pic), you’ll see why. The front edge of the lands are grabbing small amounts of lead from the traditionally wax lubed bullets.

Note: This could explain the leading with unlubed bullets (despite evolving to harder lead and extra precautions taken to not swage/shave bullets that I mentioned earlier. I believe a touch of finish reamer to lessen the angle on the approach side of the lands MAY resolve this if I’m committed to uncoated bullets.

As far as accuracy is concerned, the nodes did shift between the 2 different processes (as expected). PC got the best accuracy to 5.3gr of W231 while the traditional lube’s best remained at 5.0gr. The traditional lube pills had much better SD and the ES. That may benefit longer shots. The reloading components and process were consistent, so is the increased SD/ES caused by the bullet or by tired brass? Dunno. I’ll have to use fresh brass to see.

These are 7yds from a rest…



Other than above, an increase in velocity using PC was consistently observed. All other components being the same, PC bullets averaged 29 fps faster than their traditionally lubed counterparts of the same powder charge.

While I have not Powder coated bullets myself Yet , My buddy "Cowboy" powder coats all his 40-60 cast bullets and I was amazed at how clean his barrel stays after several hours at the range.
He uses "Hitek" PC and he did some bullets I cast for my 8 x 58R loads for my old Rolling block and they worked nicely in it.
I am going to have him PC some 400gr. 405 Winchester bullets I just cast as I dont have a luber sizer die to fit them yet. I can machine up a quick push thru die to size and test them.
Rich

Powder coating got me back into casting. I've been using several Eastman powders and they shake and bake easy.

Years ago I casted and lubed a bunch if bullets and then stored them to load later. After a few years the lube had gone bad and I had to melt it all off an relube them to load them. After that I quit casting because I could by cast bullets pretty cheap from lazercast and others back then.

With powdercoat I feel like I can cast a bunch and ciat them then store them for later loading without the lube going bad. That said I never got to where I was very familiar with all the different traditional lubes. I just had used some that didn't store well.

I love the powder coated bullets and have also gone to VV powders and get clean results. I just wish they hadn't discontinued VVn105 right after I discovered it. It's great in several rounds. Almost mag speeds with much less powder than say h110. I'm try some 3n38 instead of n105 now so we'll see how that goes.

Bb