Goodbye bullet lube, goodbye leading

[Yondering]

Update - did some shooting today with these powder coated bullets, and am very happy with the results. I loaded some 170gr .30 cal (old H&G #20 mold) in my .308, powder coated with gas checks. These are the dark green bullets pictured in my first post. These ran through my PTR 91 with no issues, and the bore was still shiny, with no lead or copper fouling. I couldn't chrono them because it was getting too dark, but used my standard 165gr GameKing load of 42gr IMR4895, which does a little over 2500 fps.

I also ran a few more mags of hot +P 9mm powder coated hollow points through my G19 factory barrel, rapid fire to get it hot. No leading in that one still, just powder fouling. This load required gas checks to avoid leading with traditional bullet lube, but I did not use checks with the powder coated load.

[The_Shadow]

Thanks for the updated report. 

[sqlbullet]

That sounds fabulous.  No goo and full power rifle loads!

Man, my CETME and Garands are going to be happy!  I will even test some in my 300 win mag and see what happens.

[Caneman]

well Yonder, it looks like the CB boys are just catching up to you on your 'Dry Tumble' powder coat method here:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?217443-New-wrinckle-to-my-easy-pc

a small but significant detail, powder coating powders are either:

Epoxy Resin Powder - sold at Harbor Freight
Polyester TGIC Powder - sold at PowderBuythePound.com and other places

seems like the best results are being had with the Polyester based powders...

[Yondering]

I don't spend as much time on castboolits as I used to, but still drop by occasionally to read new stuff. Frankly I'm surprised so many people are doing this with solvents, without trying it dry.

I have not tried any of the epoxy powders yet. I'm assuming the polyester powder coating is more flexible than the epoxy though. I did hammer one of my coated bullets flat to see how the coating would hold up; it didn't come off at all, even on the hammered surface.

[Caneman]

the "hammer test" seems to be the one most of them are doing to see if the PC was successful... i need to get a $20 walmart toaster oven while i wait for the powder to arrive

[Yondering]

Buy the wife a new toaster oven, take the old one out to the garage. 2 birds with 1 stone. Bonus points if you don't tell your wife you needed another toaster oven anyway. 

[Caneman]

LOL, if only it was that easy! 

[sqlbullet]

The powder arrived today.  Hopefully I will get some baked by the weekend.

[Yondering]

I just ordered some red powder from this guy: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=111019990433 Didn't really need any more, but for $6 shipped, another color is handy for marking different loads. I don't know if this powder is exactly the same as what I've been using, but the specs look the same.

[sqlbullet]

Great...More powder to buy.

Actually, thanks for the steer.  I might have to grab some gray.  Ideally I would like the projectiles to look as neutral as possible.

[Yondering]

I thought of trying a copper color for that reason. I got the bright green first though, just because it shows all the imperfections better, to help me get the process dialed in.

You can mix the colors too; mixing the two I have made a grass green color.

I'm thinking about using red to mark the tips of certain loads (like my pure lead nose cast hunting bullets), by dipping the nose in the red after they're coated, and bake again.

[sqlbullet]

Well, my first go didn't work so well.  Partly my fault though.

Having just moved, I didn't have any scrap screen material that wasn't packed, and all our windows are new, so no busted screens to scavenge.  I tried it with the boolits on some aluminum foil.

In case anyone else is tempted, don't do it.

The paint adheres great to the lead.  And to the foil.  Result is about 40 bullets paint adhered to a sheet of aluminum foil.  The four I stood up with tweezers came off OK.  The rest, the foil just tore and stuck to the boolit.

I will track down some screen and give it another, following the directions to a "t" this time.

[Caneman]

i have read that some colors seem to be attracked to the lead better than others... not sure how much merit there is to this theory, but some guys say that the gray and white do better   

[Yondering]

sqlbullet, there's some stuff called "hardware cloth" that is basically a coarser mesh wire screen; you might look for some of that at Home Depot. I think maybe a 1/8"-1/4" mesh might be better than the fine screen I'm using.