My powder coating method

[Brad]

Here is how I powder coat bullets. The powder is something I got from a member here, no real idea what it is exactly. I like the color and it seems to flow out nicely. Bullets often look poorly covered going into the oven but come out a very uniform grey.
I do not use any BB. I do not stand my bullets up.
I bake for 35 minutes. I figure that gives me a good 20 minutes after the powder begins to gloss.

So far this method is working well for me.

 

[Brad]

Here is before baking


And after baking



Would have gotten better coverage if it wasn’t raining outside. The humidity doesn’t help getting powder to stick.
These bullets were presized because they drop .002 bigger than what I want. I find that presizing makes the final sizing far easier.

 

[RKJ]

I obviously have been doing it wrong. I use way too much powder and then pull the bullets out of the container, I need to try your way Brad, It looks a lot easier than the way I've been doing it. They look real good BTW.

 

[Brad]

For that many bullets I use 2 scoops. That scoop is the 1.9 CC Lee powder dipper. That makes it roughly 4/5 of a teaspoonful.
I figure that more small bullets have roughly the same surface area as that many large bullets so I use roughly the same volume of bullets and powder For all sizes of bullets.
If PC was much more difficult than this I don’t know that I would use it.

 

[Ole_270]

Probably a little ocd but I just have to stand them up. For taller rifle bullets I use a couple silicone mini ice cube trays. Works real well up to 30 cal. Been doing some for 40 S&W(for Son in Law) and my 45s lately. Just stand them on silicone baking sheets.

 

[Spindrift]

Excellent video, thanks for making it, and sharing with us. I’ll give it a go, see if it works for me.

 

[DC1972]

I have tried both standing them up and laying them down. Standing them up is very time consuming and tedious for certain. The one thing I wonder about is what happens when the PC gets hot and starts to flow? If the bullet is standing up it would "flow" evenly down and not to one side. This is of course, assuming it flows some. Judging by my bullets and the powder I use, it does.

In my younger days I painted cars and taught it at a college. Automotive paint is not PC I realize but there is likely some flow to it. The one thing I do not worry about as much anymore is if there are small spots not coated. Some of these occur in the swirling process and some occur when the bullet touches something.

Thanks for the video, always for looking for ways to make this better and easier.

 

[Brad]

It most definitely flows.
This method seems to give a pretty thin coating. Not near as much material to run and drip.

I have seen photos of bullets people have coated that look to have 3-5 times as much PC on them. They often have lots of drips and runs.

 

[fiver]

you mean your not supposed to fill the lube grooves with powder?

 

[Brad]

you mean your not supposed to fill the lube grooves with powder?

I don’t. Them again I don’t fill the grooves with tumble lube either?

Maybe I’m doing it all wrong?

 

[fiver]

I don't know [shrug] because I'm more'N likely doin it wrong.
none of my stuff come with directions.

 

[DC1972]

So, can too much powder affect the accuracy of the bullet if it is uneven? In my case, I probably wouldn't notice the difference.

So you size yours after PCing them? I do, I feel it just gets me started with everything being standard. I just PC'd some bullets from a new mould and measured before and after and I was getting around .003 of extra size with the powder. That is where I like the Lee sizer to straighten things back up for me.

 

[Brad]

I don't know [shrug] because I'm more'N likely doin it wrong.
none of my stuff come with directions.

Like you would read them anyway.....

 

[Brad]

I always size after coating even if I sized before coating.
I don’t like to do heavy sizing after coating because I like using my Star for the final sizing. To make that happen I sometimes need to presize.
I also like checking bullets before coating if a check is being used and that means presizing.

 

[Ian]

Interesting, Brad. This is pretty much how CWLONGSHOT does if from what I gather.

I still shake with BBs, pick with long needlenose pliers, tap off the excess powder, and place base-first on Reynolds non-stick foil stretched over steel plates that I put on the oven racks. I haven't tried shooting ugly bullets to see how much it matters, but I bet it does at high speed and or long distance. For handgun stuff inside 50 yards, offhand, I doubt many of us could tell the difference.

 

[Missionary]

Another help is to calibrate the oven control with real temperature. Use a high temp thermometer to see what the oven knob needs to be pointing to so the temperature in the oven is what you want.
Also use the thermometer to know how long it takes the oven to go from room temp to baking temp.

 

[Brad]

My oven has a PID controller.

Ian, these bullets don’t really have imperfections that I can find. I may send you some to look over.

 

[Rick H]

I think we way overcomplicate this PCing thing. I usually shake with plastic BB's and stand them on end on parchment paper (I get less sticking than with non-stick aluminum foil) with my hand wearing nitrile gloves. I got one of the screen baskets like CW uses, shook a bunch of 95gr RF .356 bullets in my usual manner, made a sieve out of a plastic container by drilling holes smaller than the bullets and bigger than the BB's. strained off the BB's and poured the whole lot in the basket.
I gave them a shake to make sure they were all in one layer and baked as usual.

The result was good, very little sticking together and the coating had almost no imperfections. I am going to eliminate the BB's with the next batch and I believe that is what I will do with pistol bullets from now on.

I usually run smaller batches of rifle bullets and standing them up satisfies the OCC part of my personality.

 

[Brad]

I find that I get very few sticking together. Maybe 2-4 per 500?
I dump them off the tray straight out of the oven onto a piece of 1/4” mesh over a 5 gallon bucket. This lets them cool pretty quick and I can cycle the tray back quickly.

Over thinking it? Easy to do. I am doing my damndest not to.

 

[waco]

Shake N bake. No bb’s, dumped into basket. Eastwood super gloss clear.