Powder coat questions

blackpowdertom said:
Jeff, I just presented the idea to you. You haven't tried it yet...
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I don't need to try it to recognize the validity of the idea. It's sound. It's a good idea.

I don't need to try it to recognize that it does not benefit me personally at all. Maybe someday, so thank you for the tip.

My point was that the claim that it is the objectively best possible way might be misplaced among a group of people who find their own way and find what suits them. Especially if you dismiss their preferred way as being inferior. It may well be, or it may not be, dependent upon circumstances to which we are not all privy.

If I've failed to make the point that I think your idea is a good idea, my apologies. That's not the point. The point is that even if you had a magic bucket we could dump all our bullets into and it would seat checks squarely, size and lube them all in one two minute cycle, the more you try to tell someone their way is wrong, the less apt they are to acknowledge you that yours is right.

I do NOT discount your idea and do not consider it inferior to my own, but knowing the complexities of my own situation, with which I choose not to bore everyone here, it doesn't suit me. That is immaterial.

Without demeaning your methods or your intelligence, I defer to how I am doing things. Others will as well.

HOWEVER, the little nugget of wisdom you've shared WILL stick in everyone's mind here and one or several of us will come up against a situation where THAT would save the day. Maybe they will even convert to it across the board at that point, but push people and you push them away. You are not unlike the rest of us, so you certainly get that.

I feel like I'm not making the point that your wisdom on this matter (and others) is appreciated, but the more someone pushes me in a different direction, the more I resist. I'm sure I'm not the only one here who possesses that character trait/flaw (depending one one's perspective) and most here acknowledge the validity of your idea and will be apt to try it should the occasion arise to stray from their trusted path.
 
Just buy a rivet squeezer and seat the checks . You do have to be careful with the applied force it's designed to mash a up to a 3/16" aluminum rivet from about 3/16x1/2" exposed down to 3/8×3/8 and water tight .
 
Of course you could just do like I did. Give those gas checks to someone else, remove the gas shanks from all my moulds and just powder coat everything.
Of course I did have a little trouble getting .223 AR-15, to shoot well with just the powder coated plainbase. But 2.4 MOA Was good enough to make me happy.

Course I'll never play stops at Wilmington or get an NRA distinguished rifle marksman award.
I have no desire to shoot past 200 yards for anything. My 450 BM gets 1 moa with plain based, powder coated lead bullets.
But a 1 or 2-in circle with 100 yards makes me happy.
And my days of being healthy and with good enough eyesight and shoulder, to do all that. Well they have been long gone.
 
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RBHarter said:
Just buy a rivet squeezer and seat the checks . You do have to be careful with the applied force it's designed to mash a up to a 3/16" aluminum rivet from about 3/16x1/2" exposed down to 3/8×3/8 and water tight .
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There ya go usin' airplane tools again....

BTW my trade secret to deburring the back side of flash hole liner holes and gas ports is also a riveter's tool, you know the one.
 
I’m late to the discussion, but powder coat almost exclusively these days. I use the shake-n-bake method and don’t find BBs helpful at all. I start with a plastic container that has been wiped free of powder and either swirl the bullets around with just a little powder or none at all; I think this enhances static. Regardless, add just a little powder and swirl again for 20-30 seconds and check to see if it has all been picked up. Repeat until there is powder remaining in the bowl. If so, dump them into a wire strainer to shake off excess powder.

I find that adding too much powder at a time inhibits static.

I use the silicone mini ice cube trays for 22-35cal to keep bullets upright. Latex or nitrile gloves with the fingers well powdered allow me to pick up and place the bullets base down without wiping powder off.

My toaster oven is on the small side, and only allows a single tray because I ALWAYS use a baking thermometer. I preheat the oven to the powder bake temperature or higher before sliding a tray of bullets in and observe the temperature. It Will DROP below cure temperature, so don’t start timing until the 400F is observed again. I’ve observed temperatures as high as 445F and baked as long as 40 minutes with no visible damage to the powder. I generally try for 15-20 minute bakes.

The powders I have used specify 400F part temperature for 10+ minutes. There are powders that cure at lower temperatures.

As for air cooled vs quenching, I HAVE observed that the end results are different. Quenching MY MIX ALWAYS results in harder bullets per my Cabinetree tester. Softest bullets will be the result of air cooling as cast and after powder coating. Hardest bullets will be the result of quenching after casting, waiting a week to age harden, powder coating and quenching again. The “annealing” observed after another week of age hardening might be 5 bhn as compared to to the aged as cast, quenched bullets.

The end result hardness is less of a factor with powder coating than lubed bullets.

As for gas checks, I only use copper, and mostly Gator or Hornady. I DO crimp them on in a Lyman 450, but have it adjusted to just crimp the GC.

After powder coating, I run the bullets through a Lee push through die in my Rock Chucker the same day.

I don’t think handgun bullets nearly as critical as rifle bullets since they won’t be going as fast and spun as quickly. Too, mine are shorter so will stand on their bases on non-stick foil or parchment paper.

I have gone in excess of 800 rounds without cleaning in a 556 AR with seemingly no degradation of accuracy. With lubed bullets accuracy usually degraded by 50 rounds in the same upper and at significantly lower velocity.

Too, I found that while developing loads with lubed bullets, if accuracy suddenly degraded, the barrel needed cleaning. With powder coated I’ve increased powder charge until groups shotgunned, but could then shoot a known baseline load without cleaning and still see that baseline accuracy. My 20” 556 AR typically shoots moa or less at 200 yards with my powder coated bullets, full functionality from the magazine.

Agree, disagree, I really don’t care. These are my observations from my experiences.
 
CWLONGSHOT said:
I recently took that Copper Bronze color (I really like it but it can be "thick" I mixed it 70% Clear/30% copper/bronze with clear. Results were thinner and subdued color I do like.

View attachment 52741
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Had I seen that picture out of context, the first thing I'd have thought would have been, "Man, you need to thin that tumble lube WAY down!"

Knowing it's not over-thick LLA, it looks a lot nicer.:)
 
blacpowdertom and Ian both have solutions to a problem that shouldn't exist. I HAVE modified a punch to expand GCs, one box of ancient Ideals, IIRC, but detest the process. The collet idea is quite excellent (!), but I prefer to NOT add a step to the process.

I HAVE returned moulds with oversize GC shanks because they were made outside of spec. At worst I will tolerate one a bit too snug and lightly chamfer the end of the shank with the NOE chamfer tool while seating GCs.
 
300BLK said:
blacpowdertom and Ian both have solutions to a problem that shouldn't exist. I HAVE modified a punch to expand GCs, one box of ancient Ideals, IIRC, but detest the process. The collet idea is quite excellent (!), but I prefer to NOT add a step to the process.

I HAVE returned moulds with oversize GC shanks because they were made outside of spec. At worst I will tolerate one a bit too snug and lightly chamfer the end of the shank with the NOE chamfer tool while seating GCs.
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I do not disagree with you. I have never made a mold, at least nothing like this. I don't know why a gas check shank would be harder to hold tolerance on than any other part of the bullet. It does seem that too many molds out there have gas check shanks well outside of what should be acceptable. The other odd thing, is 99% of the time it's an oversized gas check shank. CW had one undersized, but that's out of hundreds of molds. I have never seen it myself, yet I've seen plenty of oversized shanks.

Gas checks are not complex things. It's a copper cup that gets swaged onto the bullet during sizing. As long as it can slide on the shank before, then crimp on tight, that's all it needs to do. In the case of 30 caliber, a shank from .280" to .285" is going to serve that purpose just fine. If manufacturers made them .283" + - .001" like they should, even variables like alloy is not going to go outside that window. Even if you couple alloy, plus the higher end of that tolerance, plus powder coat, at least in my experience a Hornady gas check still pushes on just fine onto a .286" shank. It just takes a push instead of snapping or falling on.

Honestly if I was a manufacturer, I would be going even smaller. There is no real standard, but today gas checks are pretty similar. Hornady, Sage, and Gator copper is all .017" thick. It's all the same straight shank, crimp on style cup. There are slightly thinner aluminum ones out there, and of course those who make their own out of any number of materials. At what point do you just say no, instead of trying to please everyone, I'm going to make a mold that WILL work with the .017" copper gas checks that 98% of people use, sized to the upper end of normal. If it works with the aluminums, great, if not, deal with it.


I too prefer to sell molds that don't fit right, but that's not always easy. If it involves returns, it could be many weeks, or months before you get a mold back. If you are selling it, now you are getting a huge loss on the sale, and that's if you can find a buyer for a known oversized mold. For a beginner, that might be a deal breaker. My solution is at least useful enough that it isn't a burden. It's just one more step you have to do until you can get a better mold.

At least by the numbers, if you make a gas check shank .281" and only held a + - .002" tolerance, poor by todays standards, you still will be well clear of any potential problems A gas check shank .279" with a .017" check sized to .311" is still a .002" crush fit. On the upper end you have so much headroom, it will surely never be a problem.
 
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Gas check shank =.284" from 95.5/2.5/2 and parallel, straight cylinder at least .060" long or it goes in the trash. That little gap between check and first band is a big deal and needs to be a certain size.
 
Ian said:
That little gap between check and first band is a big deal and needs to be a certain size.
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According to Veral Smith, that is the most important "lube groove". If you PC, maybe not so much, but for traditionally lubed bullets, it is a big deal.
 
I think it still is a big deal for PC even if it is only filled with air, but less so on exact amount. There's a guy who did some extensive accuracy studies at long ranges and high velocity with known accurate rifle, load, and bullet, using bullets from as-cast to shorter and shorter shanks he faced down in his lathe. The ones that grouped the worst had the check butted against the base band. This was way before anyone was painting bullets.
 
Thankfully short shanks is basically unheard of for non-custom molds. I can't think of any that are that short. Most shanks you see from typical molds from Lee, Lyman, RCBS, NOE, etc. are all plenty long.

I don't know that there is a way to prove it exactly, but the problem has to be with short shanks the gas check gets crooked. Whether it's because the gas check has some variability, or the engraving of the bullet cocks the gas check, who knows, but the problem must be that the base becomes crooked in my mind.

If I design a mold, I make those shanks plenty long.
 
Ian said:
The ones that grouped the worst had the check butted against the base band. This was way before anyone was painting bullets.
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That makes sense. Lube grooves not only hold lube, but also provide room for metal displaced by the rifling to go, If no room in front of the gas check something has to give. Might be somewhat interesting to compare recovered bullets, those with space ahead of the check with those butted up tight.
 
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Michael said:
That makes sense. Lube grooves not only hold lube, but also provide room for metal displaced by the rifling to go, If no room in front of the gas check something has to give. Might be somewhat interesting to compare recovered bullets, those with space ahead of the check with those butted up tight.
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I've always found it easier to find a decent load with conventional lube grooved bullets over NGL bullets I've attenuated to having a place for the lead to displace to, also a BB mold with on NLG mold seems to work better than the FB for me.
 
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