Today I was trying to coat a rifle bullet completely. It is very hard to stand the long skinny rifle bullets and spray them, and I wanted them to be 100% covered and smooth as a mirror, so I decided to try a version of wire tying that I had seen somebody else doing with wadcutters, only they used thick wire. I bought some 26ga copper wire for stringing beads and looped that in the lube groove of a few bullets to test out. This allows the bullets to get energized by the current and make the powder stick well, and also suspend them and allow complete coverage, except down inside one lube groove. I know somebody will ask, so I'll say it now.... No, it doesn't matter that there is no powder inside one lube groove, because it does not rub the barrel.
Powdercoating is only there for friction reduction and really only needs to be on the surfaces that touch the barrel as it travels, but it's just easier to coat the whole thing than try to spray just the outside of the grooves.
Here is the test rig as loaded before baking. The wire is as thin as a hair, but it is coated with fluffy powder in this pic and you can see it very easily.
And some short gas checked .270 bullets:
And some taller .270 bullets. The ones one the left are plain based, right side is gas checked.
I used .270 because they are almost impossible to balance when spraying.
I'm pretty happy with it! I got 100% coverage of everything that could possibly need coated. I got this particular wire off fleabay for 2.53 cents a foot.
So the copper wire involved in the three rows shown here is about 10 cents at most. I figure that with a couple of bigger & better racks (plenty of room for two easily, in this oven) I should be able to get about 150 bullets in there at a time, but I'll know better when I perfect my looping and tying method. I might end up with 30-40 cents worth of copper per load, so I should come out around 4 coated bullets per penny in my wire cost.
But I don't shoot a hundred and fifty .270 bullets in a year... so that's not really expensive. 'Less than that if I can find copper cheaper than this particular roll I got on fleabay.
This is not intended for mass production and is just to test out a way to coat a small quantity very well. It takes a little time in tying them in a row and suspending them too. I just strung them up while I was watching part of a football game, so it isn't really that intense and I won't be doing this often.
Powdercoating is only there for friction reduction and really only needs to be on the surfaces that touch the barrel as it travels, but it's just easier to coat the whole thing than try to spray just the outside of the grooves.
Here is the test rig as loaded before baking. The wire is as thin as a hair, but it is coated with fluffy powder in this pic and you can see it very easily.
And some short gas checked .270 bullets:
And some taller .270 bullets. The ones one the left are plain based, right side is gas checked.
I used .270 because they are almost impossible to balance when spraying.
I'm pretty happy with it! I got 100% coverage of everything that could possibly need coated. I got this particular wire off fleabay for 2.53 cents a foot.
So the copper wire involved in the three rows shown here is about 10 cents at most. I figure that with a couple of bigger & better racks (plenty of room for two easily, in this oven) I should be able to get about 150 bullets in there at a time, but I'll know better when I perfect my looping and tying method. I might end up with 30-40 cents worth of copper per load, so I should come out around 4 coated bullets per penny in my wire cost.
But I don't shoot a hundred and fifty .270 bullets in a year... so that's not really expensive. 'Less than that if I can find copper cheaper than this particular roll I got on fleabay.
This is not intended for mass production and is just to test out a way to coat a small quantity very well. It takes a little time in tying them in a row and suspending them too. I just strung them up while I was watching part of a football game, so it isn't really that intense and I won't be doing this often.
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