Painting and powder coating bullets

They are easy to do. I wish I had read farther along at cast boolits though to see the tip about the non-stick aluminum foil. Would have been nice not to have bits of aluminum foil stuck to the bottom of some of my bullets. It came off during sizing, but now I have little bits of foil to clean up.

I thought I would have cleaned up more overspray powder than I did though. I powder coated 300 bullets today and there was maybe 2 tbsps of powder I cleaned up off the table I set up.
 
Any concern with not being able to PC the bottom?

With pistol bullets wouldn't think there was, but if you start driving them hard in magnum loads or in rifle loads I could see where there might be. Just curious.

Looks good!
 
If you notice the bases of fmj bullets, they are exposed lead. At least they are in the .224 fmj bullets I have been loading. Push them close to 3000fps with no leading.

On sub-sonic pistol loads, there is no worry about that either. If I get nervous about it, with the wide meplat of this bullet, I could stand them on the nose and the bases would be coated.

I like the benefits of not getting sticky fingers while handling them for loading and my bullet seating die stays clean.
 
If you notice the bases of fmj bullets, they are exposed lead. At least they are in the .224 fmj bullets I have been loading. Push them close to 3000fps with no leading.

Good point.
 
OK. So I went and fire off some bullets I had loaded with the epoxy paint coating with the HBN powder mixed in. There was no leading in the barrel. That part was good. I was hitting about 3 inches lower on the target compared to fmj bullets. I was unable to recover any of the bullets. I got a 2" 3 shot group at 25 yards free standing no gun rest. Just 3 inches below where I was aiming.

I will have to wait testing the powder coated bullets for next weekend.
 
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Any chance you have a chronograph? It would be interesting to see how the bullets compared to one another.

It could be a seal, but I might also see if its just less pressure building up behind the round. Maybe it's too good of a lubricant...not sure how to test for either though.
 
Could be seal. Don't neccesarily want to increase the crimp though. That would penetrate the coating maybe. The bullets were nice and slick. The powder coated ones are also.
 
I ran some of em through the new Peacemaker this weekend. It was a lot of fun. I don't have any useful range info, other than zero leading, because I haven't gotten the front sight filed down yet. But I really like this revolver.
Maybe I'll get the sight lined up next week and try some groups. This weekend was mostly just drawing down on some rowdy milk jugs that had been talking big around town.;)

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What size pill you shooting out of that hog leg? Do you think bumping up from say .452 to .454 would make up for the loss of pressure and maybe raise your poi back up?
 
I'm thinking just tightening the crimp a bit would do that. Right now I only have it set to just remove the case flare.
 
I got a 2" 3 shot group at 25 yards free standing no gun rest. Just 3 inches below where I was aiming.
Click to expand...

I'd really like to hear more results of accuracy. I wish I could try his but I've invested so much in wax lubing that I hate to invest more into something else.
 
i know this is an old thread, but i keep coming back to it
i have a question though, would it not be more beneficial to coat the bottoms of the bullets and not the nose? the nose isnt touching the barrel at all on the flat nosed or hp rounds, albeit not as atractive which is what makes PC so cool
 
I haven't gotten any leading yet, so there is no point in worrying about the base being coated. These are not sub-sonic rounds either. Only about 900 fps. Besides, all of the fmj bullets I have seen have been bare base meaning the lead was exposed on the base of the bullet.
 
yes, under 1000 is sub-sonic, at least

Subsonic loads for 9mm commonly use 147 grain (9.5 gram) bullets at velocities of 990 ft/sec (300 m/s).
-wiki
 
Not super sonic then. Anyway, I have shot lead in my 357 mag to 1200 fps without problems. Just depends i guess.
 
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