Boolit Casting, à new experience begins

[mapper]

I ran across this in my travels, and I'm reading it currently, then I'll start on the lyman cast bullet book.
I have some molds, others are inbound.
A bottom pour pot and a ladle pot.
So I'll have to clean up the old pot and some molds, I was planning on using evapo-rust for the steel molds and ferrous stuff.

I'm sure I'll have questions as I go about this adventure, as it is new to me.
http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Contents.htm

[mapper]

Lots of info and thoughts on boolit lube, as far as hardness and flow characteristics, I *may* have to rethink that hard boolit lube thing again. I've got more reading to do.
Yes I have a heater in a lubrisizer. Molds have lube grooves, not tumble lube.

Orange magic may be a bit hard for my use as I'm not pushing things that hot to require it.

Someone told me they used a mix of locomotive siderod grease mixed with beeswax back in the 1960's that they ran through star lubrisizers without heaters.


https://castbulletassoc.org/uploads/...cblube2016.pdf

[12bhunting]

Definitely interested....

[leadpoison]

following

[Mad Man]

Have you looked into the Hi Tek bullet coating instead of traditional bullet lube? In my experience with Commerical cast bullets it is way better. If I start casting this is what I’ll use.

[mapper]

I have some coated boolits, some cast boolits with the hard parrafin/carnuba type wax,
But haven't really loaded many of the coated ones.
I remember a conversation I had with someone about coated boolits and he was pushing them fairly hard, and said that powder coated could go to 2200 fps or so, I'll have to verify and check that.

But the thing is it was more than I thought,.
Now on just reading the first link I posted, and only getting to the lube section, is as far as I've got.
But that took it past bullet hardness.

So I'm just going off 1 source so far about bullet hardness, obturation, and lubrication in regard to sealing against bore, and lube as it goes down rifling.

That kind of brings up the issue of powder coating as a gilding material, or jacket like a copper plating, or as a lubricity agent.

Lubes work when they melt and flow. They help to seal the bore as well.
Alox and beeswax have been used for decades, as well as other things.

Light target loads <900 fps behave diffrent than loads >1100 fps
so I'm not expecting a lot of differences in 45 and 38, but would see more in 9 mm as it's pushed faster.
Same for magnum pistol calibers.

So I'm in research and learning mode currently.
I haven't scoured the forums at castboolits dot Com, but I know it is a resource that I will use.
I'm trying to get a good overview at this point.

Now as far as way better between cast and lubed boolits and powder coated ones, can you explain a bit on that,? I'd like to hear what you've experienced.

[BWest]

I powder coat everything I cast. The powder coat doesn't totally eliminate the need for a gas check for really fast loads, but you can push bullets much faster with no leading than you could with just traditional lube. Plus there is considerably less smoke and lube fouling. I consider powder coating to be superior for 90% of cast bullet applications.

Also, I don't know if I mentioned previously, but the coating has its own hardness separate from the lead underneath. You can read some forums about this, but in my 1000s of cast bullets I've never done more than eyeball estimate my alloy, then once I powder coat the bullets I quench them in water. I've never dealt with lead fouling, at least not so much that a couple run-throughs of the bore snake can't take care of.

[mapper]

Are you casting, then powder coating, then sizing, then heat treating, and quenching after that? Or quenching after casting, then powder coating then sizing?

Yes I can believe that would make for a hard boolit,
What kind of velocities are you pushing,, and at what point does the need for a gas check come into play?

This opens up things beyond standard pistol subsonic uses.

[BWest]

Also, there is a difference between "powder coat" and "hitek" coatings, Powder Coat is (in my view) all encompassing, including the powder coat paints used in automotive and other manufacturing. Hitek is basically the same end result (a bit thinner and smoother result I think), but is a commercial product designed specifically for bullets (could be wrong here), and goes on wet instead of dry like normal powder coat paint.

My powder coating method:

Powder coat I use:
I have been successful with Harbor Freight Red powder coat. I don't know why, but it is known to be the best of the Harbor Freight colors for coating bullets. I would not recommend starting with this however, I would suggest any of the powder coats made by Eastwood. I use their "light ford blue" and it it covers well. https://www.eastwood.com/hotcoat-powder-ford-light-blue.html

I think Powder by the Pound and Smoke's are also brands people use for this.

Procedure:

after casting the bullets, I shake them around in a yogurt or similar plastic container with a little bit of the powder. Plastic containers have static electricity that causes the powder to stick to the bullets. Containers with the Recycling symbol 5 seem to be the best for this. These are the soft white plastic tubs like for yogurt, cool whip, cookie dough, feta cheese and stuff like that.

Once they are covered, I dump them on a piece of mesh to get the excess powder off, then either bake them on the mesh, or on a piece of baking parchment paper. Some people stand them up using forceps or gloved fingers, but I think the slightly prettier bullets that come out are not work the hassle of standing them all up. you can always coat them again if there are some bald spots from bullets sticking together or to the mesh.

I bake them in a old electric toaster oven I got for 5 dollars from the salvation army. The "rule" is 20 minutes at 400 degrees, but I've played around with lower temps for longer and gotten good results.

After they are done, I quench them in water. To test the adhesion, you can smash a coated bullet with a hammer, the coating should not come off and should flex with the smashed bullet.

Then just load as normal.

[BWest]

Here is some of my .30 Carbine coated in Eastwood Ford blue: