Finally getting around to it. Ammo had been so plentiful and cheap, it got pushed to the back burner. Powder coating some 125gr 9mm today. Not too bad, simple is easier and does a decent job. -Pre-heat at 350 for 2 min. -Shake in plastic container til coated -Pour coated bullets through sifter to reclaim extra PC. -Pour bullets into makeshift (office organizer) basket, unlined, directly into toaster oven at 375 for 15 mins. -Let cool for a minute then dump onto aluminum sheet on garage floor. -Let cool, put into stash
Ok.. I'll bite.. Why powder coat bullets? I'm sure it's not for cosmetic purposes.. I can only assume the PC has some lubrication properties. Or they're cast lead rounds, therefore preventing fouling. Inquiring minds & all that.
You can push them a little faster without leading up your barrel. They seem to offer some lubrication as well. Then same load of gun powder will result in a jump in Feet Per Second (FPS). I don't remember the numbers, a buddy brought some of his reloads out and it was significant. I'll chrono some of these when I get them loaded. Probably, not till fall though.
So, I take it you're running cast lead rounds.. makes sense then Have a coworker that salvages lead on his range and re-casts it. Have never heard of him PC'ing rounds, but will ask him.
The nice thing about PC is lead can be dead soft. I kinda hated mixing the right amount of wheel weights or antimony in roof flashing or lead piping to hit the optimum hardness. Now all I hope do is add a little pewter to help with mold cavity filling out, PC, run through the sizer and load.
I haven't mined my backstop yet. I have a scrapyard guy who sells his lead to me for .40/lb. I'll save the backstop for real hard times.
I think it depends on alloy composition. My mold throws .356 dia with my Lee 6 Cavity and the wheel weight, soft lead mix I used. I always size my bullets, just a habit. I'll run calipers on them tomorrow. They'll make a trip through the sizing die regardless.
I’ve gone to watching a few videos of this. They look fun, just time consuming. In the videos, Mostly I see just making ingots and bricks, but in others it’s the rounds. The lead salvaging at the local shooting wall would likely have thousands of lbs in the backstop. Did the same thing as you with powder coating, takes his kids out to shoot and then salvages the lead I suppose with range permission. The range doesn’t quite allow that since it’s usually a pretty quick change out for targets and whatnot.
Melting down a ton,(1/2 ton) of roof flashing into ingots. It's best to do this when lead is bone dry. Anyone who have had a steam explosion can testify to that. Lots of oxidation on this stuff, I only do this outside with a barn fan behind me to keep fumes and lead dust away. These ingots will be cast into bullets over the winter.
Wow That's a couple of rounds there BTW.. I asked my coworker,and he said "Hell yeah I powder coat" He gave the exact same reason as you did on why he changed to powder coating.
