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Post by bearskinner on Mar 18, 2023 15:40:00 GMT -5
After a couple times trying it, you can tell if the powder is thick enough. With the wet method, the (paint) powder coats the bottom of the bucket too, so until it’s seasoned, you loose a little material. If you use too much, it gets a little blotchy, but when you run it thru a sizer the important part ( sides that ride on the rifling) are smooth and slick-shiny looking. Watch the bullets turn dull too, when the acetone vaporizes. You want to wait to pour them out till they’re dry looking.
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Post by 2 Dogs on Mar 19, 2023 7:04:41 GMT -5
Your PC method can be perfect, your alloy just so, your heat treat spot on, your bullet sizing correct, your bullet can pass the smash test and yet you can still have leading.
It comes back to what your particular barrel will tolerate.
How do I know this? Because I have nearly a dozen .357 Magnum revolvers. Where my water quenched and aged PC slugs work in all my sixguns save one the logical conclusion is that that particular barrel is going to require some work. So I’m going to firelap it a bit more and try again.
PC is excellent but it is not magic pixie dust. Test test test before you load a 5 gallon bucket of ammunition that will not work right in your sixgun.
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gnappi
.375 Atomic
Posts: 1,404
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Post by gnappi on Mar 20, 2023 10:19:26 GMT -5
Your PC method can be perfect, your alloy just so, your heat treat spot on, your bullet sizing correct, your bullet can pass the smash test and yet you can still have leading. It comes back to what your particular barrel will tolerate. How do I know this? Because I have nearly a dozen .357 Magnum revolvers. Where my water quenched and aged PC slugs work in all my sixguns save one the logical conclusion is that that particular barrel is going to require some work. So I’m going to firelap it a bit more and try again. PC is excellent but it is not magic pixie dust. Test test test before you load a 5 gallon bucket of ammunition that will not work right in your sixgun. You and I are of a like mind with .357's. I only have a few SA but a number of DA/SA S&W's. My .45 Colt revolvers are few in numbers but they seem to reproduce fast :-) The case with traditionally lubed bullets is even more likely to lead badly and it's the main reason I will only use PC, TMJ, or jacketed bullets. Luckily I have not had any issues with PC'd bullets.
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Post by bearskinner on Mar 20, 2023 10:47:46 GMT -5
I don’t know if it helps at all, might just be me over thinking it, but on fast cartridges 7mm and 30 calibers ( all pistols) I PC, GC and size, then brush on Lee Alox too before I load them. Figure a little extra lube won’t hurt, and most everything works well with a little lube.
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Post by oddshooter on Mar 20, 2023 11:02:46 GMT -5
Alox on top of PC; interesting idea for those unsolvable leading issues.
Prescut
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Post by bigbore5 on Mar 20, 2023 18:07:36 GMT -5
I lube and pc'd some bullets and still got leading with wheel weights in a couple 357 mag hot loads. I think the bullets would skid at the start, then lead as the first inch of barrel was pretty good.
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gnappi
.375 Atomic
Posts: 1,404
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Post by gnappi on Mar 21, 2023 14:45:05 GMT -5
I spent ALL DAY today coating bullets but NOT the closed container shake and bake (SnB) as I'm 100% comfortable with that process with my powders and results. What I did was follow all of the advice I read online for WET coating them and decided to experiment a bit and wound up with a pretty good solution to making bullets faster than I could with either the WET or shake and bake methods.
Before coating I size my bullets because my .38 cal molds cast to just over.360 and they are hard to push through a .357 Star Die. You can imagine the workout I get sizing them so today I sprayed them first with Frankford Arsenal bullet lube, let them dry and then sized them.
Using a Folgers #2 coffee container, I dumped the bullets in and agitated them without the top on for 20 seconds or so, in my yard, in full sun and the paint stuck like glue. Here's the kicker, any powder that does not stick to the bullets stays on the bottom of the container and will stick to the next batch!!! But would the paint stick after baking them?
So, I unceremoniously dumped them into an open aluminum baking pan, shook the pan for a few seconds, baked them ~@425 degrees for 20 minutes, and let them air cool... without a water quench because I quenched the bullets when I cast them last fall.
I smashed a few totally flat into bullet coins and the PC stayed on perfectly and the coverage is excellent, better than the shake and bake method. As a matter of fact, the grey paint I used had failed me terribly with the SnB method, but I decided to see how good this adhesion method really is. So, on a lark I dropped a bullet into the grey paint storage bag and it came out like a fuzzy Gerbil!
It takes only a few minutes to make a big batch, and I'll test them as soon as I can in my revolvers.
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Post by sixshot on Mar 22, 2023 0:57:03 GMT -5
gnappi, water quenching them last fall isn't doing you any good if you bake them later because you are annealing them back down in hardness when you take them out of your oven.
Dick
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gnappi
.375 Atomic
Posts: 1,404
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Post by gnappi on Mar 22, 2023 7:45:57 GMT -5
gnappi, water quenching them last fall isn't doing you any good if you bake them later because you are annealing them back down in hardness when you take them out of your oven. Dick I'm no metallurgist and you're probably right but I'm not sure about water quenching at all any more as I've not had leading problems with PC at all when not quenched. I guess if I were making barn burners it would be a different story.
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Post by sixshot on Mar 22, 2023 13:04:17 GMT -5
You're correct, you almost never need to water quench a powder coated bullet, or gas check it either for that matter but I'll admit I do GC those that are a GC design. It's amazing how fast you can run a powder coated bullet without getting leading if bullet fit is correct. There is a limit to everything but its sure changed the way I do business. Your hammer test experiments tell a lot about what powder coating will do.
Dick
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Post by boolitdesigner on Mar 22, 2023 16:17:19 GMT -5
You're correct, you almost never need to water quench a powder coated bullet, or gas check it either for that matter but I'll admit I do GC those that are a GC design. It's amazing how fast you can run a powder coated bullet without getting leading if bullet fit is correct. There is a limit to everything but its sure changed the way I do business. Your hammer test experiments tell a lot about what powder coating will do. Dick How fast is that Dick? And with what alloy.
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Post by sixshot on Mar 22, 2023 17:19:17 GMT -5
Bob, in my 10.5" 357 Maximum I usually run just under 1600 fps with my 180 gr GC powder coated slug using a 70/30 alloy. I don't know how much faster it would go out of a carbine length barrel without leading, I don't own one.
Dick
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Post by boolitdesigner on Mar 22, 2023 19:15:57 GMT -5
That's pretty good. I assume you aged them a little too. With the right alloy, a lot can be done with pretty soft alloy.
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Post by sixshot on Mar 23, 2023 14:49:28 GMT -5
Yes, and there's no way I could get that kind of velocity without leading if they weren't powder coated. At least without going with a harder alloy.
Dick
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Post by boolitdesigner on Mar 23, 2023 15:35:11 GMT -5
With the correct alloy you can, provided you have a really viscous lube. My alloy air cooled gets shoved out a lot faster than that nice and clean.
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