Fowler
.401 Bobcat
Posts: 3,565
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Post by Fowler on Jan 29, 2021 19:38:05 GMT -5
So I went shooting for a bit this afternoon, shot just one gun (A bit unusual for me) and one load, 45 colt 4 5/8" Bisley, proper .4525" throats, very minimal thread choke, smooth barrel. The load was a known mid ranged load using Power Pistol powder for 1050ish velocity and a Miha molds 45-270SAA bullet that I powder coated, I shot roughly 125 rounds. I was getting pretty frustrated as I was shooting pretty poorly, I figured some days are like that. Putting my stuff away my stuff I decided to look down the back of the barrel to see how clean it was and it looked oddly colored, flipping it over the muzzle had weird caked on what appeared to be lube stuck to the end of the muzzle. I flicked it with my fingernail and a 1/4" wide sliver of lead peeled up! Honestly it is much worse than I can get a picture of. Untitled by William Fowler, on Flickr Untitled by William Fowler, on Flickr You can imagine my horror on multiple levels here, it looks like the old days when someone would try and drive a dead soft pure lead bullet over a heavy charge in a 44mag! getting home a few minutes with toothpicks and a pair of tweezers produced this Untitled by William Fowler, on Flickr Now I am fairly inexperienced at powder coating bullets but so far it has been nothing but very successful for me so I am baffled. Here is what I know: -bullets were sized .452" -the load was a proven load (without powder coat but some with) in this gun. -the throats measure .4525" and there is only a very slight amount of thread choke -the barrel has been firelapped 30 rounds or so and the gun doesnt have a history of leading -the barrel also has no leading in the forcing cone, it builds as it goes down the barrel starting roughly 1 1/2" into the barrel. -the lead alloy was pretty soft, used up a bunch of odds and end scrap but was probably 2/3 pure lead and 1/3 2-6 alloyed lead. My understanding is with powder coating the alloy isnt all that critical. Untitled by William Fowler, on Flickr Thoughts?
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princeout
.375 Atomic
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Post by princeout on Jan 29, 2021 20:18:33 GMT -5
No help on why. Very scary though. Glad nothing worse happened! Tim
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Post by bushog on Jan 29, 2021 20:30:22 GMT -5
Inquiring minds want to know....
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Post by Encore64 on Jan 29, 2021 20:31:52 GMT -5
Never seen anything like that before...
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Post by contender on Jan 29, 2021 20:36:24 GMT -5
I'd say your alloy would be the issue. Maybe harden it up a bit. Then try that.
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Post by wheelguns on Jan 29, 2021 20:53:27 GMT -5
Tell us more about your powder coating process. Did you try the smash test? The powdercoat doesn’t look bad in your picture, but maybe it isn’t adhered good enough. Smash a bullet flat with a heavy hammer. Also smash one into a cube to see if it stays put.
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Post by x101airborne on Jan 30, 2021 9:05:46 GMT -5
When cleaning the barrel, you should be getting flakes of powder coating. Can you identify these in what is coming out of the barrel? I am curious if your powder coat is rubbing off in the barrel or if the heat from your powder is eating the base off.
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Fowler
.401 Bobcat
Posts: 3,565
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Post by Fowler on Jan 30, 2021 10:27:04 GMT -5
Well the gun is now clean again Untitled by William Fowler, on Flickr Untitled by William Fowler, on Flickr Untitled by William Fowler, on Flickr The leading was by far the worst near the bore, the rifling was completely covered and the bore was "smooth", well it had looked like it was caked in splattered mud, but evening all around the last 3 inches of barrel I guess. Using my fingernails, hard wooden dowels, and some long tweezers I was able to remove over 100 grains (I weighed them) of lead chunks and slivers as you can see in one of the earlier picks I posted yesterday. So once the chunks were removed as much as possible I swabbed the barrel with Outers Lead Solvent and let it set for and hour, then went to town with a 475 cal bore brush wrapped in cut up Chore Boy copper pot cleaner strips, a snug fit was assured. 15 minutes of scrubbing back and forth worked the lead out and left the barrel shiny bright on the inside as it was meant. Flecks of lead coved the gun frame, the rag on my lap and chunks of lead were all over the floor, bad enough I vacuumed and could hear it picking lead crud up! Now if you can tell powder coat from lead particles in this you have a better eye than I, the PC is metallic silver in color and of unknow brand. I asked one of our powder coat vendors if he had any PC I could get from him that would leave a lead bullet still looking like a lead bullet and he hit the mark. I did take a bullet from that same batch that I have in hand and mash it with a sledge. Untitled by William Fowler, on Flickr Untitled by William Fowler, on Flickr It doesn't appear any of the PC flaked off at all, the bullet sure mashed easily and at no point tried squirting across the room as hard bullet sometimes will if you don't strike them perfectly square. Now I know after 20 years of casting I really should invest in a hardness tester, but I don't really mess with my alloy mixes much and I have access to one with a little effort. I will say I weighed the 2 batches of this bullet I have cast and PC on hand, the batch in question with the middle sized hollow point weigh 283gr and bullets from my more normal hollow point alloy weight 278gr. Soft lead will always weigh more because anything you add to lead to harden it will making it lighter in weight. With this being a new to me mold I am not sure of the "normal" real world weight, Sixshot told me he has this mold and I think he said with the middle nose and his 70% WW lead and 30% pure mix he gets 275gr or so but that is from flawed memory. I have run a lot of 45/70 and 30/30 rounds down range this summer with the same PC without issue, but they were cast from near 100% 2-6 certified alloyed lead. I ran a bunch of 327 loads using 50-70% 2-6 alloy and the rest pure lead (my batch of 2-6 alloy was getting this and I had a pile of scrap lead pipe I was stretching my good lead supply with) and didn't seem to have issues although most of my serious 32 mag bullets are gas checked. That and I did a lot of load testing in the 327s this summer so Id shoot a couple cylinders of one bullet and switch to a different one for a bit so the barrel have been getting scraped by jackets and gas checks often enough to keep from having build ups occur. In the end the conclusion I am coming to is that in fact you can get your alloy too soft for PC to cover up. I am tempted to cast a couple bullets with that mold in pure lead just to see what they would weigh. I'm betting I was getting close to pure, that and the combo of taking one gun and one load, and standing there for 45 minutes shooting steel plates quickly, often with a very warm gun even in 40 degree air temps made a perfect witches brew to make for this mess. I am more than open to other interpretations, I think the only way I would know for sure would be to start over, replicating everything with near pure lead alloy and a second batch with harder alloyed bullets and see if I can make it happen again. But I don't see that occuring, I'm going to remelt the rest that batch of bullets back down and go back to shooting I think.
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Post by bushog on Jan 30, 2021 11:20:46 GMT -5
Could you cast a few,with the same alloy and water quench/PC and see if they do what they’re supposed to?
Only other thought is something going on with baking the bullets annealing your alloy and making it really soft.
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Post by wheelguns on Jan 30, 2021 11:31:33 GMT -5
Very informative post Fowler! I tend to agree with your assessment of the alloy being too soft for the pressure. How long are you baking your powder coat? It seems that the more I powder coat, the longer I bake it. I usually go 20-25 minutes at 400 degrees. You could try a few with a lighter load. Maybe 7.5-8.0 grains of unique, and see how that works. Since your powder coat works in your other loads, I doubt that would cause problems in this one. Good luck figuring it out.
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Post by bearskinner on Jan 30, 2021 11:58:35 GMT -5
How many hits did it take to make those bullets into coins? I do the sledge hammer test on my cast bullets. A 2 lb sledge and a real Anvil. It usually takes at least two hits mostly 3, to make a hard cast bullet unloadable. I’ve slammed a 300 grain .454 7 times, and it’s still only halfway shortened, but no fragments or cracking. Not a very good test of rating hardness, but smashing between an anvil and a hard hammer is somewhat of a real test.
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Post by webber on Jan 30, 2021 12:28:44 GMT -5
Run them through the sizer again and lube the bullets. Or tumble lube them and shoot them. Try just enough to see if they will pass muster. KISS is the best principle. OCCAM'S RAZOR.
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Post by wheelguns on Jan 30, 2021 12:30:45 GMT -5
How many hits did it take to make those bullets into coins? I do the sledge hammer test on my cast bullets. A 2 lb sledge and a real Anvil. It usually takes at least two hits mostly 3, to make a hard cast bullet unloadable. I’ve slammed a 300 grain .454 7 times, and it’s still only halfway shortened, but no fragments or cracking. Not a very good test of rating hardness, but smashing between an anvil and a hard hammer is somewhat of a real test. The intention of the smash test is to check for powder coat adhesion.
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Post by Lee Martin on Jan 30, 2021 12:53:30 GMT -5
I'm with Webber. Lube size a few after powder coating and see how they do. If it doesn't lead, that brand of powder is failing you. The metallic based powders can be problematic. Some work, some don't. I use Eastwoods squirrel gray. It looks like a lead bullet and covers beautifully. I've driven them 2,000 fps from rifles without a hitch. -Lee www.singleactions.com "Chasing perfection five shots at a time"
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Post by boolitdesigner on Jan 30, 2021 15:49:36 GMT -5
Could you cast a few,with the same alloy and water quench/PC and see if they do what they’re supposed to? Only other thought is something going on with baking the bullets annealing your alloy and making it really soft. How long between casting/PC till you shot them? That is a very soft alloy and would take at least three weeks before they stabilized where I would shoot them.
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