Bullet coating - Part 1

[jmorris]

I have been looking into setting up a bullet plating operation but ran across a thread on coating over at castboolits and thought I would give it a try as it is pretty simple and fast.

My coating chamber was built by making a few cuts in a used beer box. HF powder coater and a bottle of powder was $64 and $20 for a toaster oven off of Craigslist.

Put some 8-32 nuts on the pan kind of spread out and laid foil over them. This raises the base so it's not sitting in the liquid that forms from the powder.

Heat the bullets so they are warm then connect the PC lead to the pan and spray the powder on.

Heat at 400 for 15 min and open the door and let them cool slowly.

Then load up and shoot. At least that's what I did this afternoon. They grew about .001" but I didn't waist any time resizing the one I shot to see how the coating held up, didn't want to be looking for a bullet at the bottom of my pool after dark.

[JFlowers]

The picture looks like the coating was scraped off the bearing surfaces. Looks like it was from the loading processes. Which means the coating wasn't there when the bullet was fired?

[mlmiller1]

Looks to me like the coating came off on the way down the barrel. You can see part of the rifling cut into it. Is it expensive?

[jmorris]

It was shot through a dirty bore, if you look close you can see it remains in the lands and groves. It was a light coat and easy to apply results are similar to what is seen with Precision or Berrys bullets out of gain twist barrels.

The powder is cheap...if through further testing it will work.

[toddrod]

for another $30 you could have gotten a bottle of coating from Bayou Bullets and have enough for 20k + rounds of bullets

[Buzi]

Yah, but then they wouldn't be awesome red.

I like the red. Keep up the experimenting!

The guy that figures out a inexpensive way to fake gold colored bullets might do well too.

There might be a bling seeking market out there for bling bullets in use with their pimp guns.

I see potential profits.

[jmorris]

for another $30 you could have gotten a bottle of coating from Bayou Bullets and have enough for 20k + rounds of bullets

Didn't know they sold it until yesterday reading the castbullet thread on the above.

I contacted them as to what the process is for their coating as well.

There might be a bling seeking market out there for bling bullets in use with their pimp guns.

Only advantage I see in red, other than the fact it was the only color they had in stock yesterday, would be that it would be easier to pick out when you recover the lead for reclaim.

[toddrod]

Here is how to do the Bayou coating easy

[pdogg]

Never heard of bullet coating until I saw this post. Very interesting thanks for the post and video.

[jmorris]

I was planning on ordering some of the Bayou coating and Donnie sent me the instructions yesterday, the 2-3 coat/bake steps caused me to hold off until I test this out a bit more and I have the stuff to give copper plating a try as well.

Edited March 12, 2013 by jmorris

[BBBB]

Toddrod,

Thanks for posting the video. Do you size the bullets? If so, do you do it before or after the coating is applied?

[toddrod]

Those are not my videos, but to answer the question, you would size after the coating is on them.

[jmorris]

Upon further thought I figured for an informed opinion you have to try them all, so I called Donnie and ordered a batch. He's waiting on jugs right now and it has to travel by ground so it may take a few weeks but I gathered up the rest of the stuff to give copper plating a go.

[mlmiller1]

You're going to try electroplating your own stuff? This should be really interesting. Be careful, lots of really bad chemicals involved in that process.

[jmorris]

The stuff I used is intended to be poured down the drain to kill roots along with water.

Well trying to hurry a project during nap time was a bust today but here is what I know so far.

The Zep root kill is copper sulfate and mix 1.5 cups of it with 1 gallon (-1.5 cups) of distilled water so it can dissolve while you are setting every thing up.

Strip some romex and place one strip in the bottom of a pan. I used the already stripped ground wire to make a loop around the top of the tub. Hang your bullets and pour in the solution.

Now the problem with rushing things. Check to make sure your container will hold water or you will plate the clean parts of your bench with copper.

The positive voltage from the power supply needs to connect with the wire in the bottom of the tub. If you reverse the voltage the bullets try to disintegrate and foam like the photo. The tiny wires I used also sacrificed them selves and the bullets dropped.

Connect some more wires and get head out of butt and connect voltage correctly and 10 min later you have a copper plated bullet that looks like it has been sand blasted, likely because of the etching that took place because of the initial reverse voltage.

Bench top

Edited March 13, 2013 by jmorris

[Flexmoney]

Part 2 - http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=173215&hl=