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Post curing HiTek coated bullets


9x45

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Thought I'd give a new company a try on their coated bullets. Been running Bayous for over 2 decades with no issues. New company bullets coating easily rubs off and leaves the barrel filthy after only 20-30 rounds. So the question is has anyone  had success in post curing HiTek coated bullets? The normal cure is 200*C for 8-12 minutes.

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I’ve heard that it’s best to set the timer after the bullets have come up to temp. That would probably  add 10 min to the time. I would try a few to see if it helps. Sounds like they may have been in a hurry to get them done. My 2 cents. 

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Chuck them in for 12 minutes at 200.

 

They might darken but that should cure them.

 

I do mine for 11 minutes at 190 degrees C. 2.5kg at a time. If you put too much weight in at once the lead temp might not get high enough.

 

 

Edited by dansedgli
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When you say easily rubs off, what does that mean? The coating flakes right off to bare lead?

 

If that is the case something went wrong with the application. I don't believe they will be fixed by reheating, trying won't hurt them.

 

you can try a smash test before using them again. Take a bullet and smash it flat with a hammer, the coating should stay on.

 

See the coating flake off in the red bullet, it should look like the others.

smash.jpg

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20 minutes at 400*F after reaching temp. Darkened a bit, squash looks the same, going to run 40 or so Saturday on the first stage of the match and see what the barrel looks like. 

 

 

 

post cure and squash.jpg

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I cast and coat my own bullets with HiTek, been doing it for years and in fact just coated up 1,000 rds of bullets yesterday.  The coating is applied with acetone which distributes the coating then evaporates off before baking.  To check to make sure the coating is cured the easiest way it to do the wipe test.  Take a clean white patch, soak with acetone and rub it on the bullet. If the coating has not been cured the coating will be dissolved back off the bullet on the patch. Once cured by heat you will not get any appreciable coating on the patch.  

 

Baking longer will not hurt the coating, typically it just makes it darker as you have found. If the coating is cured from the maker then there is something else going on?

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Yea, I did the wipe test with acetone, however with all primer coats, the cure can be affected by thickness, time and temperature, not to mention adhesive failure of a coating because of a contaminated substrate (unclean lead).

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TJ,  like reloading, better equipment can help cut your time down so it is tough to approximate time spent making 1,000 bullets. The key to casting decent quantities of bullets by hand is having molds with more cavities and a decent way of sizing bullets.  I run 5-6 cavity molds for most of them but do have an eight cavity mold for making heavy 160 gr. rn's  for my revolver. I also run a push through sizer (Star) which helps with the economy of motion when sizing.  The last thing you need is having enough clean, ready to cast lead. 

 

The lead thing is probably the big showstopper these days for many people as it is getting tougher to source. If I was talking with someone thinking about casting I would tell them the first thing they need to do is make sure they have a good supply of lead to cast. If you don't have a decent supply or it takes a lot of work to get clean lead to use then that can really add time to your hours per thousand bullets metric. If you have to buy your lead from a commercial smelter then you are paying $ in place of your time.    It is like coming up with how long it takes you to load 1,000 rds of 9mm.  If you are picking the brass up off the ground at the range and then cleaning and sorting it before loading (opposed to buying ready to load from a vendor) how does that add to your loading time metric?  Like reloading, many of the things that make casting cheaper involves your labor and you negate that by paying for stuff.  

 

I got into casting in order to make specialty heavy hunting bullets for larger caliber handguns and rifles. Those types of jacketed bullets are expensive and even if you are buying cast they are coming from a custom caster and are still pricey.  Then after I got all the equipment for that it was easy to get some high capacity molds for regular handgun calibers so I could make them if I needed.  Now I found that with the time involved to make decent quantities of bullets for competition it makes more sense to buy commercial cast bullets and I have been doing that. I decided that I may not be able to get what I needed commercially so I decided to cast up some revolver bullets in case. So starting with clean lead I probably have 2-3 hours into 1,000 bullets ready to load and shoot.

 

Hope that you got something out of all this babbling, I am happy to keep answering questions if you need more info.

 

 

 

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You need lead, lots of cheap lead before you decide to do anything like mentioned above. You need an good source of lead/antimony/tin to make bullets.

 

I have the Lyman 25 lead pot, really nice $350

LEE molds $40, Handle $15

Convection oven $200-400

Hy-Tec bullet coating $25

Bullet sizing $10-125

Misc equipment, lots of time

 

Once all set up with clean lead, I can cast around 500 an hour when everything goes well.

 

Then coat, dry and bake. Coating doesn't take long. I bake 5 pounds of lead every 10-12 minutes. I like three coats.

 

Like reloading it's therapeutic. It takes time. I love shooting my own bullets. 

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