Bullet coating part II

[JMorris]

After going through the powder coating process and giving copper plating a try, after USPS lost the first shipment, I finally received a new batch of the Bayou bullet coating from Donnie, that he FedExed to me.

What you get is a two part mix and you add acetone, tumble and bake.

I just ran a small batch of 150, 230 grain 45's for the first run.

I mixed 5ml of the color, 5 ml of acetone and 1 ml of the catalyst. Adding about 1 tea spoon to the tumbling bullets and baking at 365 for 10 min. Let them cool and re tumbled them with another tea spoon of the mix and baking for another 10 min.

The tumbler I built is a paint bucket I found at home depot that is sort of D shaped, figured this would work for agitation, and uses disposable liners that are cheap so I don't have to worry about clean up.

I smashed the one at the center of the photo to see how well it stuck to the bullet and there were no signs of separation. Next test is to load them up and see about smoke and leading.

 

[poopgiggle]

This is the coolest goddamn thing.

 

[Burk Cornelius]

So Bayou bullets sent you some of their coating?

 

[foghorn918]

You forgot the green food coloring

 

[bsdubois00]

They sell it directly. It's actually from an Aussie company.

 

[JMorris]

Yes, Donnie resales the coating and they offer it in different colors.

 

[Jack T.]

What's the point of coating them? "It just looks cool" is a perfectly acceptable answer, but I just don't know if there is another reason or not. . .

 

[JMorris]

It's so you can shoot cast bullets with out wax (smoke) or leading. The same reason people buy Bayou, Precision or any of the other coated bullets. Same goes for plated bullets for that matter.

 

[dennishoddy]

What's the point of coating them? "It just looks cool" is a perfectly acceptable answer, but I just don't know if there is another reason or not. . .

Its actually a lubricant, and does away with the wax ring lubricant on uncoated lead bullets that put out a lot of smoke.

 

[jtischauser]

We need red BoomerBoolets!

 

[poopgiggle]

There was a guy on reddit who figured out how to put arbitrary colors on moly bullets. I think he lived in Sweden? Someone should follow up.

 

[Jack T.]

Hmm. Didn't know that. I've go several thousand cast 9mm/357/45 bullets I haven't loaded yet...maybe I'll give this a shot.

 

[JMorris]

We need red BoomerBoolets!

You must have missed part one.

http://www.boomershooter.com/forums/index.php/topic/11664-bullet-coating/

 

[JMorris]

Ran a side by side test of an uncoated bullet and coated bullet on an aluminum plate with a torch below.

I removed the heat when the first bullet started to melt and it continued to melt away. Only the stripes from sizing remained.

The coating is this where the grease is and some leaked out from there but the bottom remained intact.

 

[JMorris]

I finally got around to shooting and recovering one of them. I had already sized all of the bullets I had on hand and Donnie suggests sizing them after coating and I didn't take the time to run them through the sizer again.

At first I was a little disappointed to see where the coating was removed by the rifling. So I decided to load up some Precision Bullets, that I have shot tens of thousands of and have been happy with for a decade.

I was surprised to see that the bullets I had coated held up better than the Precision coating.

I am going to load up a few hundred and shoot them in the match this weekend and take before and after photos of the barrel.

 

[Scott Hearn]

I finally got around to shooting and recovering one of them. I had already sized all of the bullets I had on hand and Donnie suggests sizing them after coating and I didn't take the time to run them through the sizer again.

At first I was a little disappointed to see where the coating was removed by the rifling. So I decided to load up some Precision Bullets, that I have shot tens of thousands of and have been happy with for a decade.

I was surprised to see that the bullets I had coated held up better than the Precision coating.

I am going to load up a few hundred and shoot them in the match this weekend and take before and after photos of the barrel.

Don't sweat that. That's just the lands engraving the bullet. Only way to beat that is to have your bullet dia. smaller than the bore dia. and coating up to groove dia. Not gonna work with any coating that I can think of except a thick metal plating or jacket. The coating in the grooves stayed intact and that's where it really counts. Looks good!

 

[JMorris]

Yeah, I have been happy with the Precision bullets and the Bayou coating looks to be slightly better. Just had high hopes after trying the powder coated bullets and have never even recovered a Precision before today.


This is one of the powder coated bullets, same gun and load.