Powder coated bullets the easy way

I spend a lot of time surfing youtube to learn the latest developments in things I am interested in. I don't mind copying whenever I find a good thing and I found a gem just recently. I had heard that powder coating bullets keeps your barrel clean and allows you to use lower hardness lead in your cast bullets. So I happen to have some range scrap and that is supposed to be really soft stuff. Not wanting the expense of ordering any super hard to mix with this stuff and being basically lazy I wanted something I can just coat, size, reload and shoot. I saw guys with electric charged powder spray guns and home made spray booths wearing dust masks bowing powder every where, sitting the bullets one at a time on non stick aluminum foil and when baked the bullets had a paint flange on the bottom and mostly no bottom coating. I saw guys pouring powder and solvent into a tupper ware dish and shaking it up and cooking better looking coated bullets but the process was messy and required handling solvents. Then I found the guy with the real answer. He just put the bullets in some tuperware like containers and tumbled them and poured them on a pizza screen and baked them. Total coverage and ready to be sized. That got me excited and I bought some horror freight powder and got hold of a toaster oven and got to work. Now the expert says that the horror freight powder does not give good coverage and I think he is right but I have not had time to order some better powder. Still I think things came out just fine. I loaded a bunch of 45 acp with my coated bullets and participated in a bowling pin shoot. No fouling in the barrel with the range scrap bullets and the horror freight coating. I even made a youtube video so everyone can see them made. Take a look.

http://youtu.be/irF984ukYsI

The Harbor Freight powders are actually reclaimed powder, not new manufacture. You can get good powder from Eastwood or Powder by the Pound. Gloss powders are more durable than flat or matte finish powders.
I have had excellent results tumbling bullets in peanut butter jars with screw on lids. I always wrap a layer of electrical tape around the lid to prevent leakage.
BTW, what your best time knocking pins down?

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Originally Posted by sharpshooter

The Harbor Freight powders are actually reclaimed powder, not new manufacture. You can get good powder from Eastwood or Powder by the Pound. Gloss powders are more durable than flat or matte finish powders.
I have had excellent results tumbling bullets in peanut butter jars with screw on lids. I always wrap a layer of electrical tape around the lid to prevent leakage.
BTW, what your best time knocking pins down?

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I wish you had not asked that. My best time knocking down pins is sort of slow. I have only shot them three times and I think I got around 9 or 10 seconds a couple of times. Normally I get the whole 15 seconds. Not any place near the times I saw this last Sunday. I see others shooting lots of times in the four second range. Give me a couple of more years and maybe I will get a little better. Still it is lots of fun, slow or fast.

We have been shooting a weekly league with mostly rimfires at half scale bowling pin sillhouettes made from scrap 2x4's, at 15 yds. Most of the shooters here are lucky to knock over all 5 with one magazine, lol....
We used to shoot regulation pins until we had some richochet problems and had to remove all hard targets and steel plates from the range. Being a director at the club, I talked them into shooting "soft " targets such as wood that would not richochet like real bowling pins. Because it is halloween, last sunday we had a "graveyard match". Instead of shooting bowling pin sillhouettes, I made some "tombstones" from 2x4's. They were 8" tall with a radiused top like an old tombstone. They were easier to hit (well, for most of us) and my best time was 4.54. Most of the times were in the 7-8 sec range.
Like I've told the guys....before you can knock them down fast, you have to knock them down, period.:thumb:

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Originally Posted by sharpshooter

We have been shooting a weekly league with mostly rimfires at half scale bowling pin sillhouettes made from scrap 2x4's, at 15 yds. Most of the shooters here are lucky to knock over all 5 with one magazine, lol....
We used to shoot regulation pins until we had some richochet problems and had to remove all hard targets and steel plates from the range. Being a director at the club, I talked them into shooting "soft " targets such as wood that would not richochet like real bowling pins. Because it is halloween, last sunday we had a "graveyard match". Instead of shooting bowling pin sillhouettes, I made some "tombstones" from 2x4's. They were 8" tall with a radiused top like an old tombstone. They were easier to hit (well, for most of us) and my best time was 4.54. Most of the times were in the 7-8 sec range.
Like I've told the guys....before you can knock them down fast, you have to knock them down, period.:thumb:

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We have some steel plate racks at our club and we have a monthly steel challenge with larger individual steel plates on 2x4's.
We use regulation bowling pins and you have to meet a particular power factor to participate. Nothing like a 9mm or less is allowed. I use a 45 acp. If loaded at the high end of the scale it can bounce a pin clean off the table. The organizer of the match told us to bring 22 pistols next time as we are going to cut the tops off the damaged pins and shoot them. I think we are running out of bowling pins again. I can do a lot better with my 22 pistol anyway. I have practiced a lot with it (3 cases of 22 LR in a year). I have had the 45 about 4 months or so. Good shot or not I have a lot o fun.

I remember about 20 yrs ago we had a pin match and one of the guys brought his 87 yr old father with him to try it out. He claimed the last time he shot a .45 was in the service. We explained everything to him about the how the timer worked and all the pins had to clear the table, and it was harder than it looked. He reassured us that he understood. With that out of the way, he was the first up to shoot. The buzzer went off, he drew a steady aim and shot the first pin. The first pin dominoed into the others and they all fell off the table....with one shot. He turned around and looked at us and said, "What's so hard about that?";) .....with a time of 2.3.

Very nice video! Seems like you have gotten the process down pretty well. How many bullets are you able to coat with one jar of powder? Thinking of trying my hand at casting, but the whole lubing process was scaring me off

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Originally Posted by drewaki9

Very nice video! Seems like you have gotten the process down pretty well. How many bullets are you able to coat with one jar of powder? Thinking of trying my hand at casting, but the whole lubing process was scaring me off

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Thanks for watching the video. I coated about 35 pounds of 45 acp when I did the video. Not all on camera of course. I still have at least 75% of the bottle of powder. Mostly you lose powder to spills as it does not take very much to coat the bullets. I have not yet needed more bullets as I have a lot left. I have been told that you can do just as well shaking the bullets in a cool whip container with some air soft BBs and you only need a couple of tablespoons of powder in it. I am going to try that when I start to need more bullets. I had two firsts there, casting 45 acp and powder coating. So I figure if a beginner like me can do it everyone can do it easy.

Thanks for the quick reply! I may have to give that a try when I get into casting!