Powder coating

Unlike Melnic, I just throw my bullets onto the hardware cloth, shake a little and put it in the oven. I bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Yes, some bullets stick together. When I remove them, I bounce the tray on the floor and that makes the bullets separate. The little imperfections or bare spots do not affect their performance for MY shooting needs. I don't shoot precision targets. I shoot silhouettes at 7, 10 and 20 yards for pistol and at 50 and 100 yards for rifle. Since I mostly shoot double taps, I am not looking for 10 ring accuracy.

That said, when I originally did testing for powder coating, I found that weighed bullets, that were coated with a thin spray of paint, would hold their own against jacketed bullets and traditionally lubed and sized bullets.

One of the most important parts of powder coating is that you do not let the fore part of the bullet get too much paint. The reason for this is that the size die does not touch that area (unless you use nose size dies - a subject that needs to have its own thread) and, even though it can be loaded, will not pass a case gauge test. (assuming you use Wilson or better gauges)

I've been doing 400F @ 20 minutes
I measured the 400F with a thermocouple probe and marked my dial.

I take the scraps and then make bank sinkers out of them 4-8oz for offshore wreck fishing. you know what? I should powder coat them just for grins!
I've never looked into it. Just don't want a dropped sinker on the fiberglass deck to leave a color'd mark after I yell at the knob who drops the lure!

I know John, you let the bullets sit 2 weeks before coating to harden up?
What gaps in time do you leave before coating or any gaps in time after coating before sizing?

With it cold, I have left the molded bullets in the cold garage for a week, then coated, then a week in garage before sizing. Don't know if that is enough to stabilize them but that's what I have been doing until my stock is built up.
I have several hundred that have sat 2 weeks after molding and ready to PC them this weekend.

Melnic said:

I've been doing 400F @ 20 minutes
I measured the 400F with a thermocouple probe and marked my dial.

I take the scraps and then make bank sinkers out of them 4-8oz for offshore wreck fishing. you know what? I should powder coat them just for grins!
I've never looked into it. Just don't want a dropped sinker on the fiberglass deck to leave a color'd mark after I yell at the knob who drops the lure!

I know John, you let the bullets sit 2 weeks before coating to harden up?
What gaps in time do you leave before coating or any gaps in time after coating before sizing?

With it cold, I have left the molded bullets in the cold garage for a week, then coated, then a week in garage before sizing. Don't know if that is enough to stabilize them but that's what I have been doing until my stock is built up.
I have several hundred that have sat 2 weeks after molding and ready to PC them this weekend.

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Someone did some tests a ways back and it doesn't matter if if you wait to powder coat or not as the 400 degrees doesn't change the hardness of the bullet if you are air cooling. Water cooling may make a difference, I don't recall.

This is ideal humidity for powder coating with the low humidity. I have run out of bullets I made during the good weather and I won't be casting again until the temps get in the 50's.

Alright I tried hearing the bullets 4 minutes at 140 as i saw a video saying the powder sticks better. It didn’t. First batch I tried reheating after costing to re coat them and they glued into a ball.

Second batch still won’t coat and I’ll bake 20 minutes and I guess re coat?

I guess I’m going to have to burn all that off and re cast those when it’s warmer and I can open all the garage doors.

It all looked so easy until ..,

Yes the light batch is patchy, looks like she-it and like I burned oil on them

This is sky blue from powder by the pound.

I used to heat jig heads and dip and hang to powder coat them. How’d I screw this up so bad? Jesus, I and I was worried pan lubing would be hard.

400f at 20 minutes on the next one
Pound one bullet with hammer and then verify it not flaking then it’s a good batch

I k ow most of the powder coating is cured in the beginning but soooo many people are doing it 400-20

Sure they did not mean 140C?

I set mine all base down which takes extra time but have spread them on hardware cloth and always side by side with none on top of each other


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These look terrible. I heated for four minutes at 140 to try and get it to stick better and it didn’t

I re coated these again and am baking them again

Humidity is your enemy when doing shake and bake powder coating as you need static electricity so the paint will adhere to the lead. Are you using a container marked 5 in the recycle triangle? Are you just swishing them around or are you sort of throwing them up in the air a few times during the swishing? Lastly, you should shake your screen over a piece of aluminum foil to remove the excess powder for reuse.

Archeryrob said:

These look terrible. I heated for four minutes at 140 to try and get it to stick better and it didn’t

I re coated these again and am baking them again

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As Melnic stated, they need to be cooked for 20 minutes at 400 deg F.

I am using a container with a 2 on it. Didn’t see the 5 thing. I was spinning in a circle, tumbling end over end and bouncing them up also. I was a bit rough

Coat two makes them look usable but fugly

I load some of these and pan lubed ones to compare shooting them. This crap has made pan lubing look good

According to the folks who started the bullet PC process, a 5 (indicates the type of material) gives more static electricity than others. From the look of your bullets, you are no shaking the excess off of them.

Archeryrob said:

I am using a container with a 2 on it. Didn’t see the 5 thing. I was spinning in a circle, tumbling end over end and bouncing them up also. I was a bit rough

Coat two makes them look usable but fugly

I load some of these and pan lubed ones to compare shooting them. This crap has made pan lubing look good

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I'm a bit late to the ball game to this, but I thought I'd like to share what works for me:

My powder coat setup is a convection oven acquired from the thrift store with the thermostat calibrated to read an actual temperature range. I did this with an oven thermometer and trial and error until I got the desired temp I wanted. I cure my powder coats at 350-400 degrees. A convection oven assures that the baking temp. is distributed. I find them way better than a regular toaster oven.

I powder coat after every casting session. My bullets are all water dropped, so they are drained and tumble dried with two towels. The bullets are then warmed up to a comfortable touch temperature in the convection oven for about a minute or so to drive out the rest of the moisture. I then let it air-cool for a bit.

Once cooled down, I use a cylindrical container (got it from the dollar store whatever the cool whip equiv. material is...) and shake with eastwood lime green powder coat. I slide the container in a circular motion along a piece of plastic laminate flooring (theory is rubbing to pieces of plastic together builds up static) . Then I give it a good shake to "tumble" the bullets and continue sliding the container. Repeat for 40 seconds or until coating comes out consistent.

I then throw it in a wire basket, sift out the excess powder, and throw the batch into a fresh wire basket ready to be baked. Cure time is different on powder coats, but I actually do the "fast cure" method, where I bake it to 350-400 for only 10 minutes, or until the paint starts to look shiny. Once ready, I immediately throw the batch in a 5 gallon bucket of water with the wire basket. The fast cure method, along with the quick water quench drop helps with separation of any sticking bullets as well as retain a bit of the hardness lost during the curing process.

I then drain the batch and dry them in a towel. I then raise the towel 2 ft off the ground and drop the towel on the ground to further help separate any sticking bullets (like how you usually break up an ice bag). I repeat this until most of the bullets come unstuck. Most of the bullets come out looking great, with a couple of cosmetic defects, but all are functionally fine to shoot.

Archery if I’m the first few minutes they are nice and blue then turn dark and you are indeed running 20 minutes then good chance you are too hot

I used a thermocouple from work
Use something to calibrate it or at least just cook one bullet at a time till you figure it out. You can try dropping the temp on your dial 25-50 and cook one bullet for 20 minutes if you don’t have a thermometer right now.

Once I calibrated my dial I put a sharpie mark on the oven to know where to go back to.


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Melnic said:

Archery if I’m the first few minutes they are nice and blue then turn dark and you are indeed running 20 minutes then good chance you are too hot

I used a thermocouple from work
Use something to calibrate it or at least just cook one bullet at a time till you figure it out. You can try dropping the temp on your dial 25-50 and cook one bullet for 20 minutes if you don’t have a thermometer right now.

Once I calibrated my dial I put a sharpie mark on the oven to know where to go back to.


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Ditto this. Very important. A Taylors oven thermometer will work fine. (you can get them at True Value hardware or on line)

Guz makes some great looking coated boolits. Themz purdy!

John from MD said:

According to the folks who started the bullet PC process, a 5 (indicates the type of material) gives more static electricity than others. From the look of your bullets, you are no shaking the excess off of them.

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I'll have to try again on a small batch and a #5 container. I dump them after mixing in the wire basket and shake them over a card board flat and shake the excess off.

Melnic, I set the oven temp at 400 and it could be high but most bullets were dark and a few were light. They looked like that before going in too. It was like just a few coated better and looked lighter and bluer before going in the oven.

Guzma, Those are beautiful. Now if I can just copy that. This was just an excise in frustration. I can't wait to smelt that goober-ed batch to burn all the powder off and reclaim the lead.

I'll try an oven thermometer but I never had any trouble baking powder coated jigs. I'm leaning toward the #5 container, because no matter how I mixed I could always see bare lead in the bucket when checking them.

If you see some random splotches of lead under the powder, that should even out when heating. I had VERY Bad luck at the beginning with Harbor Freight PC and a non /5\ container. Powder by the pound powder that I have purchased goes on SOOO much easier when using /5\ container even compared to HF powder with /5\ container. How thick it goes on can be a factor of how much powder you put in the bin as well as if you shake it off at the end. John mentions he knocks off excess, Since I stand all the pistol bullets up, I tap excess off before setting each one down. For longer rifle, I do what John says. I just use paper sheets I got for rolling cartridges for a smoothbore instead cause that is what I have excess of pouring the extra back into a container.

Walmart has inexpensive round /5\ containers so you can swish it in a circular motion. Lid on it keeps dust from flying around.

I got 3 tupperware round containers to mix them in. They all have a 5 on them but its so damn small you all most need a magnifying glass to see it. Its too humid to try again. I am going to pan lube a bunch with 50/50 beeswax /deer fat. Then I will compare the 20 powder coats I have to them shooting them.

I also bought one of those $5 over thermometers and put it in the toaster and set it to 350. came back 10 minutes and it read 500. So yeah, they got overcooked, a bit

Archeryrob said:

I got 3 tupperware round containers to mix them in. They all have a 5 on them but its so damn small you all most need a magnifying glass to see it. Its too humid to try again. I am going to pan lube a bunch with 50/50 beeswax /deer fat. Then I will compare the 20 powder coats I have to them shooting them.

I also bought one of those $5 over thermometers and put it in the toaster and set it to 350. came back 10 minutes and it read 500. So yeah, they got overcooked, a bit

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Those cheap ovens are notorious for incorrect temp settings.

Ok I tested the oven and my problem is not the oven!! The powder won’t stick to my bullets. I did a small batch in a #5 container and agitated 3 - 4 minutes and spotty powder sticking. Heated the second batch to 140 like Elvis Ammo shows on YT and still a spotty stick and very easily see lead though the blue powder

I used to heat jig and hold by the hook and swirl in dry powder and hang in the oven and rebake and perfect. Now I’m just F’ing up bullets and wasting powder

Why is the powder not sticking to my bullets? They are pure lead and nothing done except dropped on a towel after casing and stored in a container