sportsdad60 wrote:Yondering, as a newbie Bullet Powder Coater, Outstanding post!
Love your research tactic retrieving bullets!
Personally I use the Glad Seal containers shown in picture (instead of what your method is) and they seal up really nice. No mess, no fuss. And I also use the vibratory tumbler.
My method is this; After the bullets cool down from casting, I place 75-125 bullets per small container (count depends on size of bullet) with a 1/4 to 1/2 cup of "Powder by the Pound" blend. If you haven't used this stuff, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. No chips after baking!
Then sift it out on butcher paper after 30 minutes. (Pour the excess powder back into the Glad food storage container)
I also dump the freshly baked bullets right into a bucket of cold water after PC for 20 minutes. Every one of them break up, no chipping.
Then I size them in a Lee bullet resizing die (with a little squirt of case lube to keep them feed easy)
Glad you have a process that works for you. I want to make a couple comments, not to say "my way is better, yours is wrong" or anything like that, but what you've posted offers some good examples.
- You're taking 30+ minutes plus sifting to get the powder on a small batch of bullets, compared to ~30 seconds for 100-500 bullets. This is exactly why I said in the OP that the container type matters, a lot, if you want the "quick and easy" method. You're using way more powder than necessary as well, it's probably preventing static buildup that makes powder adhere well to the bullets, along with the container maybe not supporting the static either. With the right container and a small amount of powder, you can skip the tumbler and the sifting.
- Quenching after coating is great for hardening the lead alloy. However, the coating is still soft until it cools, so moving the bullets before they are quenched leaves a lot more bare spots. I prefer to pour water on the bullets, not bullets into the water, if I quench. I do often quench my rifle bullets, but don't bother with pistol bullets. I haven't seen the water quench separate the cake of stuck bullets.
- I'm not sure what the "chipping" is you refer to, unless that's the bare spots from having the coating torn away when hot. Polyester powder coat is flexible and does not chip. Some epoxy powder coats are harder and may chip, I avoid using those.
- On sizing - instead of adding lube to your bullets for sizing, I recommend polishing the inside of your sizing dies. Lee leaves the taper into the sizing portion rough, and every single one of them benefits a lot from polishing. It's easy to do in a couple minutes with a split steel dowel in a cordless drill, and a strip of emery cloth. You'll find bullets pass through with much less effort and no need for any additional lube. It really does make a big difference.
One caveat here is to buy your dies a thousandth or two smaller, so you end up with the right diameter after sizing. For example, I used a .356" Lee die to end up at .3575" after polishing.
Hope those things help someone here.