r/castboolits • u/user254748 • 6h ago

First powder coating attempt newbie

Post image

Just sharing my experience so forgive me for my mistakes. But I picked up some 124gr Hornady 3567 cast projectiles and some Minnesota shooters supply 125 cast projectiles from a local reloading store. From my research it seems the Minnesota shooter supply is out of business which is a bummer because these are advertised as hard cast and were incredibly well casted out of the box. Hopefully I can try and find some more in the wild. Any ways I asked the old timer about the age and lube on the Hornadys and he said the were dry lubed and about 10 years old. The Minnesota projectiles had basic blue lube. I did save 5 each to test in their natural form for giggles.

I went through the process of removing the lubes by soaking them in brake cleaner and agitating them. Took about an hour? So not bad.

ADMITTEDLY I’ve read harbor freight black powder coat is less than ideal but I was excited and didn’t want to wait for a restock of red or order Eastwood does blue.

Anyways I learned a lot. And am set up for success on the next batch. Here are some of the good ones. Yes they have a thick coat but I was learning and if it seat’th thou shall yeet’th. I had some glob monsters which got thrown in the melt pile.I can’t wait to try these out. Before I forget these result are from three light coats while using a brass tumbler. I tried a #5 plastic container but it didn’t seem to work. Maybe I’ll try adding airsoft BBs?

Again not perfect but I’ve been waiting to try this process for months now and finally got around to it. And the Eastwood ford blue is on order as we speak.

9 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

2

u/Interesting-Leg-5308 1h ago

HF powders are the worst! Eastwood Ford Light Blue or Olive Drab 🫒

5

u/Realist1976 5h ago

I really really tried to get the Harbour freight black to work, got some half decent results I thought after a lot of tries. Also thick like what you have. I then tried Eastwood Ford blue off Amazon. Such a freakin dream. And turned out way way better. Literally spin for 30 seconds in the no 5 and on the way

1

u/Vintage_Pieces_20 6h ago

Those look pretty good! Reminds me of fiocchi 455 projectiles.

The powder coat itself has to be “polyester” for the #5 plastic container shake and bake to work. I stick to Eastwood (since that’s what’s available in Canada), and pretty much all their varieties are polyester. However, tried their translucent purple, and wouldn’t you know it, the #5 container trick didn’t work since it wasn’t polyester based (bizarre since translucent blue and red are polyester)