Lee will send a replacement, just add it to your cart. Do yourself a favor and figure out a order as lee charges a minimum for shipping. Make it worth it.
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Bullet Casting & Coating MegaThread
- Thread starter 38ExtraSpecial
- Start date
You know things are getting worse when the cheapest used toaster oven at Savers is $50 theres next to nothing for metal and theres more people lining up to donate than to shop ! Store is pretty empty
Jay77
NES Member
Loaded up some coated nines with Silhouette and I was lead free. In fact the barrel was so clean I didn’t bother to clean it. Shot about 30 of them. I poured another pot last night and I’ll coat up some more.
Jay77
NES Member
Happy Thanksgiving all. In addition to cooking dinner today I coated 12 pounds of mostly nines. 3 coats with a final water drop….
Love silhouette - once you get it up to pressure burns nice and clean.
Jay77
NES Member
I’ve shot about 50-75 with 4.7 gr and so far so good. I don’t shoot a lot of nines but one of my kid does so I’m getting ready for next spring and summer.
Jay77
NES Member
I scored my final bucket of wheel weights which mixed comes in at about 35 pounds which I’ll save for the 8mm
38ExtraSpecial
NES Member
TZCHRIS
NES Member
3 coats of paint? Do you size after paint? Do you get a big difference between coat 1 and 3? Sounds like a lot of extra work.
I cant get my ass in gear, rounded up a few molds over the summer, smelted down 98% of all my lead during covid and just stalled out
Jay77
NES Member
COVID kick my butt into gear with casting… always wanted to do it but I never had the time. Not as much time now but I manage to work it in. I have another 15-20 pounds of 9’s and 38’s to coat up and hopefully load up over the winter. Shot about 100 of the nines I coated today.. went great. I have to up the silhouette a bit because I had a bit of unburnt powder. We were hitting the steel plate from the hundred.
Anyone out there Hitek coating any bullets good for 30/30 and maybe 35 remington ?
Artie
NES Member
I still have some of the Hitek coated Lee C309-170-F that I could send you if you want. Not sized or with GC, just like the others I sent you but in bronze, not red. I planned on trying them in 30-30 but havent got to it. Let me know
Nice offer , but 30 cal is covered now need 35 cal or .359” cast?
38ExtraSpecial
NES Member
I have some Lee 35 Remington 200 grain RNFP or if not I can make some
That would be sweet. You have a “harder” alloy? Says the 336 micro groove rifling likes a harder alloy….yet “they” dont say how hard?
Let me know what you want when you get around to casting some
Jay77
NES Member
Let me know if you end up needing more for the 30/30. I should have some .312 185gr coated for the Brit kicking around that are to small.
38ExtraSpecial
NES Member
I can cast some out of wheel weights and water drop them after coating. I only have a .358” sizer though so I could leave them unsized.
When you get them pop them in the oven at 400 for 10 minutes then drop them in water. Size right away.
Jay77
NES Member
This thread has been quiet for a while so… my first attempt at paper patching.
38ExtraSpecial
NES Member
Looking good. What paper?
Wet or dry wrap?
How do they chamber?
Make sure to not over crimp them.
Wet or dry wrap?
How do they chamber?
Make sure to not over crimp them.
Jay77
NES Member
Strathmore tracing paper wet wrapped. Haven’t loaded them yet.
Jay77
NES Member
I’m going to load up a few with the same recipe as the Hi-Tek coated bullets. I beagles the mold and increased my sizing die to .316. I still had leading… wrapping them in paper really wasn’t that bad. I just have to load up more nines and switch the press over. Going to run them through the sizer. Is it okay to lube them with lee Alox?
38ExtraSpecial
NES Member
Yeah you don’t need much lube just a tiny wipe. I use bore butter. Anything seems to work. It’s more about protecting the patch than lubing the bore.
Jay77
NES Member
Loaded a dummy round for testing and it chambered fine. I sized the bullet down to .311 and wrapped it twice in the tracing paper and sized it back down to .316.
Here is a picture after chambering.
Going to see what I have for brass on hand and try to load up a few with 18gr of 2400.
Here is a picture after chambering.
Going to see what I have for brass on hand and try to load up a few with 18gr of 2400.
Jay77
NES Member
I took six of my paper patched rounds out to the range last weekend and shot them at the hundred yard mark testing the minute of banking and they were more accurate then the plain Hi-tek. They looked to be grouping in the same general area which was a plus. I checked the bore and there was a little bit of leading at the end of the bore that stopped about an inch shy of the crown.
@pastera slugged this gun at about .314 during the seminar and I sized the paper patched bullets to .316. My load was 18gr of 2400 over a 190gr bullet. Paper patching wasn’t to tough and I was looking for any tips to eliminate the leading. The bore is not the best with some wear near the muzzle and it doesn’t look to be counter-bored but the rifling is weak. Definitely a fun project.
My buddy who came to the seminar is turning into a casting beast and is making some beautifully coated bullets and has been very successful.
@pastera slugged this gun at about .314 during the seminar and I sized the paper patched bullets to .316. My load was 18gr of 2400 over a 190gr bullet. Paper patching wasn’t to tough and I was looking for any tips to eliminate the leading. The bore is not the best with some wear near the muzzle and it doesn’t look to be counter-bored but the rifling is weak. Definitely a fun project.
My buddy who came to the seminar is turning into a casting beast and is making some beautifully coated bullets and has been very successful.
38ExtraSpecial
NES Member
You might want to make the patches a little longer. Sometimes (for sure with black powder and soft lead) the bullet bumps up a bit as it enters the bore and basically the ogive ahead of the wrap bumps up and turns into bearing surface which can leave some leading in the bore because it’s not protected by the patch.
ETA I just looked at the pics of your bullets and this is not the issue. Those suckers are wrapped up far enough.
Did you make sure you cleaned the bore really well before shooting the new bullets? Where is the leading? Throat, muzzle? The whole damn way?
Could it be some leading that was there before?
I will toss this out as a WAG maybe the paper did a good job of polishing the existing lead
38ExtraSpecial
NES Member
That’s why I was asking. You see that with jacketed. You think your bore just has some powder fouling till a jacketed bullet or even a bore brush shines everything up real nice.
Jay77
NES Member
I’ll give it a good cleaning before the next test run. It wasn’t a ton of leading and it did clean up pretty quickly so maybe it was some left over from the Hi-Tek. Looked like it was at the muzzle end and it was very thin. I’ll give it a good scrubbing and give it another run. I’ll also make sure the paper is past the ogive. This is one bore I really don’t mind scrubbing.
Old bores with a lot of aged fouling can take a lot to get “clean” old school light in the breach and eye ball down the muzzle will often show a nice bright bore. Often this is just polished fouling and copper/lead
Keep at it. As long as its not excessive build up and having effect on accuracy dont get to hung up on it.
