Quote:
Originally Posted by DeplorabusUnum
You're removing the powder coat because your bullet size and sizer are not a good match. For 357, I cast bullets that size at 358. After powder coat they run around 362. I then resize them to 358. Typical 9mm would be to cast around 356 and size the same after PC.
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I didn’t realize they made the sizing dies in .001” increments. I’m going to have to get one for the .357 bullets. In the meantime, here’s what I did and it seems to have worked well:
While waiting for my Eastwood package to arrive, I took a bunch of the round nose 9mm bullets and lubed them with plain motor oil and ran them through the sizer. Cleaned them good, first with a solution of simple green and hot water, then gave them a bath in isopropyl alcohol. My Eastwood powder showed up late yesterday, so I cleaned all the HF powder out of the gun and used some Eastwood Cadillac Blue. I took your advice and placed the bullets on aluminum foil for spraying. I think my nitrogen pressure was too high the last time, so I put a digital gauge on the line and tried it at 7psig. That was a little low, so I increased it to 13psig and that worked much better. I found the most effective way was to do the powder in short bursts, giving the gun a shake after each couple of bursts. I didn’t have nearly as much wasted powder and my coverage was much more uniform. I baked them at 375 for 25 minutes and let them cool in the oven after the timer shut it off. I had no trouble removing the bullets from the foil; they came off very cleanly. I’m happy with the results and I’ll continue to refine my efforts. Definitely a bit labor intensive, and I’ll probably continue to buy most of my bullets ready to load, but knowing there’s an alternative when supplies run low is comforting. Thanks for the pointers and input you have provided.