Steel Valley Casting Coated Bullets (PGH Area) (Yippie Bullet Pictures)

[Nate7667]

Any plans on some heavy (200gr+) 30 cal bullets in the line up?

Are you using a hard cast lead or can you get away with a softer more expansion friendly cast with using the coating to keep barrel leading to a minimum/non-existant?

[DucatiRon]

Yes plans are there. Evey set of molds I buy is just about $1000. I really need to have a good demand for a certian bullet to justify a mold purchase right now. Just getting started the extra cost for more molds is a bit hard to come by.

And we do use hard ball alloy lead. We use standard 92-6 amtimony- 2 tin lead.

[Nate7667]

Gotcha, completely understand the demand aspect!

I was mainly asking for use in 300Blk and 308 subs.
After i asked the question i found your site and the lead-alloy mix on it.
I was hoping for some softer, more expansion/deformation friendly alloy to hunt with.

[DucatiRon]

I have a buddy of mine whose waiting for the same thing for his suppressed 300blk. I just loaded him up 2k rounds of 220 SMK's for now. But he's going to be my crash test dummie as soon as I buy the molds.

As for softer bullets I have about 400lbs of softer lead laying around or I could always call my supplier and have a custom blend made. Again depending on how much was needed I could soften up what I have for small batch stuff or just order it alloyed. Haven't had anyone ask for a softer alloy yet.

Assuming the results of coating the bullets holds true to speed there should be no reason why a softer alloy would not work. I have already thought about that for future testing but didnt want to change the alloy mix in my machines till my inventory was at a satisfactory level. Now that I'm pretty well caught up that's next in the R&D.

[Nate7667]

Good to hear!
Looking forward to see the results.

My thought process was a softer lead with powder coated projectile to keep leading of barrels, mainly cans, to a non existent issue and still have some deformation at sub-sonic velocity.
Other guys are doing it on a home based scale. I have enough hobbies, smelting lead and powder coating is not another one i need.
Also I just cant bring myself to pay for Outlaw State bullets that are sub-sonic expanding....i waste enough money on other things that are beyond justifiable, the stupid money allotment account can only be stretched so far lol

[DucatiRon]

You should come play with my bullet casters. Most any bullet I'm casting over 200 grains is averaging about a 2lb per minute use in the machines. There is no time to do anything but feed the machine ingots. Its fun to lift ingots all day around 750 degree molten metal.

[SSG Retired]

Just received some samples from Vic and Ron, thank you guys. I gotta say they look good and the coated 120g 9s are loading up very nicely, a plus is they look sweet being black on brass. I will give a range report of how they shoot and function soon.

[DucatiRon]

I have coated 45's also if you like the way the coated 9's shoot. I figured I'd give you a bit of everything.

[cephas]

Out of curiosity how are you applying the coating? I understand how a home brewer could do a few hundred at a time, but kinda boggles the mind on a commercial level.

[DucatiRon]

Well just more trays and a bigger oven.

Some people tumble coat their bullets in a acetone/laqure slurry. That can be done in a cement mixer. This is commonly referred to the "Piglet" method. So named after the Russian dude who calls himself Piglet on YouTube.

I tried this method and was not happy with the results. The coating seemed uneven and bullets had to be coated multiple times. Which means multiple bake cycles. Now alot of people use this method and some get really good results. I just had no luck at it.

I spray mine just like normal powder coating is applied. This is a dry process with just a bit of dust as over spray but no chemicals or bad/flamable fumes in the air. I like the reaults better with the spray process. The coating goes on more even, can't be over applied because of the diminishing returns of the electrical attraction process, and requires only one bake cycle.

While you can do it home brew style with a $75 Harbor Frieght powder coating gun a decent small batch professional gun will cost you around $150. The results of both guns are really the same but a better quality setup give you better electronic controls, better air control, and less wasted coating because of air flow through the delivery gun.

It's my setup procedure that allows me to spray coat just over 10,000 a day that is a trade secret. Took me a couple weeks and a few prototypes along with some cash to make what I wanted really work smooth. Now my setup time per batch is faster than the oven can bake them. If I need to expand past 10k a day I'll have to add a second oven to keep up.