The Next Evolution
Now we can literally have our cake and eat it too with today’s powder-coated (PC) bullets. Whatever bullet design we choose, plain base or gas checked, powder coating can be applied. Along with this coating we can use a maximum-sized hollowpoint and an alloy virtually guaranteeing expansion. My friend, fellow Idahoan and fellow Shootist Dick Thompson is a huge fan of powder-coated bullets and has provided me with examples in .32, .357, .41 and .45 he has powder coated. He thinks powder coating is here to stay and told me many of the commercial casters are now offering PC bullets, and mold makers are offering powder-coated molds with no lube grooves.
There are several ways to coat bullets, one of which is using an inexpensive spray paint gun. However, this requires a specially built box and the bullets have to be standing up when sprayed. Dick uses the “shake and bake” method as well as the tumbler method. For the first method, a plastic container which creates static electricity is needed to bond the paint to the cast bullets. Something as simple as a Cool Whip container will hold 75 bullets or so, and you just add powder and shake. Next, they are dumped into a colander so the excess paint can be shaken off, placed on nonstick aluminum foil and then baked at 400 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. Once done, cool and size as normal cast bullets.
For larger quantities a 1-qt. plastic bottle with a screw-on lid will handle 200 to 300 bullets. Add a couple of tablespoons of paint and shake for about 90 seconds, then dump them on non-stick aluminum foil and bake. He says at this point it doesn’t matter if they are double stacked and they don’t have to be standing up. They should be sized as soon as they are cool because they will age hard in a few days, making them harder to size. If they size hard simply spray them with Hornady One Shot Case Lube, which will prevent sticking in the sizing die.
A tumbler also works, and Dick says he uses his Hornady Tumbler with 300 to 500 bullets and two to three tablespoons of paint. He tumbles it all for about 20 minutes before baking. One of the problems easily run into is adding too much paint: “A little goes a long way. My first bottle coated approximately 7,000 bullets,” he explained.
