my start up costs have been low, I paid £10 for a toaster oven (plus 20 miles of fuel @10p per mile) £12 total
powder coat from Caswell europe - £14.50 + £7.19 post = £21.69
the bullets I already had from shellhouse - 9mm Flat Point 122GR 500 £26.50 - 10% = £23.85 so £4.77 a hundred.
a lee lube and size die to see how it all works before investing in a proper sizing setup off NOE moulds. £19
so that puts me at 57.46 to see if it works or not...
I got a chance to have a play with it all tonight.
first i need to remove the lube from the bullets, i whacked some in Isopropynol to see if that would attack the lube or not, not really, dried it out, but not disolved. so will have to try a different method for removing the lube (more on that below)
I settled on using a flat bladed screw driver the same width as the lube groove, breaking the lube out, bit tedious for the test sample, but not the way to go for full production, although I'm sure I could buy them unlubed from shellhouse.
so once unlubed (some better than others) off i went to the freezer. took out an almost empty tub of carte d'or, scooped out the remainder and threw it to SWIMBO to be disposed of.
washed out the tub, and made sure it was nice and dry.
stole away to the garage, got the oven out on the side, plugged in, and switched on to 200*C to warm up.
taking the ice cream tub, I emptied a part bottle of .25g bbs in, then opened the can of P-C powder. and poured a small amount in. then the bullets went in. lid on. shake-shakey-shake. open up, peer in, nope, needs a bit longer. shakey-shake-shake. yep that looks ok.
tried to remove a bullet with fingers, and wiped a load of powder off, so thats not the one. long nose pliers were the answer. these went on the tray once it was covered in foil. base down.
at the same time, I wanted to test a few other things too, so i threw in a few bullets that had the lube still on them and coated them with P-C too. they went on the tray along with some bullets that were un P-C, one set that were naked with lube, and one set that had been in the IPA but still had lube on them. this is to see how the heat affects the lube...
into the toaster oven they went for 15-20 mins at 200*c.
didn't look too bad considering the hasty prep.
they were then left to cool for 5 mins then peeled off the foil.
the P-C bullets came off nicely, the ones that were uncoated to get rid of the lube came out clean, just need to be quick to pick them out and wipe, or cook on a rack so the lube runs off them. the ones that were P-C with lube still on have a definate brakup of coat on the bottom and lube ring, so are probably not a great way of doing it.
the P-C bullets were then run thru the .357 lube and size kit, ready for loading :)
pics,
ready for the oven
in the oven
end result
top row are the cleaned bullets.
next down are the P-C with lube still on
then we have P-C cleaned, the one far right still had some lube in the groove, to see how clean they needed to be
then P-C cleaned, after sizing.
so I have 20 bullets read for loading
