HBN coating - what am I doing wrong?

[JohnKielly]

I gave up on this stuff. it wasn't that it was a pain finding a method to apply the coating permanently, it certainly wasn't that it made cleaning way easier, it wasn't that it seemed to have no effect on the ballistics of bullets (they were lineball with bare bullets), it just was that in all but one calibre, I got better results using moly.

 

[Joe R]

View attachment 1006966

Switched from a rotary tumbler to a vibrator as I couldn't get a proper impact coating. 1st time with the vibrator tumbler had success using 250 old 17 cal Hornady 25 gr HP. All I did was rinse the bullets in alcohol, dry, and vibrate for 4 hours. Everything since then has not worked with newer & fewer bullets. I am not using heat and tried rinsing in acetone to no avail.

Any suggestions?

Chuck

My method is probably not relevant to most people since I shoot F-Class and go through a lot of bullets. The pill bottles were too small IMO because I wanted to do 200 (.308 200 grain hyb ) bullets at the time to avoid lot to lot differences.

1. I tumbled them for 1 hour.
2. I fill up the container 3/4 of the way.
3. I use stainless pins as buffers because I don't want the bullets banging around against each other and changing their BC.
   
   

 

[Joe R]

By the way, I haven't cleaned my barrel since I started using HBN, but its been only a month or so. When I look with the borescope all I see is coating and no carbon.

It has lowered my pressures some and I had to increase the powder to get back to my velocity. So far all seems well, but only the test of time will provide a definitive answer.

Joe

 

[JasonT]

That's what mine look like Joe. I learned a method from an older guy who's been doing this for a while. Use a cheap rock tumbler from harbor freight and a motts plastic apple sauce jar. The apple sauce jar is perfect because it has ridges and cliffs (of sorts), so it allows the bullets and media to "fall" for an inch to impact the hbn onto them. I use the chrome-plated Daisy bb's and they work great. I probably use too much hbn also, but the results don't seem to be degraded by it. I usually tumble for about 8 hours though. I end up with a whitish/clear pearlescent coating on the bullets. They're not amazingly slippery, but they will slip out of my fingers if I'm not paying attention!