Shiloh Rifle Forums

Hello, I have seen a couple of people powder coating their cast lead bullets to reduce lead fouling. They are using smokeless powder, mostly pistil rounds. Has anyone tried that with a BP Cartridge.

I thought about it with smokeless powder loads in my 45-70 Shiloh. I was going to do a web video for a friends website comparing greased bullets to powder coated ones for accuracy at long range.
After I saw how you treat the bullets to apply the powder coating, theirs not a chance in hell I’m doing that to a 20:1 lead bullet that has a +/-.5 grain weight tolerance to it.

And when shooting the Holy Black, you need the lube to keep the fouling soft and velocity isn’t high enough to have leading issues. If you do, most likely the bullet isn’t sized properly to the barrel

Thanks for the reply, I thought I would size after coating and lube as usual, but your weight point is well taken. I'm casting 525 gr. 20:1 alloy for a 45/90, and only allow +- .6 gr. variation. I am always open to new ideas, but I will leave this one alone, but i will do a couple just to see, lol. Thanks again

If you use the correct size bullet and good lube you wont get leading. Most matches do not allow PC or gas checks. what bullet are you shooting?? have you slugged your barrel? whats your fired case dia (inside) How are you dealing with fouling? How often are you dealing with fouling?

I ask because not all rifles are the same.

matt

You can not use powder coat with black powder . Grease grove bullets must have their groves full ,otherwise the bullet will collapse in the groves . It will not work .

You can not use powder coat with black powder . Grease grove bullets must have their groves full ,otherwise the bullet will collapse in the groves . It will not work .

Blackstone wrote: ↑Wed Aug 03, 2022 7:52 am You can not use powder coat with black powder . Grease grove bullets must have their groves full ,otherwise the bullet will collapse in the groves . It will not work .

Well, technically mothing would stop you to either fill the grooves with lube (needed for BP anyway), or use a slick. That would take care of the above. But honestly I don't really see all that many advantages to it.

It seems to me that you can either go with grease groove or paper patch bullets. There is some variation in ingredients and methods in each of these. Anything else is just silly. If it worked, folks would be doing it.

Bryan

I have shot powder coated bullets using black in the 32,38 and 44 wcf rifles
While it did work ok I saw no advantage over just a plain grease groove properly lubed. One thing that does work out is if the bore is slightly oversized the powder coating does increase the bullet diameter
I seriously doubt powder coating would be anything other than an added step in the reloading process when loading bpcr cartridges

Thanks, that is a very pragmatic answer and point taken. A guy at the range showed me some smokeless cartridges that had powder coated cast lead bullets. I thought I'd ask cuz ya never know!!

That's why I ask! I know no other shooter that does BPRC. Glad I have this forum to separate you know what from Shinola

PM sent........

So I've wondered the same thing. I'm not quite as hard nosed as some of these old gunners. I was thinking of running a batch through the coating process and then size and lube them. I know gas checks are forbidden but I've never read about powder coating. It would be fun to play around with and it sounds like Don had some curiosity also. Bob

The Quigley information sheet says no coated bullets. I think I have seen it at another match too.

Dave

It’s not traditional, and probably will be kept out of traditional match shooting, but as a new scientific endeavor, powder coating is perfectly valid. There’s a whole forum on the Castboolits site devoted to various coatings for bullets. Too big and too much reading for my (un)interest, but when people were starting out on it, the major problem, once the equipment was sorted out, was accuracy. Didn’t matter so much with pistol bullets, but coated rifle bullets didn’t make as small groups as sized&lubricated ones, even at 100 yards.

IIRC, the reason cited was the difficulty in applying the powder and baking it to uniform thickness. Like swaging a bullet with an off-center jacket, it wasn’t going to win any benchrest matches. I don’t see much talk of accuracy problems when powder coating is brought up anymore; mostly it’s all about convenience and what to do with lube grooves and what brand of powder is “best.” Whether the accuracy problems have been sorted out or are now just accepted and lived with, I don’t know.

In any case, I haven’t heard of any coated bullets winning any long-range matches. But anybody who’s interested should go ahead and try it out. Maybe somebody will amaze us sometime. After in-line muzzle loaders, bull-pup rifles and blocky plastic pistols, my sense of outrage is pretty calloused now.