powder coating cast bullets

[bradaz11]

Does anyone powdercoat their cast bullets rather than lube?

just been looking into it today at work, seems it resizes happily, doesn't chip off, and makes your loaded rounds look fun.

i was wondering if this might be an option for my 9mm lead bullet loads, as even though the cast I bought are the right size, I still get leading in my barrel.

any thoughts?

[dromia]

I have done the powder coating and epoxy coating methods and have been singularly unimpressed.

The results were no better than normal lubing and in some cases, rifles mainly at the higher velocities they were worse.

If you are set up for powder coating compressors, oven etc and not set up for normal lubing/sizing then that could be a cost saving way to go for pistol bullets.

What powder coating/epoxy won't do is cover up original deficiencies like poor bullet fit, too hard an alloy and a ineffective lube.

You must get these right before powder coating just as you must do with ordinary lubing.

If you are getting leading then all powder coating may do is perhaps treat the symptom but not address the cause.

If your bullet is the right size then it is either or both too hard an alloy and a poor lube. Lube can be a suspect as many commercial hard lubes are fine for short barrels but fail in our longer barrelled pistols and rifles.

If powder coating commercial bullets then you would need to purge the original lube out first before coating adding a another step to an already faff on.

You can get some striking looking bullets, my lipstick red ones raised a few eyebrows when I took them to the range. That is about all the benefit it gave me and the novelty of colourful bullets soon wore off.

Tumble lubing with xlox is just another form of coating and we all know its limitations.

[bradaz11]

the bullets seem soft enough, they are from shellhouse, so not your typical hardcast hannams sort.

the lube could be an issue, but i am not set up for lubing or sizing at present.

If going the powdercoating route, I would by a lee lube and size die for the right size (0.001 over max barrel dia)to push the bullet through before loading.

I would plan on applying the powder in a tupperware with BBs, then baking on with a £20 ebay'd toaster oven. Caswell do powder delivered for £20. So I'd have to invest about £60 to try this, possibly less if someone here has tried and given up and wants rid of any powder they may have (although the powder they tried could also have contributed to their tests not coming out as desired, so may not be a conclusive test for the next person)

I would clean off Shellhouse's lube with a soak in Alcohol (IPA), or if i had to, something a bit stronger (IPA is free from work)

lastly, the bullets are being fired out of a 3.8" barrel, so not sure how that figures for the longer barrels. not noticed these bullets behaving poorly in my SGC 9mm as you can't shoot home loads out of his rifles can you but yeah, that doesn't leave any lead in the barrel, it just has an occasional misfeed, probably due to the alox type coat on the bullet hanging up on the feed ramp.

[dromia]

Sounds like a semi auto pistol on section 7.3?

If so have you checked for bullet deformation when it gets jammed up the feed ramp into the chamber? That would cause leading.

When I tried it I used few different makes/types of powder coat with no success and eventually I got some sent over for a powder coater shooter in the states that he was using again no improvement on xlox.

For the epoxy coating I used the same stuff as weiderlander uses.

When you say one thou over barrel diameter what measurement are you talking about?

Lead bullets should be a minimum of 2 thou over groove diameter. Again in the nasty little 9mm round this can cause issues as a bullet that large can cause the round not to chamber or can be sized down 'pon seating the bullet in the case so that although you start with the right diameter the reloading process can mean you end up with an under sized bullet.

What do you use for neck expansion? have you pulled a loaded round and checked the bullets diameter after seating, also if you taper crimp the round that can size down the bullet as well.

Powder/epoxy coating are unlikely to solve any of these problems, you really must identify the problem before speculating on a treatment.

[bradaz11]

it's having the occasional misfeed in the rifle, not had a misfeed in the pistol yet. the only issue i've had with the pistol was one of my Vhit loadings didn't bring the slide back enough to eject cleanly, but that was on plated bullets.

sorry, i mean the max dia of the slug from the bore, so groove dia. 2 thou? maybe my bullets are still a little on the small size then, I'm visiting my gun on tues or weds so i'll slug it again, double check everything again.

I've just been using lee dies, so the powder thru expansion die deals with that. not pulled a seated bullet and rechecked so far, will do that. crimping (or taking out the bell) is done with a lee FCD

if the bullets i have are under dia it'll be annoying

[dromia]

I wasn't talking about misfeeds, just getting loaded normally can deform the bullet. You need to load a magazine full one at a time and then extract them and have a look.

[bradaz11]

ahhh! ok, will do

[WelshShooter]

Sorry if this is off topic, but what are the benefits of powder coating lead bullets? If dromia is saying that you need to get the basics done first (e.g. hardness, sizing) then why would one powder coat?

[dromia]

There are no benefits that I can see from my experience other than pretty colours.

I experimented quiet extensively with it to see if it would help to give higher velocities with just run of the mill alloys and it didn't. At best it will give a couple of hundred fps over xlox.

[dromia]

When I say load the round I mean with authority, let the slide chamber the round under its own effort as would do when actually firing, don't ease the slide forward with your hand.