powder coating cast rifles bullets questions on performance

[NB.nagantsniper]

never tried this yet ...excuse what may be a dumb question

........is it a poor mans copper jacket ( told this by 1 friend who does the powder coating stuff )

can you , if you have powder coated bullets , then reload to copper jacket performance / velocities ?

all info welcomed !

 

[OkayShooter]

No, you need to load using cast lead charts. Since it takes less effort to push a lead bullet down a barrel, then a copper jacket.

 

[yomomma]

Powdercoating is somewhere between plain lead bullets and copper jackets.

Some people have broke the 2000fps threshold with no issues.
It is a trial and error proposition.

 

[sail32]

In one of the latest Gun Digests there is an article on coated bullets.

OkayShoot's remark about lead being the fastest matches the articles results.

 

[slug]

I've put 10 rounds into 2 & 1/8 inches at 100 yards at a measured average of 2050 f/s. This is with an iron sighted .30/30 Sharps.

 

[nanuk]

on another forum, they are radically promoting PCing cast.

Use an alloy with some copper in it, and you can get near jacketed velocity, and good game performance.

What they found was PCing cast allows you to get the same velocity using softer alloy, or higher velocity using harder alloy.

Adding copper toughens the bullet so it holds together better

 

[Boomer]

Powdercoating is somewhere between plain lead bullets and copper jackets.

Some people have broke the 2000fps threshold with no issues.
It is a trial and error proposition.

I have no opinion about powder coating cast bullets since I've never tried it, but 2000 fps can be broken without undue leading provided a high quality bullet lube is chosen. I get 2200 fps with WFN .458/480s in my 21" .458.

 

[yomomma]

I have no opinion about powder coating cast bullets since I've never tried it, but 2000 fps can be broken without undue leading provided a high quality bullet lube is chosen. I get 2200 fps with WFN .458/480s in my 21" .458.

Funny. I have no opinion(knowledge) about lubed bullets. Came late to the game and pretty much went straight to powder coating.

Did some initial loading with LLA but kept it within prescribed lead bullet velocities. Never had an issue with LLA.

Maybe someday ill revisit what i passed over.

 

[fingers284]

I have no opinion about powder coating cast bullets since I've never tried it, but 2000 fps can be broken without undue leading provided a high quality bullet lube is chosen. I get 2200 fps with WFN .458/480s in my 21" .458.

Not t sure if that would hold true for pure lead slugs but lots of antidotal evidence that PC'd pure lead can be driven well over 2 grand without leading.

One of the advantages of PC'ing is that most of the worries over specific alloy configuration can be somewhat ignored (not withstanding proper mold fill-out ).

 

[apu]

I wouldn't call powder coating a replacement to jacketed bullets in regards to speed but more in regards to lubrication. I have recently shot powder coated gas checked 660 grain 50 bmg bullets at 2247 ft sec with no leading, groups started to spread to 2+ MOA, but actually quite reasonably accurate. I use an alloy similar to lyman #2 that is also water quenched and left to harden a couple of weeks. Not sure if going up to linotype will make much of a difference but its on my list of things to try. Other than the novelty factor the huge advantage is cost which allows me to shoot way more than I would otherwise. I have my projectile cost down to 35 cents compared to commercial jacketed offerings at $2.50 to $4 a pop.

 

[Ridersfan]

If the bullet design accommodates a gas check, I've read that a powder coated and gas checked boolit can be reliable up to 2200FPS