Lee Loader

I have been shooting some coated bullets for a while now. The is pretty easy to clean, but I am thinking I like conventional lubed bullets better.

1. I fix my bullet seating die plugs so they match the ogave of the bullet. when the coating is not the same thickness it effects the OAL by a few thousandths because my seating plus are not touching the tip of the bullets.

2. there is a fouling that continues to grow the more I shoot the coated bullets. I don't clean my pistol barrels when shooting conventional blue lubed cast bullets. The conventional lubed cast bullets lead the barrel a little right away and just stay about the same through hundreds of rounds without cleaning.

Sooooo, I figure on just going back to conventional lube on most of my cast bullets.

I read through the 300+ page hytek thread over on castboolits, somewhere in the low 200s there is a page about the hytek transfer to the bbl and being cooked there.
I don't remember the name of the product but it was water washable and didn't attack the bbl . I had wanted to try it but I found I can get the needed levels with a gas check so I didn't go that way .

I've only read one person that said he got fouling from powder coating but it came out with acetone. Some had to wonder if he had cooked them long enough but that is over my head. Just know none in my barrel yet after a couple hundred rounds but will keep an eye on things.

I spayed some G96 gun treatment in the barrel (this is my Glock 42) and let it soak about an hour. It came out easily with a nylon bore brush and a rag, but I suspect it would continue building up and maybe get harder if I kept running rounds through it. I might try a lot of them in my M&P to see, it's standard rifling.

For the rest I have for the Glock I will clean it every couple hundred rounds. I'm concerned the Glock polygonal rifled barrel might blow up if I let it get much build up.

If your coated bullets are shedding the coating then they were not done right. I assume these are commercial cast from some large company. I can say that the two batches of SNS cast bullets I've bought that were coated by them in Hi-Tek have NOT left any coating in the bore and seemed to be coated evenly enough that they all crimped right into the crimp groove for me. That being said, I powder coat my own bullets and that leaves nothing in the bore either.

None of the Powder Coated bullet I have coated and shot left any fouling in the barrels (38/.357 Mag, .44 Mag, 45 ACP, 9mm, 303 British, 7.62x54r, and a few 30-06). I also size my PCed bullets the same as my lead; the same size as cylinder throats for revolvers, and .002" over groove diameter for semi-autos and rifles. What "coating" is on your bullets? Powder Coat? Hi-Tek?. Did you mic. your bullets? I use the same methods and loads as I do for nekkid cast bullets with excellent results (except the rifle rounds which are loaded a bit higher than lead).

mikld wrote:None of the Powder Coated bullet I have coated and shot left any fouling in the barrels (38/.357 Mag, .44 Mag, 45 ACP, 9mm, 303 British, 7.62x54r, and a few 30-06). I also size my PCed bullets the same as my lead; the same size as cylinder throats for revolvers, and .002" over groove diameter for semi-autos and rifles. What "coating" is on your bullets? Powder Coat? Hi-Tek?. Did you mic. your bullets? I use the same methods and loads as I do for nekkid cast bullets with excellent results (except the rifle rounds which are loaded a bit higher than lead).

The coating on the bullets I shoot is hi-tek. I don't know if the fouling was the lube. Could have been the type of powder I shoot, didn't have the fouling with blue lube. Cleaned out easily though.