Leading with powder coated bullets

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someguy2800

someguy2800

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Hey guys. I ran out of 9mm bullets and decided to try some powder coated lead since I hear so much good things about them. I've always used jacket, lead, and plated but never tried coated. I got 500 124gr flat point coated from SNS casting and loaded up a bunch last night. I loaded them with my usual plated bullet load of 700x which turned out to be pretty hot due to the bullets being seated deeper. I shot them today and in the first two magazines the barrel was totally white with lead. Accuracy was also pretty terrible for the first 20 or 30 rounds. I decided to keep shooting just to see what would happen and after the barrel got totally coated inside with lead the accuracy came back. To my surprise the leading never got any worse. The lead did not build up at all, it just left a thin film.

Is this normal for powder coated bullets? I was expecting these to be a lot cleaner than when I've shot cast handgun bullets in the past but after 250 rounds I had quite a good bit of lead to clean out of the end of the slide and around the end of the barrel, and of course had to chore boy the barrel. This is in a lc9s by the way. I'm going to try a smaller qty of a lighter load tomorrow.
 
Not normal at all BUT there are different types of coatings. Some are little more than paint and then there are bullets coated with Hi-Tek 2 coating that is very tough like used by Missouri Bullets. I bought their 124gr 9mm coated bullets and tried to make them fail. I pushed them to over 1200 fps with Longshot and no leading at all.
 
I imagine your bullets were too small for the bore. Coating works as well as lube, but cannot fix a bad bore fit from what I have seen.

I cast them as fat as they can be and still chamber. That does a very good job at keeping things clean in my barrels. .357 diameter seems to work pretty well fwiw.
 
SNS makes good bullets. There should be no leading from them. Are you sure it's lead? Does it clean out easily? Leading typically won't coat the whole bore.
 
Pull a bullet and see if you have scraped any of the coating off while seating the bullet. If so, you may to expand the case mouth a little more.
 
I bet it’s coating residue, not lead.
SNS sells hitek coated, not powder coated I believe.
There is a difference.
 
Is it possible to retrieve a fired bullet? You can tell if the coating is coming off and bare lead is against the barrel? I'm not sure if the fouling you're talking about is really leading, but I haven't seen your gun. You mention the loads were/are "pretty hot" perhaps the hot loads are pushing the bullets too hard?

My reasoning is I have powder coated many bullets and shot some in my .44 Magnums (heavy loads), 30-06, and 7.62x54r, at "normal" velocities and never had any extreme fouling (but the bullets were sized just like cast bullets; over groove diameter).
 
Run a bore mop through with a couple of strands of Chore Boy wrapped around it. Do it outdoors When you're pulling this out, do you see sparkly glitter come out? If yes, then it's lead, if not, then you aren't getting leading.
9wiBehGX.jpg
 
Something else I thought of that may be an issue... Depending on the size bullet you are using/need, sometimes the 9mm casing can damage the thin coating of the bullet or even worse squish the lead down enough to where it will not fit the bore well even though it started out sized right. A lyman M die helped a lot with my 9mm cast loads. May be worth a look for your set up too.

As was said, maybe pull a bullet and see what you are working with. A fired bullet would be even better!

As was also said, verify that it is indeed leading and not just coating residue, lube residue, or powder residue.

Generally the only time I get leading is when the bullets do not fit the bore for one reason or another. Usually they are cast too small, squashed down, or damaged by the seating process. Otherwise, they tend to work very well.
 
I very well might be just the coating turning white on the inside of the barrel and coating the end of the muzzle and slide. It looks like someone ran a mop covered in white was down the bore. It does not build up like I am accustomed to lead fouling doing. It takes a bit of scrubbing to get off. Bullets are .3565" with the coating. I'm to lazy to slug the bore. Cases are well flared. Enough to set a bullet in about a millimeter. Crimping in a separate step. I ordered 1000 of my favorite berrys last night for $71 for 1000 so these coated bullets are actually the same cost. I'll probably shoot them up and leave it at that. I shot some more today with a lower charge and they are very accurate but not any more so than my plated.
 
They won't be more accurate than anything, but they may well be cheaper. If you can find plated or jacketed cheaper, that's always good. The only reason I shoot coated is cost related to accuracy, which in my guns is equal to any other bullet type.
 
I agree with those who suspect what you are seeing is coating rather than lead. I stopped using coated bullets because of the effort to clean out the coating film...maybe better left alone, but I didn't like the feeling that the gun wasn't clean. I went to softer lead than I used before and leading problems ceased for the velocities I was shooting. However, max load 327 Magnum with lead has never fouled before, go figure.

Another factor is that ECM rifling is not lead-friendly in my guns. Some just require using plated/jacketed or changing barrels (rifling).
 
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my guns get some coating on the rifling but it's not white but brown. i like sns but their coating is so slick that bullets slip from my fingers more so than with plated as i put it in the seating station.. i assume that's good. i shoot their 147 gr flat point in 9 mm.
 
I have no experience with hy-tek coatings. When I decided to go to coatings, I went with powder coated. There is NO residue after firing powder coated lead boolits. In fact the bores in all the guns I have used with my coated boolits look un-fired except some random particles of un-burned powder. A couple wet patches with bore solvent, one oily patch and put 'er away. A semi-auto may need action cleaning.

I would guess what you see is minor coating fouling, some of the hy-tec is rubbing off, or being burned off.
 
RealGun said:
Another factor is that ECM rifling is not lead-friendly in my guns. Some just require using plated/jacketed or changing barrels (rifling).
Click to expand...

What kind of guns do you have that have ECM rifling? Your talking about electrochemical machining right? I've heard of that being used on cannon barrels but I had no idea any production gun makers used it.
 
someguy2800 said:
What kind of guns do you have that have ECM rifling? Your talking about electrochemical machining right? I've heard of that being used on cannon barrels but I had no idea any production gun makers used it.
Click to expand...
Far as I know, S&W uses ECM in modern production. However, they used cut rifling in my 625PC. My 625JM (rifling less defined, likely the ECM) leads pretty badly by comparison. Same with the 686-6 and 60-15. The 629-8 does much better, looks more like cut rifling.
 
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