I tried to take a picture of the inside of the barrel with cellphone but didn't come out as to you could tell much.
Having said that:
yesterday ran 12rounds of cast 160grain gas checked bullets with 13grains of 2400, not the top but close. Alloy was wheelweights with lead free solder. Shot in a four inch model 28.
Using brass primed probably in the 60's but never until now completed.
Looking inside the barrel you couldn't hardly tell it was fired.
As to the bullet, i was shooting at about 20 yards some smoothed river rock, and that bullet was cracking the stone. It really went thunk.
Wasn't on paper but it was flying true too. To me it really looks like powdercoating is the way to go.
I am going to make up pretty quick some 170grain .358 bullets without gas checks. Have a feeling it's an ideal load for a 357.

After running 9 some through my 45 colt and seeing only a little powder soot in the barely I am sold. I have 50 powdrcoaed 55 gr bullets loaded up for my ARejust waiting to see how 5hey work.

i really haven't messed with 357 in a long time. But that old thomson designed 358156 mold has me bit again. Cracking river rock takes quite a bit of force.
we couldn't find any of the bullets, but a guy i was with found a completely flattened gas check off of one of them. He was wondering what it was.

I have the Keith mold as well as both solid and HP versions of the Thompson. For S&W 357s I actually prefer the Thompson due to the length of the Keith and the need to seat the driving band inside the case when using 357 brass in N frames. If I'm using 38 brass, which I usually am, I usually reach for the Keith design. Both are great bullets, I'd hate to have to choose between them

I cooked up about 500 of those 170grainers yesterday. using that 358156 with 2400, it was at the velocity they were loading for 38/44 back in the day. It's a pretty stout load.

So - has anyone tried powder coating on soft swaged lead? Any reason not to? Do they still even sell those?

If you're talking about the soft swaged lead bullets Hornady and others sell - you'd have to clean the wax off before coating them. It really doesn't seem worth the trouble IMO; just buy better bullets if you don't cast your own.

Powder coated soft swaged lead bullets probably would perform about the same as plated bullets (which also have a soft swaged core), with the same velocity limitations. It works better on cast bullets partly because of the harder alloys.

I have powder coated some pure lead cast bullets, and fired them in subsonic applications. They worked fine for that, but I wouldn't push them as hard as wheelweight alloy or similar.

I bought several boxes of those wax coated hornady swaged bullets, probably about 2k of them some years ago at a b.k. sale. I will tell you not to run them to fast, oh boy will they lead, these were for .44.
I kind of goofed up big time powdercoating my latest fascination 358429 bullets.
a. Remember to change that non stick aluminum foil.
b. don't overload the tray and then stick them in the oven.
c. don't bump the tray going into the oven where they fall over on one another.
d. The bright side, about 100 of them in a glob went back into the pot, and with the paint i won't have to flux the next batch.

and to answer your question, i think i have seen them at midway at one point.

one thing kind of interesting, at least to me, is the bullets i did in the 358429 lyman mold. They are suppose to be 170grains which i believe is based on the lyman no2 alloy.
Mine came out at .358 and 169.2grains, which means my wheelweight leadfree solder alloy was right on target.
I think i could probably load them as is, but after miking a few, that paint application wasn't uniform on all of them. Some are right at .360after powdercoating, some a little larger. Probably based on the paint that stuck to the lead.

Some folks are switching to the silicon baking mats for baking powder coat. I have not tried them yet but I was given one to try. I understand the work better than the non stick aluminum.

Thanks. I was thinking about that old nyclad load and wondering if this was a viable option for soft skinned small game. I'm already using plated bullets, so I guess there would be no point.

it seems like i read somewhere those swaged hornady's shouldn't be run past about 750fps or 800fps. I know it wasn't so good when i ran them through a .44magnum.

i did a little of both with the 358429 yesterday and today.
the 38casing goes to the crimp grove, and like you said on 357 you seat to the top of that front driving band.
as i was doing this on the 357 i was thinking of pearces article in handloader this month and some ammo i had bought back in the 50's.
I may have a few rounds someplace. Any way as i remember the front of the bullet it looked just like this keith bullet from the part exposed, and it was copper washed, which pearce mentions.
i think the powdercoat could work better than the copper wash.
The 50's stuff from memory seated to the top of the driving band too.