The first few years they were Lubalox coated--the thin, slightly lubricating black coating used on Ballistic Silvertips. It didn't prove to be enough to prevent sometimes heavy copper-fouling in some rifles. Eventually Fail Safes were moly-coated, which worked well, but often required several shots before the bore became moly-coated sufficiently for accuracy to improve. Once that happened, they were more consistently accurate than the pre-TSX Barnes bullets, and penetrated just as well. My wife and I used a LOT of them during the 1990s, in cartridges including the .270 Winchester, .270 WSM, 7mm Remington Magnum, .30-06 and .338 Winchester Magnum. But when Barnes brought out the TSX at a lower price than the Fail Safes, they faded away.
I eventually found the Fail Safes worked just as well, without any pressure problems, with most of the moly-coating removed. Is used I used Bore Tech's Moly Magic, designed to remove moly bore-fouling, but other techniques also work.
