Home Forums Reloading Handgun Reloading Cast-Coated Bullets

Started out shooting purchased lubed cast bullets. Did a bit of lead removal scrubbing.

Then I started casting my own bullets. Always concerned about size and hardness. I didn't want to get into wax lubing so I used Tumble Lubes. They worked well although a bit messy and I still had to do a bit of lead removal scrubbing.

Now I use Hi-Tek bullet coating from Bayou Bullets(liquid). Cast em, coat em, size em (Lee sizer), coat em again, load em, shoot em.

I no longer worry about hardness or size and I no longer need to scub any lead from by bores.

Love this stuff.

I just switched to coated. Only knock I can see (other than color) is the slight smell of burning brakes or burning plastic when the wind is wrong. Way less smoke than plain lubed lead.

I'm getting some leading with them in my .44 Mag. at 1120 FPS. What FPS are you at? Oh, BTW - I am not casting my own, I buy the already coated bullets from them. Thanks for the reply.

I use Yondering's Shake and Bake method.

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/11306180/1

Learn about proper alloying for the task at hand, and size to throat diameter no matter what gun, and simply use a decent lube and don't sweat leading anymore. I haven't scrubbed lead out of a gun in over 20 years and I shoot a lot of cast bullets.

Are you sure it's lead.

Velocities for my coated 45 ACP range from 850-950fps depending.
10MM 1250fps
300 Blackout 1400fps
380 ACP 800fps
40 S&W 950-1000fps

Yeah, it's lead. I'm scrubbing out tiny silver looking particles and strips. It is not the coating. Maybe my velocity is too high? Only getting it with my .44 it seems. I might need to measure my chamber throats.

If you smell burning plastic, something is wrong with the coating. Then again, I've never had as good results with the Hi-Tek coatings anyway. Powder coating is a little different; it's a thermoset plastic that does not melt or burn. If heated hot enough (like when re-melting bullets in the pot) it'll turn black and then to ash, but the lead melts out first so the coating floats on top like a plastic grocery bag on water.

i use to get some leading out of the 429421 dependent on diameter, and lead alloy.
i switched to yonderings method a few years ago.
i fired a powder coated 429421 through a thompson contender through about 7 water jugs, load wasn't maximum but close.
barrel could not tell i really had fired it, the bullet i recovered could probablybeen used again.

I measured the throats on my .44. All five measured .430 (S&W M-69). I'm wondering if I belled the case mouth enough and scratched the coating when seating the bullets?

These are SnS which I believe uses Hi Tek coating. They mention some folks can smell a slight burning plastic smell when shooting. 6.0 grains of Unique under a 158 gr SWC in .357 magnum. Nothing wild.