Home Forums Reloading Handgun Reloading Coated Lead Bullets - Pros & Cons

DG bullets, Hoosier bullets and summit city all make a great hi-tek coated bullet.

This works well in Dillon measures.
https://www.photoescapeinc.com/products/45htc-ptu.html

Brazos 240gn SWC .44 magnum work well for me. LOW cost, too.

You can avoid scraping off the coating some by seating in one die, then crimp in another. Sometimes you get mre precision loads, better accuracy. You can get another seat/crimp die or buy a factory crimp die (FCD) from Lee. Both work With two dies you get less stress on the bullet and I like the neat crimp from the Lee FCD. Be Well, RZ.

Had to d1sassemble a couple of Brazos loads.

NO effect whatsoever to the coating.

I'm working up loads for the Badman 185gr RN .45acp coated and Acme 200gr SWC coated bullets.

Finding the coating on Badman seems a little better than Acme. Get a little shaving no matter how much bell I use. Tried the stock Dillon powder funnel/activator as well as the custom one I have for seating soft lead bullets. The custom works much better but still get occasional shaving with the Acme bullets. With the same belling/expanding setting the Badman has, as far as I can tell, zero shaving.

I haven't tried Brazos yet, when they get the profile I want in stock I plan on ordering a thousand to test.

The small test I did with Acme SWC even with the minor shaving went well. Shot very accurate and the barrel was perfect, one pass with a patch and it was bright and clean.

Here is an example of the slight shaving I'm seeing with the Acme.

I have a stash of .38 coated swc's loaded as well as traditionally lubed bullets in a variety of loads that have always shot well. I'll give them all a good workout in a K-38 and Colt Officer's Model in my Ransom Rest to settle it in my mind if I want to go forward with coated bullets.

I shoot a lot of coated lead bullets, both store bought and some of mine own making.

HiTek is good stuff. If I am not mistaken I think it may be Jerry Miculek's brother's company.

I save myself a lot of time and headache buying bulk online and occasionally finding over the counter deals at my local Sportsman's Warehouse .... and my favorite cast and coated bullet manufacturer is Gallant Bullets. Veteran owned and operated, good guys.

They call their coating TPJ (total polymer jacket) but it is HiTek.

I've used just about all of their pistol pills and even use their 230 gr 30 cal RNFP for both 30-30 and 300 BLK. Good stuff.

I have a lot of regular ones, cast and swaged, to burn up, but am going to get some of the coated ones because they’re clean. Thinking +P wadcutters for carry in my new M60, probably put up in .357 cases. Some years back, Pearce reported better accuracy in mag revolvers with mag cases.

I dunno ... that looks more like peeling to me, above the case mouth

See, here is my wonder ... how is it physically possible to get more shaving with one coating verses another given all things are equal? And by "all things" I mean case mouth opening (diameter of bell), angle of insertion when seating, diameter of said SWC cast boolit and thickness of coating applied and adhered-to said cast boolit.

Mathematically it would be impossible to achieve a different outcome if all things are equal. Physically it would be impossible if all things are equal.

Now, peeling is a horse of a different color. Peeling (which is what it appears to me might be the issue) might indicate a failure of the coating to bond to the lead alloy and that would subsequently dictate a completely different course of action, in an effort to remedy, than would a simple case of shaving.

To me it looks as if the shoulder of the bullet is being scraped by some part of your die.

I removed the swage hold down die and placed a RCBS expand die in its place, backed out the swage rod some. It will still hang up in a small primer case which all I used it for anyway.

With the RCBS expander in place, I removed the custom expander and installed the Dillon one that just uses the case to operate the powder measure.

The SWC seating plug is made to just push on the shoulder not the nose of the bullet. It works great with soft swaged SWC's. Checked to be sure the just the shoulder makes contact.

Loaded up 100 without any scraping or peeling.

Not sure why one coated bullet worked with the same setup used for soft lead and the other didn't. The diameter of the two were essentially the same. One a RN and the other SWC.

navlav8r, the seat die is plenty big, Dillon 4 die set. I don't use a bullet feeder so separate seat and crimp is preferred.

Still haven't settled on final load. I may just start over with normal 1050 setup with std Dillon .45acp expander/powder actuator later this week. Its supposed to rain for the next 3 days, that's my excuse to just fiddle around in the shop.

Thanks for the ideas!

Just a follow up.


Well, the swage rod without the Dillon backup die won't hang enough on a small primer case or not enough to keep me from trying to seat a LP primer in a SP hole. That didn't work well. At least the whole primer stack didn't go off.

Anyway after I got the 1050 going again without the extra case bell and using the normal Dillon expand/bell powder through funnel setup I loaded a couple hundred more of the Acme 200gr SWC with about the same amount of the coating being scraped/peeled off.

In the meantime I received 2k of Brazo's coated 185gr flat base SWC.

Using the same setup I just pushed out 50 without any shaving/peeling of their coating at all.

The Acme coating isn't quite as good (or at least the batch I have) as the Badman or Brazo's. They still shot fine without any leading (target loads, very mild).

I can not find any cons to shooting coated bullets. I wish all of my wax lubed bullets were coated.

I cast my own for 41 mag and 327. And now powder coat in a little toaster oven. I am using a yellow green paint, but a guy can make them any color you wish.

The loads are clean to carry, just like jacketed. The rounds do not pickup dirt and grit to transfer into your firearm. They load and shoot just like cast with zero leading.

Yes, I prefer the powder coated enough, that I have melted down wax lubed bullets and recast in the same weight so I could powder coat them.

it may be snake oil,
but I remember someone saying that coated bullets, (electroplated, FMJ, or powdercoated)
were better for indoor range use....

but then someone else (here i believe) said lead vapor issues on indoor ranges was from the primers, not the projectiles...

My favorite full power .357 mag load is 16.0grs H110 with 358156 mould 155gr gas-checked. Homemade beeswax lube. Velocity is up there, but accuracy is wonderful. I've never fired a more accurate load and ive been loading the 357 mag over 30 years

I like coated bullets, if I purchase them. I will not spend the time swirling, baking etc.

When all is said and done, a properly fitted cast bullet to your particular gun is not much of an issue. I'm sure many enjoy the many steps to coating bullets. Me, I'd sooner spend the time sending them to their grave.

I shoot a lot of HiTek coated bullets in 9mm and 40sw. Never any leading at the chamber, but often minor leading at the muzzle with full power loads. Both MBC and Brazos.