Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Better grouping with powder coating - short survey

A comment in the powder coating rifle bullets thread prompted me to remark on my experience with powder coating vs. lube and ask if others are seeing the same thing.

Basically, I'm getting better groups with powder coated bullets than the same bullet/load/firearm using lubed bullets.

So far I've only compared this in four different .38 Spl or .357 Mag revolvers but it is consistent across all of them. Using the same bullets cast during the same session from an Accurate 358160 mold, sized to the same dimensions but some lubed with LBT Blue and others powder coated, the powder coated bullets shoot better groups. Every single time. Not hugely better, maybe 1/2" to 3/4" better at most, but the PC bullets are always the smaller group. These are all 10 shot groups, btw, to get a bit better confidence level than just 5 or 6 shots.

So - am I alone in this or are you guys seeing the same thing?

Yes they do and they seem to travel faster than the ones that have regular lube.

I can’t compare, as I’ve only shot powder coated through my Marlin GG. powder Coated 430’s @ just under 1800 gave 4 shots just over an inch! This was the first group fired from the rifle on paper…..I called it good enough and stopped there! 😉 memtb

I dunno, never powder coated a bullet. I'm OK with regular lube.

Various lubes make things work better as you get older.



Wait, what?

I know nothing of handguns and cast bullets, but as far as rifles go, I think powder coating makes up for the absolutely schidtful ill conceived dimensions of most generic store bought mass produced molds. Lack of interest by many shooters in actually measuring throats and grooves, and spec'ing a mold to fit, lack of controlling Brinnel hardness of the bullet alloy to match the load pressure, lack of adjusting load pressure to the alloy hardness...result in poor performance on target. Powder coating is a shortcut to better results if you are ignoring the basics of cast bullet success. That's why powder coating seems to work better.

I never compared them. Once I started powder coating I haven’t lubed a bullet with the lubrisizer since. When I was lubing them I only shot cast bullets in pistols and I’m probably not a good enough shot to tell the difference. Now 95% of my shooting is rifles and I have no desire to shoot lubed bullets in them. The pc’d bullets are much cleaner to handle and load, little or no smoke when shooting them and the guns are much cleaner.

I’ve thought about comparing them but don’t know if I want the mess again. If I do, I’d probably use the Lee lube and try it with and without powder coating. I’d probably be mad if the lubed bullets shot better than pc, then I’d have to deal with the mess… :-)

I'll admit this is me to a "T". Maybe when I retire I'll have time to fret those things. right now I prefer to spend more time actually shooting.

I’m in the Whatever Works camp. If I get good results via the easy button, it’s a win.

I have only shot PC bullets. I compete in cast bullet benchrest, and have done fairly well. many tell me they can't make a PC bullet shoot well, and I can't see why. The advantages are many, the only down side is it takes a little more time. I treat my rifles the same as I do when shooting jacketed benchrest, I clean after every target. The condition of the barrel is amazing, after a whole season I have bore scoped them and there is no carbon buildup, no leading, no fire cracking, just clean steel.

If you take the time to work up a load properly, the PC bullets shoot as good/better than greased bullets. I do think many who try to PC bullets put too much coating on. Too thick and the bullet may very well be eccentric and out of balance.

I’ve used alox and a lubrisizer in the past, but never tested identical loads back to back once I began to PC, but I never noticed any degradation in accuracy once powder coating. Use the tumble method, and shoot in both pistol and rifle. Both methods have given me great results after finding the right load data, but the cleanliness aspect sold me hard on powder. I’ll never go back.

Where is the best place to buy the Powder Coat? Thanks

Smoke, he's on the castboolits website.

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sh...uality-Powder-for-DT-or-Spraying-bullets

The man who taught me to cast bullets had 30+ years of experience. Just a year after teaching me, I asked him about powdercoating rather than traditional lubing. He said, blasphemy! A year later I gifted him a couple of tupperwear bowls with a few ounces of powder inside, a toaster oven, and away he went. He cast and coated some of his favorite 9mm bullets. He loaded 10 of them with trad lube and 10 with PC. I got a phone call the following weekend. He seemed out of breathe. He was so excited about the groups he shot with the PC bullets he could hardly get the words out of his mouth fast enough. Sadly he died just a few years later. From the lack of PC bullets left inside his storage cans I'd say that was all he shot for those last few years.

I tend to agree with this. I had the precepts drilled into me almost from the git-go when I started casting 50+ years ago, and have employed them even for backyard plinking loads. On top of that, as I segue into my "golden years" (I'll be 70 on Tuesday) I find I haven't completed my experiments with "traditional" cast bullets nearly to my satisfaction - and aim to do so to the best of my ability before I shuffle off this mortal coil. While I recognize the benefits of PC'ing it simply isn't in my cards. Add to that my main area of competition with cast bullets is in ASSRA shuetzen/benchrest, and there we can't use jacketed, coated, or even gas checked bullets (which is pretty much a moot point when you're talking 1400fps velocities in general anyway).

Our comrade Dinny here reached out to me and guided me into the wonderful world of shooting .357 Maximum in a long barreled rifle. The bullets he provided as a sampler were all PC'ed, and most of them shot beautifully. In fact a load with one style, a 200 grain, was my most accurate load to date and was one I hunted with this year. Since then though, I knuckled down to minding my P's&Q's in terms of strict adherence to bullet fit protocols and have coaxed a "naked" 200 grain cast bullet of my own to shoot a shade better than the best of the PC'ed lot I had to work with, at the same velocity and zero leading. Done. Works for me, I can now get on with other stuff. I know, a real piss-poor sampling of one and full of holes in terms of statistical averaging, but sufficient to me in this instance and certainly not reason to condemn one approach over the other.

In short, I elect to avoid yet another time consuming step in the bullet making process that in my view isn't an earth shattering idea. If PC'ing guaranteed a hugely significant improvement in accuracy I would probably sing a different tune. Besides, brightly colored bullets to me look kind of gay or something! (Son, I say, Son, that's a joke, boy!)

gnoahhh's response is my take on it was well.
To me its the "moly coated bullet" deal all over again

Powder coating is the busy man's shortcut to satisfactory accuracy...I applaud it. On the other hand, reviewing the "Fouling Shot" magazine of the Cast Bullet Assn, wherein the national competitors list the components used in competition as well as their score...no competitor listed powder coated bullets. I think they are legal.
Over time, several well regarded shooters have evaluated lube vs pc, and were unable to see any marked advantage or disadvantage. One shooter conducted tests using a .222 at 2,800 fps with satisfactory results...but in competition I noticed he used lube....your call guys.

This seems like a discussion about tuning carburetors vs a modern fuel injected engine. Of course fuel injection is a shortcut. Blasphemy. And a short lived modern fad. All that skill and knowledge wasted and replaced with a new technology that doesn't appreciate the meticulous skills and dedication to the art of tuning carburated engines. ;-)

Seems pretty spot-on to me.

Regarding the Cast Bullet Assoc. the board of directors approved the use of PC bullets quite a few years ago. Then, a few got their panties in a wad and tried to claim they were illegal since the "rules" were never changed to say it. So last year the few made a big push to force the rules to say yeah or nay in writing. And they didn't stop there, they tried to make PC bullets ineligible to set any records, make them illegal to use that their National shoot, and a few other items. All of these "proposed rule changes" got shot down and the rules now reflect that PC bullets are legal in all CBA competition.

Ironically, these few people who objected to PC, in my opinion, bend the rules in their own way. The rules state (paraphrasing) bullets must be cast in a mold to their basic shape.......sizing and bumping are allowed. Using a significant press, they cast a lino slug which resembles a wad cutter, then fully swage that slug into a fully formed bullet. That is far from a "basic shape".

Once I started casting and powder-coating I discovered how much better life at the bench and range was so into the pot went every last lubed bullet I bought previously. Probably remelted 4 or 5 thousand by the time I was finished.

Has anyone actually tested for themselves the accuracy of PC vs. traditional lube using the same mold, same alloy?

Don’t hold back, tell us what you really think!

Um, another option is to just boil lubed bullets and then powder coat them.... But if someone just loves the casting process I guess remelting them all would work.

I don't have accurate enough records from pre powder coating loads to say for sure but the shake and bake method using a 35.00 toaster oven is so easy I'm never going back.

40 something pages of guys showing off their "art work". I like mixing colors to get a marbled look.

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?251956-Powder-coated-bullets-pics-only

Of course...there are pages of that on Cast Boolits site. But...if the test mold perfectly fit the throat of the test rifle, then the coating or lube becomes a moot point.
Let me share some results of the Cast Bullet Assoc. National Tournament. KC MO. The wonderful thing about the CBA...shooters have to list their rifle, sights, bullet, alloy and weight, powder, muzzle vel.... and...drumroll please...lube. Going down the page and a half of the best shooters in the game in the lube column, I see LBT, SPG, Emmert's, White Label and many others including Pig Fat...I see no powder coated. You may draw your own conclusions.

As I said before, I think powder coating comes into its own when striving for highest velocity, not necessarily when striving for maximum accuracy. I've read enough face-to-face comparisons in the cast bullet media to give me pause about the accuracy thing. (But note mine and everybody else's ideas about accuracy with cast bullets differs from from everybody else's.) Am I interested, do I see the merits? Sure, but not enough to calculate bullet dimensions for "naked" bullets and then re-calculate the same for additional layering of PC'ing, and then going through the rigamarole of testing under identical weather/temperature/wind/etc. conditions - I have better things to do with my time. Besides, some of the competition I partake in proscribes powder coating, and even proscribes gas checks. (Pretty big thrill to put 10 plain base .32-40 bullets into 1 1/2" at 200 yards. Meh, you say? You try it sometime....)

I daresay that a fellow just getting into the hobby may be well served with PC'ing if his goal is thousands of pistol bullets for banging steel or somesuch, or the guy who's looking to create a cheap alternative to jacketed bullets for whacking deer at velocities at or approaching what he enjoys with jacketed in his favorite rifle. In other words, an analogy would be the guy who heads straight to an in-line ML for convenience sake because he can't be bothered to learn/master the arcane art of traditional ML shooting. Same difference.

I'm able to size bullets after powder coating. Apparently some powder coat works better than others. The vendor/poster "Smoke" sells powder coat that has all been demonstrated to work fine. He also sells the plastic BBs that are used in the container you shake them in. They made a difference in getting an even coat.

I have not done enough yet to work out a system to color code bullets to the load behind them but it is on my "to do" list for sure. I'm going to see if Smoke has plastic BBs in stock again and probably pick up some clear powder too.

I've looked .. didn't see those pages. If you don't mind, what was the consensus?

Longarm, It's about the same as on here. The old guys who don't mind fussing, fooling, measuring, calculating and obsess over their bullets alloy to target...don't buy into it...yet. The guys who have neither the time nor the inclination to dive deep into the casting hobby...have taken to powder coating like ducks to water. And good on them, shooting more, fiddling less. Particularly in the handgun disciplines, where volume is almost as important as precision.
Us old farts that prefer fitment and precision...will be changing our tune when PC's start setting records.
One thing that I think we can all pretty much agree on (maybe)...when it comes to vintage rifles of yesteryear with less than perfect bores...a well seasoned frosty barrel with a lubed bullet can shock you with it's accuracy potential. As far as I have read, that has not yet proved to be true with plastic coatings.
I would like to hear from Gnoahhh and Digital Dan here, I'm a hobbyist, they are competitors.

flintlocke, I’m one of those old guys that ain’t got time to fart around with almost mind numbing, obsessive, details and techniques!

I will slug a barrel to help determine mold size and sizing die size, and will use gas checks when appropriate. I do try to maintain a relatively consistent Casting temperature, but that’s about it. I use, and have for 50+ years “plain ole” wheelweights. In spite of my nonchalant attitude, I can still get groups in the 1” to 2” range. If I were looking for match grade bullets…..I’d be more critical. I shoot cast for the savings and for fun!

All of that said, I’ve always hated the dirt, sand, debris that seemed to be attracted to conventional bullet lubes. When I learned about powder coating….I did it for more of a cleanliness factor, not so much the accuracy! However, I’m pretty pleased with the seeming accuracy potential! memtb

Those pages of match results are in the back of every copy of The Fouling Shot.

I've been getting The Fouling Shot since it was Xeroxed and stapled together. Not a charter member but not far from it.

Therein lies the beauty of the hobby. Something for everyone.

The thing is all the arcane crap can be mind numbing to a newbie, but once it's internalized the protocols become second nature and 1-2" groups at 100 become cause for alarm even with loads just thrown together.

I just wish people would stop adhering to the old truism about slugging bores to determine bullet diameter. Mind the throat diameter instead.😁😇

Gnoahhh, I'm bad about that...not using precise terms, when I say slugging...I mean pound casting the throat. A well fitting dowel from muzzle to about a half inch ahead of the chamber, then dead soft pure lead beaten in with a home turned delrin punch to fill the front of the chamber and throat, a half inch or so of the rifled bore. I end up with a lead slug negative of the chamber front/throat/leade. Is it accurate? I don't know, but I got off the cerrosafe bandwagon long ago after filling a tiny groove in an old Marlin frame with molten cerrosafe. Two days with dental picks.

That'll work! I stick with Cerrosafe because I'm used to it. I too once trickled some Cerrosafe into an action because I was too lazy to disassemble it. A good dunking in a stock pot of boiling water fixed that.

Boiling water....who'da thunk it? Hand smacks forehead. The stuff you learn around the fire, water boiling at 212? Gonna experiment a little, bet you could boil eggs in water. When does my dumbschidt award arrive?

Good thread guys. I have enjoyed reading it. gnoahhh is sending me some cast bullets to try out. Thanks again buddy!!! My odd ball 30-30 and I appreciate it. I look forward to trying them out. It will be a first time loading cast bullets.

Use a Lyman "M" die to properly set up the case mouths. Cast lead bullets don't seat the same as coppers.