First Time Out With Coated Plain Base 06 Bullets

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pat i posted this 4 weeks ago

I went out today to do a little shooting. I wanted to try some coated bullets after shooting some lubed bullets. I have to say I'm not too disappointed. Maybe there's something to coating bullets afterall. I loaded and shot 125 greased bullets before these so was a little tired. No excuse mind you but I'm going to use it as one.

I stuck with #9 in Lapua cases with White River primers. I don't know the charge because I was able to boost the velocity up to 1350 with no leading, about a 60 fps increase over greased bullet. 1400 left a few flakes of lead but it came right out. I also ran a wet patch through every 20 rounds followed by 3 dry. I dont know if it helped or made things worse but it's what I did. I'm going to get some more bullets cast and coated and play with the load a little more to see if I can see any improvement but I have to say I'm pretty happy for the first go around.

Edit - The agg for the top target is 1.231

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linoww posted this 4 weeks ago

that looks pretty dam good! Much better than some of your earlier experience.

how did the other lubed bullets shoot?

"if it was easy we'd let women do it" don't tell my wife I said that!

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pat i posted this 4 weeks ago

Not as good.

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linoww posted this 4 weeks ago

I'm out again this weekend to run a few coated PB in my Steyr 30-06. I hope to get it shooting for Spokanes April match.

"if it was easy we'd let women do it" don't tell my wife I said that!

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Ross Smith posted this 4 weeks ago

Question: Did you notice ant extra fouling from the PC? The stuff works, I felt it was a little extra dirty is all. I also had trouble getting the pc applied to the bullets and now just let a friend do it for mw.

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pat i posted this 4 weeks ago

I didn't notice any fouling issue. I looked at the bore with a scope when I got home and it looked different than lubed bullets but not any worse. Cleaned it as usual and the bore shines. I can't imagine what problem you would be having coating. Don't put oily hands all over the bullets, I use disposable rubber gloves to handle them if I'm going to PC. Get a #5 container. Put some powder and bullets in and shake em up. Then stick them in a toaster oven around 400 degrees for 20 minutes. That's it. Quality of powder is supposed to make a difference from what I've heard. I use Eastwood and don't have any problems. BUT.......having a friend do it for you is a pretty sly way of getting it done. If I had a friend I might try the same trick.

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John Alexander posted this 4 weeks ago

Great groups Pat. The best I have seen since Dan Lynch's extensive shooting report on shooting PC plain based on the forum several years ago,

I f I read the group sizes right and didn't screw up the math the average of the 11 groups was 1.14". Wow for plain base in fixed ammo. Were these from your 30-06?

John

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pat i posted this 4 weeks ago

Hi John. Your math might be right but your eyes leave a lot to be desired. There's only 10 groups! Plus I measured these on the fly and some might be off. In my favor of course.

Im using my Win 670 in 06 still. It's a crime there's not more powders available locally to me. I have a list I want to try but hate paying hazmat and shipping. I'm also going to try water quenching some out of the oven. 400 degrees should harden them up some. George Damron quenches out of the oven and it doesn't seem to hurt his results. This is all new to me so I don't know what works and what doesn't. There seems to be 2 groups. One says it doesn't work and the other says it does. The problem with the "it does" crowd is a lot of the talk is about how it doesn't smoke and the barrel is easy to clean and not much about how it shoots at 100 (not 50) yards compared to a lubed bullets. The problem with the "it doesnt" crowd is more than likely they never tried it or used some bargain basement powder. I'll plug my ears and find out for myself like I do with everything else.

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RicinYakima posted this 4 weeks ago

Empirical data is worth 100 times more than what you can read on the internet. Shooting them and then you will know how it works for you.

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Capt45 posted this 4 weeks ago

I'm never going back to greasy lubes. NEVER! With quality pwd and 400/20 AND I double coat. No fouling and NO LEADING!

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linoww posted this 4 weeks ago

I've successfully gotten powdercoat bullets to lead.

once in a 9mm and recently trying to shoot them in a mini 30 7.62x39 without gaschecks.

"if it was easy we'd let women do it" don't tell my wife I said that!

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OU812 posted this 4 weeks ago

Quickly...how would you water quench a powder coated bullet?

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pat i posted this 4 weeks ago

Quickly...how would you water quench a powder coated bullet?

Pretty simple, dump em in a bucket of water after you take them out of the oven.

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linoww posted this 4 weeks ago

Here is non quenched versus water quenched. The bullets are a little over 2 weeks old.The powder coat was quenched after taken out of the oven at 400° for 20 minutes by dumping in room temp water. The alloy is a large lot that I made up pure lead and monotype to roughly approximate wheel weights. Don't ask the exact ratios,I am not that detailed. It melted and cast a good bullet so I was happy with the alloy.

"if it was easy we'd let women do it" don't tell my wife I said that!

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tomme boy posted this 4 weeks ago

There are two ways to get a PC bullet to lead. One is you did not cook it hot enough or long enough. Two you scraped off the PC somehow loading it or the chamber of your gun has a sharp edge somewhere.

I have run my 223 up to 3000fps and no lead. And my 308win to 2600fps with no lead.

One thing I tell people about loading PC, it acts like a moly coated bullet making the bullet more slippery. So you may need to adjust your charge accordingly. And it will look like it runs dirtier but that is because of the less pressure and the powder not burning as efficiently as it should. So up the charge. And hardness still matters just like it does with conventional lubed bullets. You still need a TOUGH alloy if you want to speed things up. If you are staying in low speed loads then almost anything will work. But once you go up over 1600fps or so then a gas check is still needed and you will need to start looking at your alloy like you did before.

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max503 posted this 3 weeks ago

Is that AA#9?

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pat i posted this 3 weeks ago

Is that AA#9?

Yes it's Accurate #9. I ordered some 4100, Enforcer, and N110 today to see how they shoot. I'm hoping the 4100 shines because it's about 14 bucks less a pound than #9.