Coated Bullets

[Bayou52]

A few months ago, I picked up a few hundred coated 38/357 lead bullets from Bayou Bullets. Having never before used them, I started out with a lot of 300 projectiles.

I loaded them to a moderate/medium velocity for a 38 load - 3.3 grains of 700 X. Very comfortable/easy load to plink with. On last Sunday, I tried them out at the range.

They performed very well, in that they were very clean - no smoke as with waxed projectiles - and also very clean on the bore.

All in all, a good first experience with the coated bullets. No downside that I could see at least with plinking loads.

They are priced roughly on a par with the plated bullets I've been buying from a certain vendor.

Bayou52

[Schrag4]

...They are priced roughly on a par with the plated bullets I've been buying from a certain vendor...
Bayou52

Unless those plated bullets are unavailable, I personally would probably just keep buying those. I powder coat my own cast boolits and the cost of materials is easily less than half of any plated bullets that I've seen. If I didn't enjoy casting/coating then I wouldn't be doing it, though, as it is a bit time intensive to set all those projectiles on-end before putting them into the toaster oven.

I DO agree that there's very little downside to coated boolits. I think plated would be much more forgiving during seating, but otherwise there's not a whole lot of difference that I can see.

[Tatume]

I'm using coated bullets from SNS Casting right now, because I'm too busy at work to cast and shoot, but not too busy to cast or shoot. So I chose to shoot, and I'm buying bullets. I started with 2000 240 grain 44 caliber bullets before Thanksgiving. When I ran out I got another 2000 over the Christmas holiday. They are wonderful! Very accurate and very clean. I'm running them at about 1150 fps. Before I tried SNS I shot a few thousand plated bullets without complaints, but I like the coated bullets better.