PC questions gas checks? Leading? Worth the process?

[Dadswickedammo]

Here I am with a ton of reloads plenty for a year or two. To stay involved in my hobby I got to casting have cast a few thousand pistol and rifle. Built a nice sizer with heater and thinking powder coating is very interesting.
Have you tubed several videos and.... The quality i am seeing is not perfect. Splochie bear spots poor color the makers say they shoot well but that's half the pleasure I get from reloading. If I can't make a product as good or better then store bought why bother.
And do rifle pc boolets need gas checks?
Do we resize after PC?
That's where I'm at lil direction or conformation would really help.
Thanx

[GRUMPA]

PC'ing (For Me!) Is a blessing. I picked up on it kinda quickly with very little problems. On a couple of my powders I do get that blotchy look to them, and I've done the coating twice, which is better but I like the single coat. Pistol boolits gas checked or otherwise perform just as good as j-words. With my GC'd boolits I get those going at top speed and doesn't crud up the barrel at all, cleaning is really simple.

My non-GC'd boolits I limit them as far as speed goes, I keep those about 1-200FPS below max speeds and again, no leading or crud in the barrel. I just haven't really found that limit as far as speed goes for PC'ing yet, I may some day but when I have things working fine the way they are why push things just to find the limit.

Rifle....I've only been PC'ing the 45-70 boolits, but those are GC'd and the results are actually better than I imagined. Accuracy is spot on at 100yds, isn't finicky with the boolit weights, and again cleaning is super simple.

What I like best of all, coming from a person that used the lube sizer method, is since not using lube anymore the boolits are nicer to handle.

The dies themselves stay cleaner, so do my fingers for that matter. I can put the PC'd boolits in a can, and they wont stick to each other, and the lube doesn't come off.

Although it's another process I seem to be under the impression that I'm doing more good than harm.

[MyFlatline]

No, not all rifle bullets need gas checks, depends on how hard you want to push them

I "personally" resize after coating, not a necessity.

Different powers coat differently, Harbor freight red coats good, their others are hit and miss. I've had good luck with Powder by the Pound also.

Good luck, it's well worth it in my opinion

[Bama]

Pretty much agree with Grumpa. I only GC fast 357, 7mm, 308, and soon 6MM. If shooting fast (jacketed or in some cases faster velocity) rifle, GC is almost a requirement. Other than time it saves a lot of money but found myself just buying more powder and primers and shooting more. I don't miss the smoke.

[popper]

do rifle pc boolets need gas checks? Just got another 1k of GC so 1500 should last all my shooting. Alloy has to be up to the task if looking for HV/accuracy. Quality of coating has same effect. GCs help true up the base and take higher pressure. I haven't found PC or Hitek to be a replacement for GC. If shooting a GC boolit without GC, totally a different question. I don't use GC on anything but full snot 30/30 & 308W (>2200 fps). For lesser loads, GC make it easier.

[Smoke4320]

I use gas checks above 2000 fps

[Dadswickedammo]

Very good!! Powder coat it is. Im not a big fan of messy lube either. Have a few project in front of pc so will start aquiring the tools. Thanx

[jimb16]

Some folks like to gas check before coating, some prefer to do it after. Same for sizing. For me, it depends on the rifle I'm shooting it in. I check and size before coating if I want the boolit just a little larger for a better fit to the bore, otherwise I do it after. Low velocities? I often don't bother with a check. You'll want to play around with it and find out what works best for your firearms.

[Lloyd Smale]

I about allways get better accuracy even at handgun velocitys with a gas checked bullet. the check does more then prevent leading. If your talking using a gas checked designed bullet without the check on it don't bother. Yes it will go bang and it might not even lead but your accuracy will suffer. Now I'm not saying you need a gas check for a handgun to be accurate. But in my experience load development for gas checked bullets usually takes about half the effort as a plain based bullet. I agree with smoke except my cutoff is 1500fps. If I want more then that I use a gas check and HARD alloy.

[Phantom30]

Always resize after PC. It helps ensure the boolit drive bands are round but even that will not guarantee concentricity. You can put a caliper on the boolit but if its not round what are you measuring. Also think about the throat size of your chamber. If you use a classic Lee 309 mold and then PC the drop, you could have a 311 or larger diameter, jamming that down a 310 or smaller throat could make a pressure spike higher than you want. Something to consider

[Lloyd Smale]

tell you a little story about that. I bought my first 500 linebaugh used while John was building my new one. Gun wouldn't shoot for squat. Best it did with any load was about 2inch at 25 yards and most groups were much bigger. I tried proably a half a dozen different bullets, different alloys, lubes, powders, primers and nothing would work. I sent it back to john and he looked at it and said there was nothing wrong with it. I was about starting to doubt john as I didn't know him that well. Well when I sent it to him I sent him some of the ammo I loaded for him to try and he wanted some 450 grain lfngc out of a mold I had so I sent him a pile of them. He called me and told me that he shot it with my loads and it shot like **** but tried it with some ammo he had loaded and it shot real well. Again I was shaking my head not knowing what the problem was. I told him just send it back. A couple days later he called me and told me my gun was on the way back and he had found the problem. He checked the bullets I had sent him and said they weren't even close to being round. I had a guy on here that's not here anymore take an extra 44 mag star die I had and punch it out to 512. Shot some of those bullets into a plastic drum of water later and recovered them and found there was even a part of the bullet that didn't have rifling engraved on it. Don't know what he did when he made that die but he sure didn't make it round.
Always resize after PC. It helps ensure the boolit drive bands are round but even that will not guarantee concentricity. You can put a caliper on the boolit but if its not round what are you measuring. Also think about the throat size of your chamber. If you use a classic Lee 309 mold and then PC the drop, you could have a 311 or larger diameter, jamming that down a 310 or smaller throat could make a pressure spike higher than you want. Something to consider

[bstone5]

I powder coat and install a home made gas check on all cast bullets. The gas check makers I make myself and the gas checks go on plain base bullets. This combination allows no lead in the barrel and the gas check gives a perfect seal on the bullets. The gas checks are made from cola can material are .010 thick aluminum roof flashing. The roof flashing comes from Ace Hardware locally.

The above works for me.