Lube Groove Choices

[sathington]

Greetings Casters and Coaters,

I am curious about the results or differences between different lube grooves, mainly the tumble grooves vs the traditional style in relation to powder coating. I am looking to buy an NOE Ranch Dog mold, and being that I plan on powder coating, I was curious if anyone has noticed a difference between these different types of lube grooves.

Full disclosure, I have not casted a single bullet yet but if all goes to plan, that will change by next week. All my information has just been gathered by reading here and on a few other sights. Just trying to get as many ducks in a row as I can. And it is fun to look at molds and consider purchasing them.

[Surculus]

I'm not up to speed on the PC'ing of bobos, but my recollection is that doing so eliminates the need for additional lubing of the projectiles? So a TL bobo design would lead to a more even coating of the PC powder & results vs. a traditional lube-groove bullet, I should think? Best of luck w/ your project.

[Smoke4320]

I have shot both styles and really comes down more to which design/mold/size does your gun like

in powder coating you really don't even need to coat the lube grooves just the driving bands (areas that will touch the bore)
Most People will ( including myself) just because it looks better

Tumble lube style bullets are easier to coat just because the grooves are not as deep and don't have sharp edges

[1911KY]

I have shot both styles and really comes down more to which design/mold/size does your gun like

in powder coating you really don't even need to coat the lube grooves just the driving bands (areas that will touch the bore)
Most People will ( including myself) just because it looks better

Tumble lube style bullets are easier to coat just because the grooves are not as deep and don't have sharp edges

+1

From my experience is doesn't matter. Find what your guns like best and go with that. For 45's, I started with 230 gr RN with tumble lube grooves and switched to the 200 gr SWC wax lube groove to conserve lead and I like the clean holes they make in the target. Plus my guns feed them well.

I have been thinking about doing some half PC'd bullets like you mention, just to do something different...I don't have an ES gun, so I may have to tape off the upper half of the bullet and DT.

[Beagle333]

No difference in the way they shoot. 'Same way with gas checks. Coat em if you want, or leave em bare if you have a big enough shank to coat then check.

[edctexas]

Many of my boolits are coated on the base and sides. I spray (ES) the powder with the boolits sitting nose down in a nut. I flip them with hemostats onto the bake trays for the heating. If I want them to look cool, I might spray them on the top before baking.

Several guys here have used boolit designs with no lube grooves. With the PC coating, the grooves are really superfluous. So pick a boolit design that looks good or is known to work well.

Ed C

[sathington]

Thank you for the answers, gentlemen. I'm glad to see that it makes little difference. That takes the pressure off somewhat. I guess nothing to do now but just start casting.

[Smoke4320]

when I started investigating powder coating we tried many different methods and bullet styles
After proving that powder coating worked even at low jacketed rifle velocities the search began to find as accurate load as I could get .. I found that hollow point bullets (out of my rifles) seemed to always shoot slightly smaller groups..
next logical choice was to move the CG even further back IE remove the lube grooves.. Tried several molds without lube grooves in several calibers.. Lots of money spent to find out I could not see any improvement over grooved bullets ... AT least Not YET !

[prs]

Nothing to add other than curiosity; how would one go about powder coating a boolit without getting the powder in the lube grooves? When I tumble to coat, the grooves are greatly reduced by one coat of baked-n finish.

prs