barrel wear

[ombesb]

I guess I am old fashioned.... and just old, but not leading is just not enough for me. I still have not read anything conclusive as to barrel wear. I have searched and read the opinions but not yet a hard core test of any sort. Is there anything new in this department???

[Maximumbob54]

If it cause wear I would have several roached out barrels by now.

Not to mention several of my sizers would be out of spec by now.

[jcwit]

I guess I am old fashioned.... and just old, but not leading is just not enough for me. I still have not read anything conclusive as to barrel wear. I have searched and read the opinions but not yet a hard core test of any sort. Is there anything new in this department???

If in fact you are "old" as you claim, just how long do you expect to be shooting to wear out a barrel with lead bullets coated with plastic paint?

I'm 71, and if I wear out a barrel using PC'ed bullets and someone needs to replace the barrel, not my problem.

[bangerjim]

I would be on at least the 3rd barrel in 4 different guns if PC caused ANY wear! FMJ's will wear out your barrel faster than PC and causes Cu fouling besides.

Remember...........barrels have always worn out.

There have been tons of replys back on here that no one is seeing any detrimental wear. The very VERY few and been disproved and the causes were something other that the PC.

You may "be old".......but PC is a viable alternative to anyone that likes to shoot.

The thousands of us doing PC with excellent results should be all the "proof " you need.

(GOOD) INFORMATION IS IN NUMBERS.

[ombesb]

That is an excellent point I had not considered. That is one single 'barrel' passing ALL the bullets.

[62chevy]

If PC causes extra barrel wear then so be it and it would be worth it. Cleaning the barrel has went from over an hour to 2 or 3 wet patches.

[Dragonheart]

If in fact you are "old" as you claim, just how long do you expect to be shooting to wear out a barrel with lead bullets coated with plastic paint?

I'm 71, and if I wear out a barrel using PC'ed bullets and someone needs to replace the barrel, not my problem.

I am with you JCWIT.
Since the powder coatings are polymers I would think the only way plastic is going to wear down steel is if some abrasive has been impregnated in with the powder. So my take would be as long as one is not coating with a metal flake or glitter they are pretty safe.

[bangerjim]

I am with you JCWIT.
Since the powder coatings are polymers I would think the only way plastic is going to wear down steel is if some abrasive has been impregnated in with the powder. So my take would be as long as one is not coating with a metal flake or glitter they are pretty safe.

That is one of the reasons I do not use that metallic-look powder. To get that look, the maker has to use either mica flake or metal flake. Mica is a lube...sort of. Metal is definitely an abrasive.

I sure know mica will NOT PC! I tried adding some copper and silver mica powder (from my antiquing hobby uses) and it kills the static for BBDT and does not allow for a good ESPC coat either.

Mabe Smoke can find out what the makers put in metallic powder?????????

banger

[ioon44]

I guess I am old fashioned.... and just old, but not leading is just not enough for me. I still have not read anything conclusive as to barrel wear. I have searched and read the opinions but not yet a hard core test of any sort. Is there anything new in this department???

This are my findings that I posted on the "super durable gloss black" Thread from 1-10-2015.

First I would like to thank every one who has spent time and effort to post there experiences on
the forum.
I have been trying the PC on my boolits and ran into a problem in my barrels. In less than 500 rds.
I started seeing fine scratching like 600 grit through the full length of the barrels, this showed
up in 9mm, .40 S&W & .45 ACP. all 8 of these barrels were bright and smooth before using PC.

These barrels are Wilson, Colt NM, Glock & S&W. One Glock barrel was new to start with.
I used the ASBBDT method with Eastwood's Gloss Black and used Eastwood's instructions on the
container and used 3 oven thermometer's to control temp( tried HF Red and didn't like the
coverage). The Eastwood powder gave almost 100% coverage, passed wipe & smash test. The boolit
sized with little effort and the seizer dies looked fine. Shooting the boolit showed no smoke and
no leading but left black looking soot in the first inch of the barrels which came out with a dry
patch, the loads were all IDPA minor & major loads.

I am a long time shooter and boolit caster, and am posting this to urge people to take a close
look at there barrels to be sure they are not having any abrasion. Some may need to use a
magnifier to see this.

I am going to continue use the PC in an older Glock .40 barrel to see what will happen in a
thousand rounds or more.
I live in SW Missouri and can show this to any one who would like to contact me with a PM.

One of the ingredients in the Eastwood's Gloss Black is Barium sulfate 7727-43-7 10-30%
From Wikipedia
Barium sulfate (or sulphate) is the inorganic compound with the chemical formula BaSO4. It is a white crystalline solid that is odorless and insoluble in water. It occurs as the mineral barite, which is the main commercial source of barium and materials prepared from it. The white opaque appearance and its high density are exploited in its main applications.

Can a crystalline solid be abrasive in this case?

Could one lot of the powder have had more than 30% Barium sulfate as I used 3 different lots?

My cleaning technique has remained constant for years and this problem affected other shooters guns also.
Just would like to pin down what went wrong.

I guess I should have chosen a different color of PC.

My point is with any thing new pay close attention to your barrels.

I am glad no one else has had this problem.

[bangerjim]

Can a crystalline solid be abrasive in this case?

All abrasives we use normally (garnet, aluminum oxide, flint, carborundum, diamonds, etc) are crystalline solids. The factor you should look at is the MOHS hardness of the mineral or compound. I have no idea where barium sulfate fits in the hardness scale.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohs_sc...neral_hardness for enlightenment.

I have found no negative wear results from shooting thousands of standard color PC and Matte Black boolits over the 2+ years I have been doing this. I cannot say anything about metallic colored powders as I do not use them.

bangerjim

[1911KY]

What I originally thought could have been scratches in my barrel from Eastwood's high gloss black turned out to be slight leading from not expanding the case enough for the bullet and shaving the lower driving bands a little.

I have since used a Kleenbore cloth to scrub out the lead and installed a Lyman M die on my press. The very slight leading has disappeared and my barrel's are bright and shiny again.

I baked a new batch of the Eastwood high gloss black recently to see if it does anything to my barrel.

To date I have shot 2,485 PC'd bullets thru 3 of my pistols and none of them show any early wear.

[Maximumbob54]

Short of verifying this with one of those Hawkeye borescopes I don't see how you could even tell this with the naked eye. The supposed abrasive is suspended in the either epoxy resin compounds or the polyester granules either blend of which are tiny enough to be dust molecules. With the naked eye you wouldn't see barrel wear from this; you would see the same thing as if you tried using Flitz in your lube. The barrel would be crazy shiny and just get more mirror polished. The first possible sign you would see is the sharp edges of the cut rifling starting to round off. I would assume this would first be evident right there in the forcing cone of the revolver or the start of an auto's bore. These are the areas I've been looking at in all my guns and thousands of rounds later I still see no appreciable difference. Last, keep in mind that copper jacketed eats away the steel slowly but surely as well. Not really the copper so much but the hot gasses and carbon fouling of burning powder. And you have these with everything although jacketed is typically loaded hotter to overcome its own inherent friction to achieve the same velocity. No matter what I'm still not seeing any evidence ANY powder coatings, epoxy coatings, or anything yet are causing barrel wear.

[Dragonheart]

Short of verifying this with one of those Hawkeye borescopes I don't see how you could even tell this with the naked eye. The supposed abrasive is suspended in the either epoxy resin compounds or the polyester granules either blend of which are tiny enough to be dust molecules. With the naked eye you wouldn't see barrel wear from this; you would see the same thing as if you tried using Flitz in your lube. The barrel would be crazy shiny and just get more mirror polished. The first possible sign you would see is the sharp edges of the cut rifling starting to round off. I would assume this would first be evident right there in the forcing cone of the revolver or the start of an auto's bore. These are the areas I've been looking at in all my guns and thousands of rounds later I still see no appreciable difference. Last, keep in mind that copper jacketed eats away the steel slowly but surely as well. Not really the copper so much but the hot gasses and carbon fouling of burning powder. And you have these with everything although jacketed is typically loaded hotter to overcome its own inherent friction to achieve the same velocity. No matter what I'm still not seeing any evidence ANY powder coatings, epoxy coatings, or anything yet are causing barrel wear.

Ditto: I just had to check three of my handguns that have digested thousands of my powder coated bullets and I can see nothing to indicate premature wear. I use now and have always used Prismatic Powder. The fact still remains that barrels don't last forever, regardless of the bullet, but at my age of 67, with the present rate of barrel wear, I think I can go to bed and let someone else worry about it.

[Case Stuffer]

I am new to powder coating so have only fired a few hundred down the tube of my SA XD-9 SC . Like others I used to spend a great deal of time , elbow grease brass brushes,chore boy and sometimes even a Lewis Lead Remover . All of that most likely was harder on the barrel that the PC boolits and I know it was harder on me. If the barrel wears out after a few thousand rounds I will buy a new one or just use it for under 20 feet "close combat" which is what it was purchased for anyway.

[Dragonheart]

I am new to powder coating so have only fired a few hundred down the tube of my SA XD-9 SC . Like others I used to spend a great deal of time , elbow grease brass brushes,chore boy and sometimes even a Lewis Lead Remover . All of that most likely was harder on the barrel that the PC boolits and I know it was harder on me. If the barrel wears out after a few thousand rounds I will buy a new one or just use it for under 20 feet "close combat" which is what it was purchased for anyway.

Very good points, I agree completely. If it were not for powder coating I would be back to buying plated bullets as I hate the lube and that was the main reason I quit casting years ago. I personally don't understand why so many still use the greasy mess that gets into and on everything and smokes like a muzzle loader.

[snuffy]

I tend to regress to logic for a lot of things. The PC coatings I have used is so far the original HF red I used to tumble coat my first tries. Then when I went with the HF gun, and bought the HF compressor, I sent for some Harley orange and wet black from powder-by-the-pound. If I ever run out of that, I will buy some of Smokes stuff.

What I noticed right off the bat was how slippery the boolits were. Put in shell boxes base down-boolit up, they were nigh on impossible to pick out with fingers. I usually dig into a lead boolit with the fingernails to get ahold of it. Does NOT work with PC! It's hard and slippery! Darn near as hard as copper plate or FMJ. Simple solution was to put them in boolit down to get them out to load the mags.

I have no plans or desire to used any flat colors. They just look like they would be abrasive. They may well have solids that could scratch a barrel. Just imagine the pressure of firing a boolit with abrasive properties, it would have every opportunity to wear a barrel.

Fire lapping is used to smooth a barrel, or remove stubborn copper fouling for years. But it's a one time thing.

All my barrels I have cleaned after firing my PC boolits have cleaned easily, are shiny-er than ever before, so I'm not worried.

[bangerjim]

I tend to regress to logic for a lot of things. The PC coatings I have used is so far the original HF red I used to tumble coat my first tries. Then when I went with the HF gun, and bought the HF compressor, I sent for some Harley orange and wet black from powder-by-the-pound. If I ever run out of that, I will buy some of Smokes stuff.

What I noticed right off the bat was how slippery the boolits were. Put in shell boxes base down-boolit up, they were nigh on impossible to pick out with fingers. I usually dig into a lead boolit with the fingernails to get ahold of it. Does NOT work with PC! It's hard and slippery! Darn near as hard as copper plate or FMJ. Simple solution was to put them in boolit down to get them out to load the mags.

I have no plans or desire to used any flat colors. They just look like they would be abrasive. They may well have solids that could scratch a barrel. Just imagine the pressure of firing a boolit with abrasive properties, it would have every opportunity to wear a barrel.

Fire lapping is used to smooth a barrel, or remove stubborn copper fouling for years. But it's a one time thing.

All my barrels I have cleaned after firing my PC boolits have cleaned easily, are shiny-er than ever before, so I'm not worried.

Some have quoted the hardness of PC being in the neighborhood of 45 Bhn. I have never checked it or have any way of verifying that number. I just know it is HARD, yet very flexable/resilient. And results in a clean lead-free barrel and grease smoke-less shooting.

[gpidaho]

Well I've said it before but this is such a reoccurring question "Is powder coating abrasive?" What the ****! think about what your coating. Why is it that folks will happily cast boolits from wheel weights and lead dug up at the range with out a worry, then turn around and obsess about the fact that powder coat MIGHT contain something scratchy. I don't get it! Please ease your mind, you have to be making the boolit less abrasive with the coating not more so. Just my opinion, I'm no world wide expert on anything. lol GP

[Dragonheart]

The real question is powder coating an abrasive that is wearing down the barrel? We can all look down and our barrels and see they are bright and shiny, but that doesn't tell us if the barrels are being lapped by an abrasive. A bore scope is isn't going to tell us much either unless there was a base line established. Without a base line there is no way to know what you started with.

So I just came in from slugging one of my 45 ACP handguns. How many powder coated bullets has gone through this gun, I really don't know, but I can say when I go to the range if I don't shoot a couple of hundred rounds it wasn't worth the trip. Just a few weeks ago one of my buddies put two hundred powder coated rounds through this gun. So my guess is several thousand powder coated rounds have gone through this gun, but lets be conservative and say 1000. I think everyone would agree if damage is actually being done 1000 rounds should do it? I just compared an unsized lead bullet fired just a few minutes ago to a bullet slugged from this barrel more than a year ago, before I got into powder coating. Using my Starrett micrometer I compared the diameter of the two bullets. The result is they are so close out to .0000 it is impossible to tell any difference without a lot more sophisticated equipment.

As I have said in numerous posts I use and have always used several different solid colors of Prismatic Powder. Your powder may be a problem, but by actual compassion to a baseline I established a year ago I now know my Prismatic Powder coating is showing no wear at all that I can measure. So for me I can put this thread to bed and go coat some more bullets.

[bangerjim]

Doesn't get much more "I need scientific proof" than that^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^!


That post needs to be made into a sticky for all the PC doubting Thomas's out there!