Pistol Powder Attacking Powder Coated Bullets?

[rsrocket1]

58 day update here.

First part of an experiment.
Someone asked a while ago whether smokeless powder attacks the polymer coating of a powder coated bullet. I just scored an 8 pound jug of Titegroup. So far it performs very well at the range, but like Bullseye, it attacks the powder hopper of my LnL AP powder measure because (I think) of the very high nitroglycerin content (close to 40%) of the double base powder. That made me think "If I loaded a bunch of these and they sat around for a year, would the powder and PC turn into jelly and ruin the loaded cartridges?"

So I decided to run a little experiment. I loaded 3 cartridges each of some of the pistol powder I own and press fit a powder coated bullet on each (Harbor Freight Red). I used the Lee 401-175-TC because it had quite a bit more surface area than a 9mm bullet. If I had them coated, I would have rather used my TL452-230-TC, but I don't powder coat them so I didn't have any available. I used 0.25cc from a Lee dipper regardless of charge weight because that was enough to cover the bullet with some extra to spare.

These were the powders I had on hand:

1. Bullseye
2. Red Dot
3. Unique
4. Titewad
5. Titegroup
6. Power Pistol
7. Clays
8. 20/28

I started the experiment on Saturday morning and after only 30 hours, I checked the first batch of bullet bases. I removed the bullet and these flakes stuck to the bullet bases when held upside down.

1. Bullseye. Known to have some very high concentrations of nitroglycerin. Attacks plastic powder hoppers
of some (not all) brands of powder measures.


2. Red Dot


3. Unique



4. Titewad - normally thought of as a shotgun powder, it works as well as Clays or Trail Boss for low recoil light loads


5. Titegroup - Hodgdon's powder also known to have a very high concentration of nitroglycerin (close to 40%)


6. Power Pistol



7. Clays - quite probably a "single base" powder with close to 0% nitroglycerin content


8. 20/28 A shotgun powder touted to be very close to Unique in performance. I like this powder in 9/38/40/45 loads. Burns very clean and uses about 5% less than Unique for the same velocities.


Initial impressions:
Loaded bullets with high NG content powders (Bullseye, Titegroup, Power Pistol) should probably be stored bullet sitting up. So far there is no substantiated proof that the powder is harmed even if it sticks to the polymer of powder coated bullets. I don't know if other powders like Smoke's/Bayou/Hi-Tek makes a difference (my guess is no). If you want to know, maybe you can try it yourself. At worst, you simply remelt the bullets for your next casting after the experiment.

more to come, maybe in about another month...

[Motor]

Interesting. Here is my method and results.

I have 3 prescription bottles on my bench. Each one has a loose 9mm boolit in it completely surrounded by powder. The PC is HF red.

All 3 have been in the gun powder since September 15th, 2015

I just checked all 3 of them. Here are my findings.

1) Bullseye: Power is sticking to the boolit but easily brushes off like being held on by static. Examined under my fly tying magnifying glass very light impressions can be seen on the flat base but not felt. The powder coating on the boolit is still hard.

2) Lil Gun: No effect. No gun powder sticking.

3) 2400: No effect. No gun powder sticking.

Again. These are completely surrounded by the gun powder and have been so since 9-15-2015

So it does seem Bullseye does something but so far I don't see any actual degrading of the powder coating. But it's it's only been a little over a month and a half.

Motor

[OptimusPanda]

I saw a video on this same thing last night on YouTube. I'd imagine for any practical storage time on a caliber that gets shot a lot you shouldn't run into any trouble.

[rsrocket1]

Let's hope so. The best result I can hope for is that nothing significantly changes after several months. I don't usually keep my bullets loaded for that long anyway (usually just a couple of weeks) but seeing how powders like Bullseye and Titegroup eat away at some powder hoppers when left in them for even a couple of hours made me cautious. For now, my cartridges loaded with Titewad are sitting bullet up instead of my usual primer up storage method.

[OptimusPanda]

I've recently been inspired by some videos try some powder coat myself. I'm very curious what a longer test would show. Gotta run down to harbor freight and get some red though. Storing rifle rounds bullet up wouldn't be so bad but on pistol cartridges it sounds like it would be a pain.

[Maximumbob54]

I don't care if the powder eats the coating at the base as the base being coated does nothing.

What I am concerned about is if the coating degrades the powder in any way.

[dilly]

I don't care if the powder eats the coating at the base as the base being coated does nothing.

What I am concerned about is if the coating degrades the powder in any way.

This is how I feel. Let's not forget that ESPCers typically have a naked base.

[Motor]

I've recently been inspired by some videos try some powder coat myself. I'm very curious what a longer test would show. Gotta run down to harbor freight and get some red though. Storing rifle rounds bullet up wouldn't be so bad but on pistol cartridges it sounds like it would be a pain.

Not my idea just repeating what I read here and I'd give credit if I could remember who wrote it but:

Storing nose up is easy. Just flip your ammo boxes up side down.

Motor

[dilly]

Do you guys really get to all your ammunition within a couple of months? Mine ages. Not because I want it to but it can be hard to find time to drive out to the range. It's easier for me to find time to just hop out to the reloading room than to shoot.

I've got PC ammunition that's got to be at least a year or two old. I suppose it wouldn't be a big deal to pull one and see what all the fuss is about. The fastest powder I use though is just Unique or BE-86. I'm not sure if they count.

In fact, now you guys have me thinking maybe I should start to put dates on the labels of my reloads.

[OptimusPanda]

I forgot where I found the pdf files I use for ammo labels but you print them off and they have 10 labels on em with all the fields already on em. Caliber, date, powder, primers, coal, etc...found the link. Posted below.

http://ultimatereloader.com/wp-conte...8163-10-up.pdf

[leeggen]

OptimusPanda, I thank you for the label pdf. Just printed off 7 pages.
CD

[twc1964]

I load lots of 38 spl and 9mm using pc'd boolits. Most of the time i just store em in a ziplok bag so powder touches the pc on the base. I havent pulled any of my b.e loads but they shoot fine, are accurate and around a year old. Not sure if longer time periods would matter, but its interesting lol.

[Dragonheart]

A couple of questions please: I understand the powder coating used was Red HF, have you tried this on any other brand/type of powder as there are different polymers used in different powders and I have no idea what HF is? Have you extended the contact time longer than 30 hours?

I use primarily Prismatic Powder and one Powder by the Pound color, so one can identify the type of powder. I have taken a number of different colored bullets using these polyester and polyurethane powder type powders and put the bullets into a jar of mixed powder to see the results. My mixed powder is an accumulation of spilled powder clean up over 40 years and contains an untold number of powders, some no longer made. I am more interested in what happens to the PC and the bullets have now been in the powder mix for 7 days. I just inspected the bullets and found no powder actually adhered to any of the bullets and no visible damage to the coating on any of the bullets. I intend to leave the bullets in the powder for at least 30 days and maybe roll the jar a few time to make sure there is adequate exposure.

[rsrocket1]

A couple of questions please: I understand the powder coating used was Red HF, have you tried this on any other brand/type of powder as there are different polymers used in different powders and I have no idea what HF is? Have you extended the contact time longer than 30 hours?

HF= Harbor Freight. I have one other type of PC powder which is made by Sherwin Williams. My premise is that the polymer carrier (plastic portion of the powder coat, not the pigment) is probably the same regardless of the type of powder coat. It might be different, but we'll see.

As you can see, I loaded up 3 bullets of each type. I will pull the other bullets after either a few weeks or a couple of months. I know that 30 hours is probably not enough to adversely affect the smokeless powder or powder coat.

I use primarily Prismatic Powder and one Powder by the Pound color, so one can identify the type of powder. I have taken a number of different colored bullets using these polyester and polyurethane powder type powders and put the bullets into a jar of mixed powder to see the results. My mixed powder is an accumulation of spilled powder clean up over 40 years and contains an untold number of powders, some no longer made. I am more interested in what happens to the PC and the bullets have now been in the powder mix for 7 days. I just inspected the bullets and found no powder actually adhered to any of the bullets and no visible damage to the coating on any of the bullets. I intend to leave the bullets in the powder for at least 30 days and maybe roll the jar a few time to make sure there is adequate exposure.

You're welcome to do your own experiments. I encourage everyone do this. The more data points we have, the better. If we can show that a few months do not adversely affect the powder or powder coat, then we know we can load these and not worry about *any* smokeless powder harming powder coat or more importantly, affecting your loaded cartridges.

My concern is loaded rounds going bad after a few months with a high nitroglycerin double base powder like Bullseye or Titegroup. I already know that my Unique and Red Dot loads do not lose power after a few months of sitting on the bullets.

[runfiverun]

unique and red-dot both have nitro glycerin in them just at 2%
that was how they got them to burn cleaner.

[nagantguy]

Very interesting, one of my main reasons for trying pc was long term storage, bullseye being my go to powder, I do rotate my "stock" and my Carolina blue .45 idpa loads I'm shooting now are over a year old, haven't pulled any but they shoot fine, no leading or unusual gunk in the borr, I'll pull some on day soon and tell ya'll what I find!

[hubcap52]

Thinking outside the box...incomplete PC cure????

[rsrocket1]

Good to think out of the box.

I typically run 20 minutes at 375-400F. The PC passes the smash test and I have coated about 10,000+ bullets (about 1.5 pounds of HF red and another pound of some Sherwin Williams powder) in the past year+ without ever having any leading. If you have some high nitro powder yourself, you should experiment yourself to see if it attacks *some* plastics.

My test is to simply see if the attack is more than just cosmetic. Since there has to be some sort of reaction, the chemical composition of both the polymer and powder has to also be affected. It's just a matter of how much and is it of any significance.

Two weeks and counting.

[guncheese]

ohh im glad someone else noticed this !
a couple months back i had loaded up some 45 with 3.2 or 3.4gr of BE using S&B small pistol primers
under a color mix that turned sorta brown (was really left over powder of many colors waste not want not you know!)

it was a week or so later i rattled off a bunch and i had quite a number of very low velocity rounds that left unburned powder in the barrel
i recovered a few of the bullets and they looked like this

i pulled 50 of them and weighed the charge and they were right on the money
but..... quite a number of them had powder stuck to the bottom of the bullet

my theory is that the primer touched off the powder on the back of the bullet and didnt light up the remaining powder
that was laying on the bottom of the case (as it all will be laying on the bottom with only 3.4gr of BE)

i still dont know if it was undercured PC or if BE was softening the PC
but im leaning towards it be softened by the powder
i tried to find this effect with other colors that i use, and havent seen it at all
just the browns that have alot of red in them (some HF red and PC store red)
the greens and orange and blue have had nothing at all

so im now keeping my cure time at the top end in hopes that it will help

i should try to see if Titegroup will have the same effect

[Dragonheart]

[QUOTE=guncheese;3437021

my theory is that the primer touched off the powder on the back of the bullet and didnt light up the remaining powder
that was laying on the bottom of the case (as it all will be laying on the bottom with only 3.4gr of BE)

That's a very light charge of Bullseye for what looks to be a 200 grain bullet; your velocity will be less than 650 fps. and coupled with small primers might explain the light charges you experienced.