I’ve seen a number of posts where it’s mentioned that you should take extra special precautions when handling bullets to be powder coated. I’ve seen people state that you shouldn’t rinse the bullets with water because it’ll leave a film that prevents adhesion, don’t touch the bullets because the oils from your hand will mess up the process, don’t drop onto a cloth towel because somehow it’ll prevent adhesion of the PC, rinse bullets with acetone before PC’ing to ensure they are ready to take the PC, etc.
I’m no expert but I’ve PC’d 10,000 bullets and never ran into any of the above problems so I wanted to do a torture test to see what you could actually do before the PC process without any adverse effects. I had a pile of ugly bullets – bullets from the first casting of a new mold while the mold was warming up. These bullets have wrinkles, but the base appears to be fine and should shoot good enough for short 9mm ranges.
For the torture test I covered the bullets in saliva, rolled them in a pile of drywall dust, rolled them in a pile of crud underneath my reloading bench that included spilled gun powder, dog fur, dead bugs, and anything else that has accumulated over the months since I last cleaned. These results are pictured below. I let this dry for a day and then proceeded to PC the bullets. Before PC’ing I rolled the bullets in my bare hands to get rid of any of the large debris and also help test the theory that oil from your hands will prevent PC adhesion. I coated the bullets in one of the reds offered by Smoke4320. The bullets were baked for 20 minutes at 400 degrees. The oven was not pre-warmed. The bullets passed the smash test as pictured. One of the bullets was hit with a hammer and flattened and the other was hit once then rotated 90 degrees and hit again resulting in a cube shape. There is no sign of the PC flaking or coming loose. I tried to remove the PC from various bullets with my fingernail but nothing happened. I’m guessing these will shoot just fine. I made up a magazines worth for the test and I’m now debating on which gun to shoot them in - Glock 17 or CZ 75B.
My normal process obviously doesn’t include any of this and I’m not sure what this will prove other than that many of the often repeated anecdotes around PC and bullets don’t really hold water when put to the test. These bullets only need the PC to remain in place for one trip down a couple inches of a gun barrel. If I was PC’ing a motorcycle part or even lawn furniture that has to withstand years of abuse it would be a different story For bullets I think the most important part of the process is baking at the correct temp for the correct time.