I have little experience with PC and am looking for your thoughts on the testing done lately with a 35 caliber and powder coated 190 grain boolits. I was sent by a generous gentleman a number of these NOE 182 360 FNGC that had a good coating of PC applied.
Attachment 285401
He also sent along an assortment of other PC boolits to test that are PC'd as well, such as the Ranchdog 190 FNGC. These fly pretty well with a load of old Hercules 2400, dacron, CCI300 LP primers at an average of 2,060 FPS. From his memory these were cast out of AC CWW. They seem hard to the fingernail, but there is a coat of paint baked on. They mushroom in water jugs quite nicely, though:
Attachment 285402
The problem is that it is apparent that the PC is wearing off on the bearing surface of the boolit on the recovered slugs. Plus, with the Ranchdog projectiles there is a ring of blue paint at the mouth of case upon firing. (The green paint on the NOE boolits don't do this, but the shanks of both styles are devoid of powder coating when found in the water jugs; 60 and 100 yards)
Attachment 285403
I use a Lyman M die to open the case mouths before loading. All boolits are .360 in diameter, or less, as run through my sizing die.
Am I pushing this alloy too fast for the hardness? I love the mushroom effect but... There is a wash of lead in the barrel but no large deposits.