Effect of powder coating on the gunpowder?

[Shadow9mm]

I have seen several youtube channels I follow doing testing on how the powder coating is acting when in contact with the powder. I have heard of gunpowder sticking to the powder coat, the powder coat getting oily, and the powder coating coming off when in contact with the gunpowder.

I did a quick google search and did not find much?

Other than cosmetic what effect could this have on the powder?

I was considering doing a test with 38spl. Load up 10 rounds a month for a year, leave then nose down. At the end of the year pull 1 to see how the powder coat looks, shoot the other 9 over the chrono to see if it effected the AVG, SD, or ES.

would this be worth the trouble? Has anyone done any long term testing on anything like this?

[Winger Ed.]

I'd figure the only place powder coat could touch the boolit would be on the base.
Even if it did stick to it, it wouldn't matter. The flame will still ignite and consume those few little specks of powder.

[remy3424]

I have seen the some of those videos too. I tested my Smokes PCed boolits by leaving them in a pill bottles with various powders (3 different ones)for several months. Unique didn't affect the PC, but Titegroup and WSF did. I bake for 25 minutes at 400 in a preheated convection oven. Our blow hards will say the PC isn't cured, but no one would say they had tested Smokes PC with those powders. If someone has Smokes PCed boolits that they think are not affected by TG or WSF, send me a few or I will buy a few to test. I need to maybe try baking for 35 minutes and re-test maybe, but it just sounds excessive. I was disappointed, I use Titegroup or WSF in all my 9mm. I just don't want to store any of these long-term with this happening. Hope 25 minutes isn't enough and I can get Smokes PC to not react, but not yet.

[Bazoo]

This is pretty interesting. I wouldn’t think that with a graphite coating it could react.

[popper]

It's the nitro in those powders that reacts, heavy coated powder doesn't react as much. Don't worry about it.

[Kraschenbirn]

It's the nitro in those powders that reacts, heavy coated powder doesn't react as much. Don't worry about it.

Don't recall the title of the thread, but this topic was discussed, hashed, and rehashed a few years back; just about the time the idea of home-baked PC was really beginning to attract attention and, IIRC, the general consensus at that time boiled down to what was said in the previous post.

Bill

[Bazoo]

I’d not heard of it before. I appreciate this thread. Certainly something I’m going to research and keep in mind.

[bangerjim]

I did a thread on Titegroup softening PC on the base of boolits years ago. It is the only powder I found that did that. I found ZERO degradation in performance even with a few grains (that's pieces!) of TG stuck on the base. And the few recovered boolits I was able to find showed that powder also burned 100%.

It takes several weeks to react and most guys seem to shoot their loads faster than that, so the resultant findings were not really important.

Don't worry about it. There are far more serious things to worry about today! If it does REEEEEEELY bother you, store your loaded carts nose UP and the powder will not contact the bases!


PS..................don't waste your time watching the babbling clowns on youtube!

[Hick]

My standard practice, not knowing about Titegroup and PC, has been to load my pistol bullets and put them nose down in cartridge boxes until I get around to shooting them. I use Smokes Clear. I don't know if the Titegroup is doing anything to the PC-- but I've never seen a performance problem-- so I guess I will not worry about it.

[Bazoo]

It’s a concern for me, even though I’m not into PCing yet. But I see the benefit of pc for longer term ammo storage over greased bullets. Titegroup is a powder I like, though I’m out currently. I don’t store huge amounts of ammo, but my stash is building as I load more than I shoot. Eventually I’ll be out of cases. Then it’ll be, well... time to shoot or buy.

[Forrest r]

Been cleaning out everything lately and getting rid of a lot of stuff I'm not using anymore. Have a bunch of ammo laying around that I want to burn up and get the cases back also. Started pc'ing in 2013/2014 and have been burning ammo I loaded with traditionally lube bullets along with pc'd bullets that I sold the molds that cast them several years ago. I either store the ammo nose down in boxes or loose in ammo cans.

I don't use titegroup but I do use another high nitro content pistol powder, namely power pistol. I use power pistol for a lot of sd loads in the short bbl'd revolvers and pistols. I don't load that many of them and store them nose down in boxes with the load info wrote on the boxes or on pieces of paper and put with the reloads when using plastic aftermarket boxes. Wanted to burn up all the old ammo and start with fresh
stock again.

Out of curiosity I ran some of the sd ammo that used pc'd bullet stored nose down over a chronograph last fall. They all went bang and there was no change/difference in velocities.

I mainly use clays and bullseye powders for +/- 90% of my pistol/revolver loads and use 100% pc'd bullets since 2014. Never had any issues with those powders & never noticed any difference in accuracy.

[Sasquatch-1]

I have seen the some of those videos too. I tested my Smokes PCed boolits by leaving them in a pill bottles with various powders (3 different ones)for several months. Unique didn't affect the PC, but Titegroup and WSF did. I bake for 25 minutes at 400 in a preheated convection oven. Our blow hards will say the PC isn't cured, but no one would say they had tested Smokes PC with those powders. If someone has Smokes PCed boolits that they think are not affected by TG or WSF, send me a few or I will buy a few to test. I need to maybe try baking for 35 minutes and re-test maybe, but it just sounds excessive. I was disappointed, I use Titegroup or WSF in all my 9mm. I just don't want to store any of these long-term with this happening. Hope 25 minutes isn't enough and I can get Smokes PC to not react, but not yet.

What did the TG do to the PC?

[bangerjim]

What did the TG do to the PC?

As I stated above in #8, all it did was soften the base PC just enough for a few grain (that's pieces.....not weight!) of TG to stick. Nothing on the sides. And if you ESPC like I do, there is no PC on the base anyway.

No difference in performance, so don't looooooose any sleep over this phenomenon.

banger

[charlie b]

That would be my question. Did the sticking powder change bullet velocity or cartridge reliability in any way?

[bangerjim]

Like I said in #8 above and the old thread from years ago, I found no degradation in performance from a few grains (pieces) of TG sticking to the base of a PC'd boolit.

[jsanch03]

Interesting read about high nitro in powders and there affects on powder coated bullets. I put a few of my own coated bullets in a mason jar along with some alliant sport pistol. It was marked august 2021 and there’s no softening of the powder coat. Granted, sport pistol was designed for these types of bullets and it’s rumored Federal syntech line uses sport pistol in their line of ammo.

[Dragonheart]

When this subject came up several years ago I took at least two dozen PC bullet colors having different polymer bases and dropped them into my sealed mixed gunpowder can and left them for 3 months. My mixed gunpowder can has an assortment of rifle & pistol gunpowder sweepings accumulated over the last 40 years. There was some TG powder in the can along with numerous other powders, some of these no longer available.

Long & short I didn't have gunpowder sticking to a single bullet. So make of that what you will. Was is it the quality of the powder I use, coming from Smoke and Prismatic Powder? Or is it my coating are properly cured or both?

I put this subject to bed as just more Youtube BS! I would suggest using a quality Powder, cure it properly and move on.

[Taterhead]

I've read and subsequently forgotten about this phenomenon. I have some older ammo with various powders that I will pull out of curiosity.