Fess up - who else is doing it? I have been playing with it a little and just went on a casting marathon last week so I'd have plenty to coat. From my understanding you do not need lube when you powder coat your boolits as the powder (in it's cured state of course) on the boolit provides a barrier from the lead to the bore as a copper jacket does.
I've shot several 300 Blackout boolits that were coated with no ill effects (bore is clean afterwards, certainly no leading!) But several questions remain:
1. Size before or after coating? My thought; size before so the coating provides that barrier and seals the bore better.
2. If no lube is needed, then are lube *grooves* needed? Essentially you are putting on a polymer jacket at that point; are we just conditioned that we need these grooves or could they be removed for powder coated boolits? (i.e. paper patch boolit designs?) These things are pretty slick, and glide right through the sizer as if they were lubed (and lubed very well!)
3. Are gas checks necessary? Will the powder coat serve to eliminate gas cutting at higher speeds? - which brings me to the last question:
4. What's the fastest speed you can send one of these pills down the bore? From what little I've seen most (if not all) people are running these in handguns at or near subsonic speeds. I've been shooting them (I've shot maybe 50-75) at subsonic speeds through my 300 Blackout.
Having said all that - my method so far seems to be working, one of the tricks I'm using is to actually coat the aluminum foil with a fairly dense coat BEFORE I place the boolits on; that way the bottom of the boolit gets coated AND it creates a sort of aluminum foil "gas check" at the same time; meaning there's no exposed lead. I'm still trying to perfect that process though as they're difficult to remove from the foil and when I run them through the sizer, it just makes a collar below the boolit's bottom that I have to pick off with my fingernails. Might have to make a simple trimmer for it.
Here's some 300 Blackout rounds I did a while back for a visual reference:
I cast some 9mm and 45's that I'm coating this week as tests, too. Waiting on brass to come in before I can load them though!