Powder coat, gas check, or both

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swampratt

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Have you ever shot a patched round ball or a wad under a bore rider or a paper patched bullet.

I have and I have recovered the patches if the patches fit tight there is NO gas cutting and the middle of the patch is not burned up.

What is this patch ?
It is material I cut from a pillow case and lubed with candle wax and coconut oil or just plain old spit.

If the patch is loose fitting it will be all torn up and edges burned a little.
This is with Pyrodex powder.

Plastic wads on the base of bullets does not get melted nor do the shot cups in a shotgun.

I would think plastic would melt before lead.

A good test would be to get the pot of lead hot but not to melt stage and place a plastic wad onto the "hard" hot lead.
Did it melt??
I bet it did.

Now another test would be to get the lead just to melt stage in the pot.

Place a lead bullet base into the lead and pull it out quickly.
Did it melt?
Now do it with a powder coated bullet.

Hold them with pliers.

Who is up for the test.

There is no lead melting on the base in my mind.
It is the escaping gases around the bullet causing the issues in my opinion.
 

Calamity Jake

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The age old debate is gas cutting, melting? A game of semantics played before before I was born. Greener talks about in the early days smokeless powder.

The base of the bullet get distorted and the bore gets leaded. Is the debate that gas simple blasted it or melted it? Or is the debate how to prevent it?

In the Greener days the alloy was a lead tin mix(10 to 1, 20 to 1 or 30 to 1) was the alloys used, these alloys were soft, BHN 7 to 9
maybe? Pure tin is 11.
Plus there's the issue with fit, which they were still working on back then, an undersize bullet would skid down the rifleing stripping
lead form the bullet allowing powder gases to shoot by causing the leading.
Elmer Keith taught us that fit is king to stop leading, his alloy of choice was 20 to 1.
 

crapsguy

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I have loaded and shot both GC and non GC 223 bullets that I powder coated -- no issues with my AR -- but poor performance at 100yds -- finally gave up on cast bullets for 223
I do powder coat my 200gn 3006 bullets that were made to have GCs with much better performance and no signs of anything blowing into the gas chamber in my Garand or other rifles
Powder coat is pretty tough - when I drop a defective or pulled bullet in my pot it sinks and the PC shell pops to the top before burning up
 

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