If you're tired of dealing with sticky, smoky grease grooves, it might be time to look into bullet coating powder for your reloading setup. There was a time when casting your own bullets meant you were destined to have purple or blue wax under your fingernails for days, but things have changed quite a bit. Nowadays, more and more people are ditching the traditional lube-and-size method in favor of polymer coatings, and for good reason. It's cleaner, it's often cheaper in the long run, and let's be honest, it makes your handloads look like something out of a sci-fi movie.
Why Everyone is Talking About It
For a long time, the only way to keep a lead bullet from leaving a mess in your barrel was to fill its grooves with a waxy lubricant. It worked, sure, but it had its downsides. When you fired those rounds, the heat would vaporize the wax, creating a cloud of smoke that could get pretty thick, especially at an indoor range. If you've ever shot a high-volume competition with traditional cast bullets, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You end up standing in a fog of your own making.
Using bullet coating powder solves that problem almost entirely. Instead of a grease-filled groove, you're essentially heat-shrinking a tough polymer skin over the entire surface of the lead. This skin acts as a barrier between the lead and the rifling. Since there's no wax to burn off, the smoke is cut down by a huge margin. Plus, your reloading dies stay much cleaner. You won't have to stop every few hundred rounds to scrape out built-up gunk from your seating die.
The Performance Perks
It's not just about keeping your hands clean, though. There are some real performance benefits to using a polymer coating. One of the biggest is that it allows you to push lead bullets a bit faster than you normally would with traditional lube. Usually, if you try to drive a plain lead bullet too fast, the friction and heat cause "leading," where bits of lead melt onto the inside of your barrel. It's a nightmare to scrub out.
With a good coat of bullet coating powder, that polymer shell handles the friction much better. You can often get away with higher velocities without seeing any lead buildup. It's not quite a copper jacket, but for most handgun and even some low-velocity rifle applications, it's the next best thing. It also helps with accuracy in many cases because the coating is more uniform than a smeared layer of wax.
How to Get Started at Home
You might think you need some high-tech industrial setup to do this, but you really don't. Most guys are doing this in their garage with a few basic tools. The most popular method is what everyone calls the "Shake-and-Bake."
The Shake-and-Bake Method
This is exactly what it sounds like. You take your clean, cast bullets and put them in a plastic container—something like a used margarine tub or a plastic food storage container works perfectly. You add a little bit of bullet coating powder and maybe some black airsoft BBs. The BBs help generate static electricity when you shake the container.
You swirl and shake the container for a minute or two, and the static pulls the powder onto the lead. Once they're evenly coated, you pick them out (usually with tweezers or by dumping them through a mesh tray) and set them on a baking sheet lined with non-stick foil or a silicone mat.
Baking the Finish
This is where the magic happens. You'll need a dedicated toaster oven for this. I can't stress this enough: do not use the oven you cook your dinner in. Even though it's a polymer, you're still heating lead and chemical powders, and you don't want those fumes anywhere near your food. Pick up a cheap toaster oven at a thrift store and keep it in the garage.
Usually, you'll bake the bullets at around 400 degrees for about 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the specific brand of powder you're using. The powder melts, flows together, and then cures into a hard, slick shell. Once they cool down, they're ready to be sized and loaded.
Choosing the Right Powder
Not all powders are created equal. If you go to a hardware store and buy some random industrial powder, you might get lucky, but you might also end up with a mess. The stuff specifically sold as bullet coating powder is usually formulated to be a bit more flexible. You want a coating that can handle being smashed into the rifling without cracking or flaking off.
Polyester-based powders are the gold standard here. They have a bit of "give" to them. Color is another factor, though it's mostly aesthetic. Some people swear that certain colors like "Signal Red" or "Ford Blue" coat better than others, but a lot of that is just personal preference and trial and error. The main thing is ensuring the powder is fresh and kept dry. If your powder gets clumped up with moisture, it won't stick to the bullets evenly, and you'll end up with splotchy results.
A Few Tips for Success
If you're going to give this a shot, there are a couple of things that will make your life a lot easier. First, make sure your lead is clean. If your bullets have any oil or residual wax on them from the casting process, the bullet coating powder won't stick. Most casters find that water-dropping their bullets and letting them dry completely is enough, but some prefer to give them a quick rinse in acetone if they suspect any contamination.
Second, don't over-apply the powder. It's tempting to think that more is better, but a thick, clumpy coat is actually worse than a thin, even one. If the coat is too thick, it can change the diameter of the bullet too much, making it hard to run through your sizing die or causing issues when you try to chamber a round. You're looking for a smooth, eggshell-like finish.
Lastly, pay attention to your "smash test." Once you've baked a batch and they've cooled down, take one out and hit it with a hammer on an anvil or a flat piece of steel. You want to flatten the bullet out. If the coating stays stuck to the lead even when it's deformed, you've got a good cure. If the coating flakes off like dry paint, you either didn't get the bullets clean enough or you didn't bake them long enough.
Wrapping Things Up
Switching over to bullet coating powder definitely adds a step to the reloading process, but most people who try it never go back to traditional lubing. The lack of smoke at the range and the cleanliness of the reloading bench are just too good to pass up. Plus, there's a certain satisfaction in seeing a box of bright green or deep red bullets that you made yourself. It turns a chore into a bit of a craft project.
If you're already casting your own lead, it's a small investment to get started. A cheap oven, some plastic tubs, and a pound of powder will last you for thousands of rounds. Just remember to keep your "bullet oven" and your "pizza oven" separate, and you'll be hitting the range with cleaner, faster, and cooler-looking ammo in no time.