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Capt.

Several of the shooters in my area use the Precision Bullets and are very happy with them. There is also another company "Masterblasters Shooting Supplies" that makes a coated bullet similar to the ones mentioned in your post. If you search the site, you will find info on them also. IMHO, I think they provide the best of both types of bullets; easy on your barrel like lead, little or no smoke like jacketed. :)

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I used the Bear Creeks for a long time, and various other coated lead before them. They beat the groove-lubed lead bullets, hands down, but Montana Gold and Zero jacketed beat them hands down, for only marginally more money.

The BCs have some weight inconsistency, the rare oversize round, and the rare mold-nightmare round. Nontheless, the BCs were good enough to win B class at a Limited nationals. <shrug>

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Captian:

I shoot MB 45's and have been very happy with them. Their design for a 200gn SWC has a round nose which feeds really nicely. If my gun is dirty etc, the round nose and the poly-m coating let the round slide right into the chamber.

I just ordered a bunch of 147gn for 9mm.

Now after that commercial, I can say that I notice a pretty big spread on the weight. The nominal 200gn SWC goes from 198gn to 204gn. The 147s go from 144 through 149gn. I have not noticed any major variation on diameter.

This has opened up my 25 yrd groups a little (slow-fire or on a bench rest). But in a competition situation, I have not seen a problem.

I like them for shooting steel because they don't have jackets to riccochet.

I'm happy with them and I plan to continue shooting them.

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The MasterBlaster .45 200's I tried were nice, but didn't feed in my gun. I just got a big box of the Bear Creeks to try. Usually I shoot Berry's plated.

This puzzles me though:

but Montana Gold and Zero jacketed beat [coated bullets] hands down, for only marginally more money.

for .40cal 180's...

MasterBlaster: $139.95/2800= $49.98/k

Bear Creek: $81.60/1500= $57.40/k

Montana Gold: $171.80+$5/2500= $70.72/k

Zero: $67.95/k

Soooo, 18%-41% more is "marginal"?

So many IPSC shooters use MG bullets, so they can't be as expensive as they look. There's gotta be some kind of trick to it that only the cool kids know, but no one will tell me what it is!

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Monster,

Bulk purchase. A group of club members got together recently to place a bullet order. I needed some 125gr. 9mm heads for the open gun --- Zero's pricing was at $49.50 for a thousand. By the time we got together and got the weight way up there and had it shipped to a commercial address (club members business) the price tropped to about $36.00/thousand for me.

My last purchase before that was for 25,000 147 heads for production --- a move that saved me $8.- per thousand over buying 1k at a time...

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The trick is to get in on orders of eight or more cases, not a single case shipped to a residence. Zeros can be had cheaper, too.

It always seems to work out to about a penny difference per bullet between lead and jacketed. A penny for: Less smoke, No oversized bullet jams, Easier to load, No barrel leading, No barrel cleaning required, 10% of the weight variation, Improved accuracy.

Nonetheless, Yong Lee shooting MB bullets will walk all over me shooting MG bullets.

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I've been shooting Precision Bullets for about 9 years now and love them. They're very economical. My charge on a 200 grain bullet in 40S&W is 3.9 Tite Group and the feel is very soft.

Precision Bullets are not actually a moly coat. Not sure what it is but it's some type of proprietary coating. Take a look at the photos on their web site. He torches a couple of bullets and melts the lead inside while the coating remains in tact. http://www.precisionbullets.com

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Just bought 8000 Precision Bullets (6000 185's and 2000 230 grainers) both were the same price per thousand so I imagine their 200 grain would be the same. With shipping to Indiana they came to about $51.00 per thousand. They work great in my Colt. Less smoke, No leading of the barrel the only thing until they get their new casting operation up and running better order early because they were running about 12 weeks to ship. But hey they are worth it to me. :P:P

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1 - I can't tumble them after reloading and my lube caused me some serious headache at the Infinity Open with the damn power they have there.

2 - Smoke in poor lighting.

3 - The guys that used to import them up here stopped, and shipping bullets is too expensive for me.

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And even ammo loaded with jacketed will give some (however small) amount of smoke, because we use smokeless not smokefree powder.

I use a lead bullet coated in a "blue" Polymer, Teflon, Moly type lube. They are available from a variety of makers in a variety of colours. Gray, Black, Blue, Green, Gold and Reddish/Gold. All made on Magma machines and coated with essentially the same general type of lube.

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I have shot some where between 20- 30K Bear Creek in 38 special round nose and 45 cal 230's. I've tried a few other lead bullet manufactures and have come back to Bear Creek. In my guns the leading is very minimal. Less than the others I have tried.

Paul

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Has anybody tried using the "polymer encapsulated" bullets as a way around the silly "no lead" restrictions at indoor ranges? If that stuff is as good as they say, it has to be an improvement over people shooting open-base FMJs.

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  • 1 month later...

I'm going to eat my words because I'm back to shooting coated lead bullets for practice. The Bear Creek manufacturer isn't too far from here and we always got good deals on those. I can see how someone close to Masterblasters would get a good deal on the poly-m bullets.

However, after two days of chronographing Bear Creek 180s and 200s with N330 and 3N38, and Berry's copper plated 180s, I stand by my statements about accuracy. These aren't the things to shoot on the 50 yard standards.

Loves2shoot, why can't you tumble Bear Creeks?

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