Coated vs. Plated

[GJGary]

I have shot a lot of berry's and xtreme, now coated for me as reasons stated above.

Acme and BBI

[IDescribe]

Plated has some advantages and disadvantages compared to bare lead. Plated has no advantages over coated, and it loses to coated on accuracy and price. Coated have in my assessment made plated bullets obsolete. When my supplies from various companies are burned up in practice, I will be settled on ACME for 147 and 115. Playing with Bayou 124TC and like them a lot. Time will tell if I settle there or with ACME for 124. This is all at action shooting distances. Still preferring bare lead or jacketed at 50 yards in 9mm and .45. But I'm working on that too.

[Alaskapopo]

Besides lower cost, do coated bullets (Bayou, BBI, IbejiHeads etc.) have any advantages over plated or HPCB bullets?

Yea much much better accuracy. Never had good luck with plated bullets while Coated bullets shoot as good as cast or jacketed for me which is very good.

Pat

[a matt]

I have had very good luck with Rainier. I don't have to worry about lead vapors shooting at indoor ranges due to the complete plating of the bullet. Great accuracy.. Good luck.

[jsg]

Really depends on the gun for me.

My 627 really likes the coated BBI over the plated Xtreme.

My 9mm 1911 shoots coated, plated and jacketed pretty much the same

My 625 hates plated and does not like some jacketed. It likes coated, normal lead, and Zero.

[4me2ply]

I like the BBI in my limited and open rigs

[tomfturner]

I was shooting BBIs in my czechmate, but recently tried blue bullets. The BBI bullets are more consistent velocity, but the blue bullets are definitely cleaner in the gun. If not shooting jacketed bullets I'd definitely be inclined to shoot blue bullets.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[IDescribe]

Tomfturner, the BBI have produced the most consistent velocities for me. But it's not the bullet; it's the color. The chrono reads dull black better than anything else. I once had a load with 125gr BBI and IMR7625 that produced 5 consecutive identical velocities. I felt pretty good about my loading process that day.

[TJART]

SnS 147gr coated. 3.3gr N320. Clean and no smoke. Very accurate. Under an 1" at 15yds. Never looked back.

BB 147gr coated 3.0 TG. Never looked back.

[texasref]

Coated bullets are cleaner to shoot.

Just run a bore snake or a brush thru the barrel and that's it.

[dsa]

Coated all the way.

[valerko]

little testing I did , purly high tech

[Prov1x]

I am also looking to switch from xtreme plated 124gr to a coated bullet. I'm getting shotgun pattern groups from 15/20 yards and out and it is killing me! My groups with MG 124 CMJs are great, so I know it's not my shooting that is doing it, but I need a cheaper alternative to them. Trying some Blue Bullets 125gr this week so we'll see how they work.

[a matt]

That shotgun pattern sounds like a crimp issue. Just my .02 cent...

[Wheeljack]

I'm working with the BB 147gr .358. First, they weigh in at about 151gr +/-. I use them in my 9mm's. Depending on the gun, I resize them to .356, .357 and .358. I run them thru the .358 die just to smooth them out a little. I have a pistol, revolver and carbine. Trying to find a light load and looking for a softer recoil.

[7sst]

I haven't seen any difference in performance between plated and coated bullets. I use the coated bullets because they are cheaper.

[d_striker]

I guess I'm the odd man out on this. I've had really good success with plated regarding accuracy and feeding once I got my sizing issues worked out.

I've only tried a couple brands of coated but so far I'm not impressed. Ogive on both brands of 147gr coated were very far forward. So much so that I had to load to 1.070" and I'm still only .010" off the lands. Loading this short left a bulge halfway down the case where the base of the bullet resides. Redding seating die doesn't want to seat much shorter. And if I do go under 1.070" the bulge gets worse and some don't case gauge.

Accuracy with coated wasn't any better than plated. actually it was a little worse. I'm consistently getting 1-1.5" groups with plated at 20y off a rest. Best groups with coated so far have been 2.5" with most around 3-4".

I'm planning on doing more testing with coated just because there are so many on here that say how good the accuracy is. So far, I haven't seen it.

Edited February 12, 2016 by d_striker

[IDescribe]

Ogive on both brands of 147gr coated were very far forward. So much so that I had to load to 1.070" and I'm still only .010" off the lands.

This is surprising to me. One of my 9mm CZs is especially short-throated, The 147gr truncated cone flat point bullet that most every bullet manufacturer uses for their 147gr 9mm hits the lands in that CZ between 1.125 and 1.130 when coated with Hi-tek or powder coat. The Blue RN is the same. I load all of them to an OAL of 1.120. The only people I know who have to load any of these shorter than I have to is those who are buying .358 bullets intended for .38/.357 and using them in 9mm.

What type of pistol are you using and what brands of and what diameter of coated 9mm have you had to load that short?

Loading this short left a bulge halfway down the case where the base of the bullet resides. And if I do go under 1.070" the bulge gets worse and some don't case gauge.

If you look at a bisected case, going from the case mouth toward the case head, the walls will maintain the same thickness for some distance and then start to thicken. In most 9mm brass, that distance where the walls start to thicken is .300 from the case mouth. Winchester brass starts thickening a little sooner, maybe around .250 from the case mouth, but most 9mm is .300. I shoot some short throated pistols, and bullet length and seating/insertion depth is noted in all my load data, not just OAL. You do not want to seat a bullet base deeper into the case than .300. If you do, as you're seating and push the bullet base past the part where the case walls start to thicken (which you can call the mechanical limit), it will start to swage down the bullet base and bow out the case walls. This is what you're experiencing. If you're seating that standard 147gr TCFP to 1.070, your seating depth is .330, which is certainly seated beyond the mechanical limit.

The truth is that with bullets having beveled bases, you can actually go a hair deeper than .300, but not much. I do have one bullet I seat .310 into the case.

Accuracy with coated wasn't any better than plated. actually it was a little worse. I'm consistently getting 1-1.5" groups with plated at 20y off a rest. Best groups with coated so far have been 2.5" with most around 3-4".

Which makes perfect sense. If you're seating .330 into the case, you're damaging the bullet base, and accuracy will suffer.

So again, what pistol? And what bullets have you had this issue with? Both brand and diameter?

ACME, Bayou, BBI, and SNS all produce excellent coated cast bullets sized at .356.

Edited February 12, 2016 by IDescribe

[JLeeCZ]

The 147gr truncated cone flat point bullet that most every bullet manufacturer uses for their 147gr 9mm hits the lands in that CZ between 1.125 and 1.130 when coated with Hi-tek or powder coat.

The SNS NLG version can be loaded a little longer. I can go out to 1.16" max in all 3 of my CZs.

Edited February 12, 2016 by JLeeCZ