I have shot BP cartridge rifles and revolvers for years now, including paper-patching my own bullets as well as soft lead grooved bullets carrying lots of SPG lube. Cartridges range from 32-20 up through the various British Expresses and 577 Snider. Good results, lots of enjoyment!

Now there are powder coated bullets, and I have become a convert to them for revolver use with smokeless and they work great!

My question is: Has anyone out there worked with powder coated bullets using BP in cartridges?

Since the main purpose of 'lube' in a BP cartridge is to keep the fouling soft, my first impulse is just to try grooved powder coated bullets and fill the grooves with SPG, mostly because many of the rounds I use don't have long enough necks for adding a grease cookie.

Any commentary with actual experience in this area will be greatly appreciated.

I just asked this of Bear Creek Bullets. They make coated cast bullets of many designs for single shots and lever guns. They told me I could use their bullets by adding appropriate black powder lube and they should run great. I look forward to trying it soon.

RC

Thanks RC, I'll give it a shot (literally) when I can and report back.

Steve, that would have been my guess as well.

I had not heard that they needed lubing. In fact I thought the idea was that they didn't need lubing. I have tried them with black powder, but without added lube and they would not hit the side of a barn if shot from the inside. My experience with them in a .30-30 using smokeless was no better. I will stick to the old fashion grease groove bullets.

Coated bullets themselves don't need lubing, that is the whole point - with smokeless anyway. I have had very good results in different cartridges using smokeless and coated bullets in both revolvers and rifles with no additional lube.

With black powder, some sort of added 'something' is used to keep the BP fouling inside the barrel from building into a hard coating that destroys accuracy. Using BP in cartridges, one way to do this is to use a lube formula that combines with the BP fouling to keep it soft. Another way to accomplish this is to use a blow tube after each shot to soften the fouling with your own breath. Yet another is to use a wad or 'cookie' of BP-softening stuff inside the cartridge between the powder and base of the bullet.

So, with a coated bullet that does not require any of the usual smokeless lube to get out of the barrel without leading, I have been curious as to whether a coated, but still grooved, bullet could carry some BP fouling softener in those otherwise unneeded grooves to keep the BP fouling soft.

I'll report on my first experiment with coated bullets and BP in cartridges in my next post.