I remember reading somewhere that you must taper crimp coated bullets so's to not scrape off the coating. True? What are your experiences?

If anything it would be the opp. A taper crimp goes base to tip, so no scraping involved. An improper roll crimp could cut the coating, but Ime, coatings are more forgiving than plating once broken. You'll get some leading, but the coating stays intact.

__________________
NRA Cert. Inst. IDPA CSO

I crimp them just like I would any other bullet.

I'm still amazed at the cleanliness and lack of lead fouling with coated bullets.

If the bullet has a crimp groove it gets a roll crimp.
Otherwise it's a taper crimp.
No problems either way.

__________________
-jwk-
US Army '72-'95

You're right Fred, I meant to say "taper crimp." I corrected in the heading. Thanks.

Post #4 gets my vote........

Match the "Hatch" as they say in fly fishing.............
you'll catch MORE fish.

+2 on post 4!!!

It's how the case is expanded to accept the bullet that causes scraping not how the bullet is crimped.

Powder coated bullets are better easier to reload that their copper coated counterparts.

I use a taper crimp with coated and plated in 45 auto and 357 mag. No problems at all. I can take a 158 grain coated or plated up to a full 1,000 fps in my 4" revolver and the taper crimp will hold under recoil.

Does the coating on those bullets burn off or scrape off or stay on after firing?

All the pic's I've seen show the coating stays mostly intact and doesn't burn at all.

If you say enough ..."Pretty Please"............. it all leaves the barrel.

However I have a drill instructor that uses a different phrase.

Its all good.

The people that pioneered the home coating of bullets came up with a simple test to see if the coating was staying on the bullets. They call it the smash test. The tester takes one of their coated bullets and smashes it with a hammer. If the coating stays on the bullet, it passes the smash test.

There are 2 main types of coating, a polyester based coating (dry tumble powder coating) and a polyurethane based coating (wet/paint).

I use the tumble lube/dry method, the coating is extremely flexible and will stay on the lead bullet even if the shape of the bullet is altered. Some 230gr cast bullets that were coated and then ran thru a "bump" die to match the throat of a custom 308 bbl. The original shape of the cast bullet is on the right, the bumped/reshaped bullets are on the left with a gc installed.



Some recovered bullets from the 100yd line berm. Those are 170gr bullets (1700fps/1900fps/2100fps) & the 2300fps bullet is the 230gr bullet. As you can see some of the pc (powder coating) came off. That from striking the dirt/rocks with allot of speed/force. To get a 230gr bullet to do 2300fps in a 308, you have to have a high pressure load (38gr of bl-c2).



These coating are pretty tough but a knife or sharp edge can scrape the coating off. Make sure that the case is flared enough so the bullet doesn't get the coating scraped off of it as the bullet seats.

Some 38spl's with the bullets seated long to be used in a 357, they have a pretty good roll crimp.



Some taper crimped 9mm's, I use a standard 3/1000th's/4/1000th's taper crimp on all the semi-auto ammo I load. (that's the shinny ring/edge on the mouth/rim of the 9mm brass).

The coating will scrape off if you crimp too much. Just enough to remove the bell and you are ok.

Easy test is to pull a bullet and see if you are scraping off some of the coating. I did for months until I learned to just take off the bell. Much less smoke and accuracy improved.