Interesting to say the least!!!
Back in the day I shot a little shotgun, nothing fancy just 8 to 12 boxes of ammo a week for 10 years straight. Bought an 1st year (1952) 870 off of a guy at a gunshow. He was old and sitting there with a couple of things on the table. I asked if I could sit down and started talking to him. He was done shooting and was selling everything off. I bought almost everything he had including that 1952 remington 870. He bought it new and it was setup for skeet, he used it until I bought it in 1990. I used it until the receiver finely wore out in 2000 and sold that skeet bbl to a friend. He was teaching his daughter how to use a shotgun. Her son is now using that same bbl to this day.
A fellow named Bill Barbour was a 2 time national champion and I'm not sure how many state titles he had. He used 2 1100's and the same 1100/bbl for 20+ years. Used to walk the garand with him when it was held in vandalia, everyone knew him, Hi bill, what's going on bill, glad to see you back bill, etc. While he has there he'd go to vender's row and get parts (that's why 2 1100's/spare when something broke in the receiver) from the remington rep. The 1 year he saw bill coming and already cryings about it. A come on bill, that's old iron your using. Bill got his parts for free. He never did wear that bbl out.
Jim hawk was a state champion in the 80's with countless 1000's of rounds in his shotguns. He still has them and uses them to this day.
Hawk taught a fellow shooter skeet and he,Rich olah, became a state champion in the 90's and he still uses the same shotgun to this day.
These guys were using bore snakes or the rods with the cleaning sleeves that were washable after every session. I just used a bore snake with clp on it for 6 or 7 years and never had any build-up in the bbl/choke. The gritty trigger and action are another story.
In my little neck of the woods the receivers go before the bbl's do on our shotguns. The triggers and timing goes out on our pistols before the bbl does. And we work extremely hard burning out bbl's on our rifles, so far I've worn out bbl's on 2 03-a3's, a 300mag & sks and a 223ar. But that was with jacketed bullets.
The aussie's have been shooting coated bullets for over a decade now and haven't reported any bbl wear issues, loss of accuracy or anything else.
If you are having problems with plastic in your shotguns or are unsure of what it might do to your bbl's, then by all means, don't use any coated bullets.
Myself, I enjoy the heck out of them and the accuracy they bring to the table. And if the coated bullets wear a bbl out in 50,000 rounds compared to 100,000+ for traditional lead. Big deal!!!! I wore another one out and had a smile on my face the whole time.
As far as mfg's selling ammo with coated bullets, time will tell. Bullet coating is really still in it's infancy in this country. Only 4 years ago (2012) there was a big push to figure out the easiest/cheapest way for the home caster to coat their own cast bullets. What you'r seeing today on this website and in this thread is the fruits of their labors. It started with people communicating with the aussie's on how/what they were doing. And now 4 years later, their efforts have spread and turned into what you're seeing today. I've only been coating bullets for 3 years now and have run a little over #500 of cast/coated bullets thru different firearms. The firearm/bbl that has seen the most coated bullets (10,000+) is a custom 1 in 10 twist 6" 357 bbl. So far the accuracy is still there but then again it only gets a diet of 158gr bullets doing 1350fps+ with 33,000+psi loads.
Anyway, coating bullets allows casters to re-purpose molds like the protxbore molds that used to use the zinc washers.
On the left are 44cal's and 35 cal's on the right. They can be used as swc's or be turned around and be loaded as button nosed wc's.
A close-up of the protxbore bullet. Left, a 110gr button nosed wc (h&g #41) next to the protxbore 35cal (9mm/38spl/357) on the right.
When cast, where the zinc washer used to go forms a button nosed drive band when loaded as a swc. And can be crimped in the groove under that band making it a bullet nosed wc that has a boattail.
