By Jeff Brown

In 2018 my family and I travelled to the USA for a four week vacation and whilst visiting a friend in Indiana I was introduced to poly coating (PC) of cast lead alloy bullets. I had been aware for many years of practice of powder coating and oven baking a synthetic coating on to bullets but had not seen it done or partaken it shooting of cast alloy projectiles treated in this manner. Upon arriving home some testing was done with great success but with one thing and another the experiments were put on the back burner until recently when a CBA member posted a record 400 13X score in competition using PCd bullets. This enormous achievement piqued my interest once more. Time to try this again I mused and being a sucker for punishment I elected to conduct the experiments using my Martini .310 Cadet.

There is no shortage of material available online demonstrating and explaining the PC process so I will not bore you with extensive details and advice. In short I small out of powder coating paint powder is dumped into a plastic container with the recycling mark '5' (polypropylene), clean cast bullets are then added and swirled or gently tossed around until the static created by the plastic container makes the powder cling evenly to the bullets. Standard practice for many users is to add airsoft BBs to the container also to generate more static and act as a bit of a buffer between bullets. I use the BB method but can't say for sure if the little plastic balls contribute anything meaningful but find it comforting to know they most likely reduce any lead on lead contact. Full coverage is achieved in short order (1-2 minutes) and bullets can then be removed (I use needle nose pliers previously dipped in the powder also) and stood up a baking tray coverd by a silicon baking mat. The silicon mat is a MUST as once the paint is baked it adheres to metal surfaces in a fashion that is hard to imagine. For the baking process I have a toast oven I previously used for heat treating bullets and this is set to 400F, the temperature at which the bullets are baked at for 20 minutes. Once baked and cooled the bullets are ready to shoot. It is worth noting at this point that the bullets are 100% coated including the based so essentially fully encapulated. Gas checks may be applied before or after depending on personal preference.