Mad Major

One thing I noticed about the coated bullets, way less smoke, but man, my guns freaking stink after shooting the coated bullets. Is that normal? Its kind of a noxious burnt plastic mixed with gunpowder smell. I guess they are coated with plastic so it makes sense. Anybody else notice the same? Oh yeah, i was using 3.4 gns of hp38 on them. .357 cases. 1.690 overall length.

And here are the results from the range today. Targets each have 10 rounds through them from my rifle at 25 yds. The left one is rimrock cast lead, the right one is the acme coated bullets. Both were 158gn. The right target is a little messed up cause i had one from my pistol dig the dirt in front of it when i was shooting at something to the right of it, but I had two of the coated bullets dead center bullseye:

Got a new box of coated bullets from Acme today. BIG difference. I am glad Acme took care of me. I still wish I knew what caused the others to look so bad. Here is a side by side comparison. Good ones are on the right:

The only thing I can think of that could have happened is UPS must have beat them to death during shipping.

Hey Dave, I meant to ask you about this. Do you mean not shootable at all, or not shootable without some sort of lube since the coating is coming off in several places?

Thanks Dave. That clears up my confusion!

Well, according to their website, these are Hi-tek coated. I don't understand the smoke and mirrors / black magic behind coating the bullets, but I thought the Hi-tek bullets were a polymer coating, not a powder coating? Or is that the same thing? Are there any cowboys on here that did better in college chemistry than I did that can educate us on the process?

Update on the Acme bullets, they called today and said the pic I sent looks nothing like what they have from the same batch back at the factory. They asked me if I had tried to re-size them. I said no, all I did was open the box. They are sending me a new box of bullets to try.

Thanks Dave, I emailed them, I will see what they say. Thanks for the links to the other suppliers, they didn't come up when I did my original search for coated bullets.

Probably true, but so will hard cast lead bullets and I feel like I paid for something that I did not get. I emailed Acme about it and sent them the picture. If they don't refund or send me some new ones, I'll buy coated bullets elsewhere in the future.

Hey all, over the weekend I recieved a shipment of Acme bullets' hi-tek "coated" bullets. Is this what they are supposd to look like? Seems to me if the coating wears off this easy in the box during shipment, it would probably burn off pretty easy and stick to my barrel too. Most all of them have the coating worn off of the edges of the drive bands, where I think you would want the coating most of all, right? Should I be shooting these? Edit: by the way, the picture doesn't look as bad as they are in person. lots of the coating has come off.

Hey Look! I am official now: "Howdy Mad Major, Welcome to the SASS family! We are confident you will enjoy your membership in the friendliest and most enjoyable shooting organization in the world. All we ask is that you play and have fun with a zest for “The Spirit of the Game.” Your assigned SASS number, which will also be your badge number, is 114589."

Well, i got out to the range early this morning and fired my pistol for the first time since cleaning the lead out. At first, i made a classic mistake and tried to hold a steady aim. Once I stopped trying to aim and started shooting instinctively with both eyes open and focusing more on the front sight (like my papaw taught me), I started drilling the targets. In the Army we call this reflexive shooting. This was at 20yds. I am glad my pistol's accuracy is back!:

Yes I know its 1am EST. I have the evening battle captain shift at work. Anyway, I got my rifle cleaned up too. I only shot a few of those Hornady's through it. Didn't have hardly any leading at all. Thank you guys so much for all the advice. And yeah, I need to go to a match. I am going to try to go to one on 29 June. I am close(1 hour drive) to the club where Palmetto Posse shoots, so I figured I would swing by and say howdy. Maybe even shoot, but I only have one pistol and a rifle, both 38/357.

Hey, on a different note, I just signed up on the SASS website and joined SASS. How long does it take to get your SASS number and badge in the mail?