HBN Coated Bullets and Velocity Loss in .308

[cfreeman]

Does anyone that uses this coating know how much velocity loss you can expect? I’m shooting a 155 SMK right at 3000 FPS naked. Anyone know how much velocity I can expect to lose with a coated one?

Thanks

 

[retired]

so what you are saying is:
you did not clean your rifle properly and now blame it on hbn ?
did i get that right ??

A word of warning: save yourself a lot of trouble and dump the hbn in the trash can.

As precision hand loaders we work hard to eliminate variables, but by introducing hbn you're adding to them. The first question is are you going to coat just the bullets or are you doing the barrel also? How are you going to tumble the bullets and for how long? In what size batches? How are you going to insure consistent coating? See what I mean?

Many of us F-Class shooters at Bayou Rifle in Houston tried it, no one is using it any more. I tried hbn with 7SAUM and experienced a 30-40 fps velocity loss. At first I thought it was great not having to clean my rifle, then after a couple hundred rounds precision degraded. I regularly inspected the barrel with a bore scope and all I saw was white. When I thought my barrel was crapped out I cleaned with Eliminator as I usually did. What I discovered was that the copper and carbon were there, they just were covered/masked by the hbn, hence the loss of precision. However, no matter how much I cleaned and scrubbed and used Iosso bore paste nothing worked to get the velocity back up or the precision back. I finally scrapped the barrel.

You won't be able to say no one warned you.

Joe

 

[dmoran]

@cfreeman
A lose of 30 to 50-fps is my own predicted input.

I can concur with @Joe R, a lot of variables to go with coated bullets.
How much ends up in the hollow point tip from one to the next, is another variable that I will add to Joe's list.

Why I stopped using coated bullets is I personally seen no gain to precision accuracy on the targets. What I felt was small gains to barrel erosion, was out weighed by the downfalls to potential build-ups in the barrels that I saw. My biggest reason was the inconsistency of the coating from one batch of bullets to the next.

Felt I gave both moly and hbn a fair shake over a couple years time. But for me any how, life got better fast when I reverted back to naked bullets, and stopped using coating all together. To many variables....
Donovan

 

[JimPag]

Does anyone that uses this coating know how much velocity loss you can expect? I’m shooting a 155 SMK right at 3000 FPS naked. Anyone know how much velocity I can expect to lose with a coated one?

Thanks

I have used HBN for 4 out of my 5 seasons and I would recommend it. I've only found that you will loose only up to 10-15 fps in all of my SR competition rifles. Now all of my dozens of barrels are between 21 and 23&1/2" long. I chronograph everytime that I shoot at my house. Without a doubt using HBN will let you shoot longer without cleaning your barrel and it takes little effort to clean it once you do. Contrary to what other people have said, I have never seen any form of buildup in any of my barrels. A good portion of the top shooters that I compete against use either HBN or WS2.

 

[Capt. Oblivious]

so what you are saying is:

you did not clean your rifle properly and now blame it on hbn ?

did i get that right ??

I actually agree with retired. Why people believe a bullet coating is a magic non barrel cleaning powder is beyond me, obviously you will have layers of HBN, Coper and carbon if you shoot copper bullets covered in HBN pushed by a flame fueled by carbon. Most of my friends use HBN and non-off them are going back, all of them are serious competitors.


@cfreeman you won’t lose allot of velocity with HBN and what you do lose just add more powder to get back to the speed you want

 

[Nude nut]

I have heard many a man say bullet coating are not worth the effort so I just had to see for myself so I tried moly and what did I learn well my projectiles seat super smooth which makes for more accurate seating and putting moly in the necks contributes to this also gives smooth sizing with my mandrel.
Now as far as barrels well my 308 lasted 6000 rnds with competition accuacy then hung up its boots it will still hold moa but that wont cut it for comps.
My lads 223 is still humming after 3500 rounds and still shoots well under moa only a week ago I shot a 200x17 at 300.
I clean as every weekend an leave ballistol in the barrel and friday nights I put moly on a patch and coat the bore on most occasions my first shot goes where the rest do thats all I think I have learnt oh hang on its messy $h%the.

Cheers Trev.

 

[cfreeman]

Thank you guys. You’ve given me a lot to consider. I’ll probably shoot a few on Friday and post what I find. I only coated a few blems I had laying around just to see what happened.

 

[retired]

as was pointed out, you need to treat the bore, and that is a different hbn

Thank you guys. You’ve given me a lot to consider. I’ll probably shoot a few on Friday and post what I find. I only coated a few blems I had laying around just to see what happened.

 

[SteveOak]

as was pointed out, you need to treat the bore, and that is a different hbn

Different how please? Different particulate size? Please specify particulate size for both bullet and barrel treating.

Different purity? Please specify purity.

Different is another way? Please specify.

Thanks!

I bought some HBN coated bullets from Tubb and some HBN powder to coat the other bullets I use and to coat the barrel.

Interesting side note; Tubb has developed a mixture of HBN, 70 micron (u)according to the guy I talked to at Shooting Systems) and a compound to reduce copper fouling in the barrel.

I didn't buy Tubbs' HBN mixture because 70u HBN is fine enough to penetrate directly through the skin.

 

[retired]

i can only tell you to do a search. years back , when i bought mine, it was sold as 2 items, bore treatment and bullet coating.

Different how please? Different particulate size? Please specify particulate size for both bullet and barrel treating.

Different purity? Please specify purity.

Different is another way? Please specify.

Thanks!

I bought some HBN coated bullets from Tubb and some HBN powder to coat the other bullets I use and to coat the barrel.

Interesting side note; Tubb has developed a mixture of HBN, 70 micron (u)according to the guy I talked to at Shooting Systems) and a compound to reduce copper fouling in the barrel.

I didn't buy Tubbs' HBN mixture because 70u HBN is fine enough to penetrate directly through the skin.