Missouri Bullet company

I've been shooting some bullets from Missouri Bullet Company recently and found them very good bullets. I've gotten used to their coated bullets as they are much cleaner to load and shoot.

The bullets I've been getting have a red coating on them, and when loaded into a .44 Magnum case look a little like a tube of lipstick. Sort of makes you kind of scrooch down when loading on the range to hide the cartridge.

I got a new batch today and they are sort of brass/copper colored! Now I can load in full view of others on the range!

Bob Wright

If I were to use coated bullets I would want the red ones. Then, I would tell the scoffers these Have already been bloodied

The .41 "Troopers" I buy from Mo Bullets are brass colored. They make for a nice round when loaded. Good company to buy from. Located in the country, on a gravel road. You can get a discount, if you mention you read "Handloader" magazine. There was an article recently about Mo Bullet Co.

Timely topic...I just cracked open a new box of the red .44's today!
I load them moderately with 9.5 gr. of Unique for my SBH and my new Henry .44 Mag Carbine.
They shoot great and the barrels look like you just cleaned them!

Agreed! Never had any problems with any of them, they're about all I load anymore.

I guess I'll be the last man who resists shooting painted bullets

I was given a tour of this business. Shipping room is stacked to the ceiling with boxes. A worker smashed a .44 , 240 gr., with a ballpeen hammer. Coating will not come off. I find 10 grs of Unique to be very accurate in my Super BH's. I have killed deer with this load.

They're 300gr. silhouette is an accurate bullet. It shoots good in all my 44's and 45's.
Never tried the powder coated versions.
I guess Cholo and me are seeing who can hold out the longest.

SweetWilliam said:

They're 300gr. silhouette is an accurate bullet. It shoots good in all my 44's and 45's.
Never tried the powder coated versions.
I guess Cholo and me are seeing who can hold out the longest.

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Maybe not...I have never loaded any coated bullets.
Just recently started loading plated bullets...I mostly shoot plain commercial cast lead bullets and Hornady HP/XTPs.
See no reason to change to coated bullets at this point in time.

I was once told by an old timer,, that he remembered how many folks resisted the new fangled jacketed bullets. Saying that lead was the only way to go.

Well, concerning powder coated bullets,, after having cast & shot thousands & thousands of cast & lubed over the years, as well as trying powder coated bullets in these last several years,,, I can tell you,, it is an improvement (in my opinion) over traditional lubed ones. If the idea of color bothers you,, you can get them in a "gray" color to look like traditional lead too.
They do not attract dirt & debris. they load w/o the mess of lube. When shooting, they do not have the smoke from burning lube, (this is important if speed is necessary.) And in general, they do not dirty the barrel as much, all while giving slightly higher velocities in most loads. A lot of us who have switched to coated bullets have also noticed a slight increase in accuracy.

Powder coating became very popular due to the need for less expensive options for volume shooters while the ammo shortage was in place. Plated bullets do the same thing,, but cost a bit more. Shooters can be cost frugal types, and prefer lower expenses when shooting. Some of the benefits of PCed bullets were just a bonus to many. And, as things were tried & experimented with among a lot of different shooters,, ideas on them got refined to where coated bullets are here to stay.

One of my personal side benefits of using colored bullets,, is that I cast & PC my own. It allows me to color code calibers. I can easily grab a box & know what caliber I picked up just by the color of the bullet. When you play with different calibers a lot,, sometimes this is a benefit. And, if you really want to take that a bit further,, you can get different tones of the same color to refine your choices. (Say a light blue for .38 spl, while a dark blue for .357.)

I'm NOT bashing anyone for not using coated bullets,, just offering observations of their use & benefits I have discovered. Coated bullets are here to stay, and I welcome them.
I had just gotten 10 more tubes of Veral Smith's blue lube when I tried PCing some bullets about 4-5 years ago. I still have those same 10 tubes of lube.

My 38S&W's are redish colored, but my 32 Wad cutters are bronze colored-- dont matter to me one bit. Looking forward to my next order. I pretty much quit Expert when I got a batch pf oversized 9mm bullets and got NO response when I mentioned it to them. Their loss. Not that they care. :roll:

You won't get that "No Response!" Kind of service with Missouri Bullets. I had them to resize a box of .357's to .358" dia. Took about 15 mins. Good company to deal with.

Mus408 said:

Timely topic...I just cracked open a new box of the red .44's today!
I load them moderately with 9.5 gr. of Unique for my SBH and my new Henry .44 Mag Carbine.
They shoot great and the barrels look like you just cleaned them!

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If you shoot Unique and after shooting, your barrels look like you just cleaned them, then you need to get a LOT better at cleaning your barrels! :mrgreen:

In seriousness, 9.5 grains of Unique behind a 240 grain bullet is a close to max load, with most manuals listing 10-10.2 grains as max with a 1.610 COAL. That means you're up there in pressure which is why it isn't pig-filthy. Unique can be clean, but it takes rifle pressures to do so.

Back on topic, I shoot MBC's coated bullets in my .44 SRH and they do very well, loaded anywhere from sedate to full-power. The color of the coating appears to be dependent on the BHN of the bullets. The 18 BHN "Magnum" loads are a reddish purple while the 12 BHN "Cowboy" loads are an orange-yellow. I have only used the reddish 18 BHN bullets as according to a bunch of sources, the 12 BHN bullets are really best when kept to the black powder pressure levels of <16k PSI. I use higher pressure loads with faster powders so they "clean up" a bit, so I've only ever used the red-coated bullets.

They may have recently changed colors, but as of 8 weeks ago, that's the colors they were using.

I've shot some of their .45 Express-Grooveless .452 Diameter 215 Grain in the past few months. They are like a fat semi-wadcutter. The front is about the size of a .38. They have fed well in several 1911s. Mine are black coated. I've weighed quite a few and most are coming in closer to 210 grains. I'm a fan of them.

Cholo said:

I guess I'll be the last man who resists shooting painted bullets

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No, I'm still there with you. I know it works, many with lots of cast bullet experience, like Sixshot/Dick are using them with great success. And I'm not too old to learn new tricks (I'm "only" 60), but I've been doing it on the luber/sizer for a long time, it works fine for me, and I like the look of my shiny hard lead bullets . I guess I'm still at the "it ain't broke so I'm not gonna fix it" stage.

That said I have been using the tumble lube method for .45 acp bullets, shot as cast from a Lee six cavity mold. So maybe I'll come around to "painted" bullets someday, too. It's all good.

I have only loaded jacketed or cast lead and lubed.
I may have to try the coated bullets.

They sell sample packages. You can load a small amount to try. I have killed deer with their 240 Elmer coated with a Super Blackhawk. Good accuracy, too.