ammunitionIn follow-up to this question, what is the purpose of the various coatings places on ammunition?
There seem to be a variety, but I haven’t seen the “whys” beyond marketing gimmicks (though I’m sure there must be some).
The coatings that you refer to are only put on the actual casing of the ammunition, not the bullet itself.
If you buy brass cased ammo, it will usually have no coating on it because brass is not prone to rust and corrosion like steel is. Some brass cased ammo is nickle plated, which is done because it supposedly makes the casings stronger and better for feeding in the weapon.
CCI manufactures ammunition that uses an aluminum casing, which may or may not have some sort of coating. The main type of ammunition that has a coating is steel cased ammo. This is because steel rusts when exposed to moisture and oxygen and the easiest way to prevent this is to cover the steel casing in some sort of “coating”, the two most common being either lacquer or zinc washed.
Lacquer coated casings can be a little greasier feeling to the touch, but zinc washed casings feel just like brass ones when you handle them.
I have shot various forms of all ammunition in the a fore mentioned cases and have never had a single problem with any of them. I have also found many cases of steel cased ammo cached away for years when searching houses in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and when you open them up the ammo still looks bran new! So the coatings do work well.
All content is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.