Pdogs and load development with HBN

[toasty]

I've had the chance to hunt pdogs a couple times with HBN coated bullets after an intensive fall, winter, and spring of load development. Thought I would chime in and share my experiences.

I coat my own bullets using a harbor freight tumbler, it is easy, inexpensive, and takes about 2 hours to coat 100 bullets and they are uniform. I have seen no degradation in groups on clean bores using HBN. I will say that if you don't coat the bore, it takes 10+ shots to calm the gun down using just HBN bullets. With a coated bore, I feel like the gun is ready to go after a single fouler for some guns, but one of my guns likes 3 shots to settle down. I coat the bore with an alchohol HBN suspension. Coat the bore, let it dry for 30 minutes and run 3 or 4 tight patches down the bore to try to burnish the HBN in the bore. Shoot a single shot and you're ready to go.

My primary goal in moving to HBN was to extend accuracy of shot strings between cleanings. I've got a very accurate 243 win that shoots lights out for 20 rounds and then groups open up 2x or 3x from 20 shots to 50 shots and is unusable for pdogs after about 40 rounds. My 204 maintains good accuracy for longer, I can get 40 or 50 rounds before it starts to open up. This is a problem when I am shooting 100+ rounds each day out of each gun. When hunting, I don't want to stop for cleaning and won't haul around my cleaning chemicals.

My 243, shoots a .3" group at 100 for the first 20 shots, well I just finished off a 76 round day with it, hit a couple dogs at 400-500 yards in the last 10 rounds out of the gun. Got it home and printed a 3 shot group of .45" at 100 yards. I couldn't begin to do that before HBN. I ran 90 rounds through the 204 ruger and printed a 10 shot .6 moa group (.850") at 100 yards at a target at the end of the day.

In conclusion, Running HBN is a little bit of a pain. You have to coat bullets, after a thorough cleaning, you have to coat the bore. It does not improve accuracy on a clean bore, but doesn't hurt accuracy on a clean bore. It may reduce the heat in a barrel on long shot strings a little, but not enough that I can say that conclusively. It will change your velocity, decreased velocity in the 204, but increase velocity in the 243 win and 260 rem. Where is really shines, in 3 of my rifles, it definitely increases the duration of accuracy between cleaning. It has extended accuracy in one of guns by at least 3x the number of shots. For high volume shooting where accuracy is needed, I would highly recommend.

[tuck2]

What is HBM ? Who sells it ? What does it cost to coat 100 Bullets? What does Harber Freight charge for a tumbler ?

[toasty]

What is HBM ? Who sells it ? What does it cost to coat 100 Bullets? What does Harber Freight charge for a tumbler ?

Hexagonal Boron Nitride - It is a white powder lubricant from around 100nm to 5 microns in size.

You can buy it from david tubbs (he was one of the HBN pioneers), but you can get it off of ebay as well for about $10/.4oz.

1oz of HBN will coat between 5,000-10,000 bullets, which equate to about a dime for 100 bullets.

Harbor freight tumbler is $39, but they have a 25% off coupons, so getting it for about $30 is the norm.

[tuck2]

Thanks for the info.