I'm a John Deere green man myself but the misses likes pink & what the misses wants, the misses gets.
If you truly want to learn something you should do both lube & pc. Cast up a pile of bullets & lube 1/2 of them and pc the other 1/2. Same alloy/same sizer/reloader/firearm/etc. Do ladder tests using 4 or 5 different powders with lubed VS pc'd bullets. Test all the lubed bullets 1st & save the targets to compare with the pc'd bullets targets. Take a god look at the firearm being used & clean it and write down what it took to clean the firearm and save the patches, towels, wadding, etc. After reloading the lubed bullets clean you reloading dies. When shooting pay attention to which bullet put smoke in the air. Do the same thing with the pc'd bullets, clean the dies after reloading them. Clean the firearm after shooting the pc'd bullets. Compare the targets for accuracy. Hopefully you have a chronograph to run the lubed VS pc'd bullets over. It's a real eye opener & will tell you how good your alloy/lube/powder combo really is.
Much of the differences obtained by using the two methods can be ascertained by applying simple logic.
Accuracy- There's not much point to ladder tests because if traditionally sized and lubed Bullet A will shoot 4" 50 yd. groups out of a given revolver, adding any kind of coating to the bullet simply cannot make that bullet more accurate. In fact, odds are the bullet will likely be
less accurate because with powder coating (Hi-Tek coating excluded) there's no means by which to apply the coating evenly on all sides. Conversely, if a cast bullet is inaccurate in a given firearm, adding a coating won't help it be more accurate. An exception would be in the case of undersize bullets, which are typically inaccurate. In theory one could PC them to add a few thousands to the diameter, thus rendering them the proper diameter.
Cleaning- I presume you're referring to the potential for leading with traditionally lubed/sized bullets. There's no need to clean your firearms and analyze patches, etc. If you're using a reasonable alloy and sizing your bullets properly, there will be no leading. Sizing to the proper diameter is an important part of using cast bullets and is evidenced by the litany of different diameter sizing dies available.
Dies- Yes, inevitably some lube is going to end up in a seating die. Over 20 or so years of using lubed cast bullets, I had never given much thought to cleaning out my dies other than every few hundred rounds I'd check them and clean, if necessary. So when the anti-lube crowd being using lube in the die as a reason to PC because not having to clean the die would save time, I decided to see just how long it would take. On two separate occasions when I was loading .38 Specials, in hurry at all I screwed the die out of the press, ran the seating stem out of the die, put a patch in a loop on a cleaning and spritzed it with carb cleaner, swabbed out the die body, wiped off the stem, reassembled and reinstalled the die and checked my watch. Both times took about 90 seconds.
Smoke- This is the one that makes me scratch my head and another I had never noticed. Several years ago I shot High Power competition on the reduced course at a local range. I competed strictly with cast bullets. Our 100 yd. range is very narrow being about 60' wide and surrounded on both sides and the far end by a 15' tall berms, there was virtually no wind. Our 100 yd. targets were buff colored with 6" black bulls. If ever smoke would obscure a target, that certainly would've been the perfect situation for it. But not once did that ever happen nor did any of the competitors on the line with me ever mention smoke from my loads.
Well if you're stupid enough to stand there while it's baking it will take more time. Myself and most bullet casters can multi-task. Do things like sizing bullets or casting bullets while it's baking.
Fella, no matter how you spin and twist this, coating is simply a slower process. Even excluding the baking time, if you're following Hi-Tek's instructions, it's not a 35 second process. From their site-
6....You can speed up the drying process by using a fan to blow onto the bullets, but don’t rush it; the bullets need to be fully dried before they are baked.
8. Once the bullets are baked take them out and let them cool fully before the next application of coating....
9. Repeat the process (usually two coats will do, but feel free to experiment) until the coating completely covers the bullet....
And when you reach this point you still haven't sized your bullets. That's why companies like MBC charge more for coated bullets; there are extra steps involved in the coating process. At non-bulk prices it takes less than $1.00 worth of coating liquid to coat 500 .45 caliber bullets, yet 500 coated bullets are $5.00 per box more than lubed bullets..
If you like to multi-task in your reloading room, I support you in that. But I find it much, much more efficient to do things in large batches. I cast in large batches, I size/lube in large batches, I prep cases in large batches and I load ammunition in large batches. Heck, if I had the means to coat thousands and thousands of bullets at once, I might very possibly do Hi-Tek, in large batches of course.
PC or coat to your hearts content, but flatly presenting it as somehow superior to traditional lubing and sizing is incorrect. It's an alternative. Period.
35W