Alox... Clean it up or let it smoke

[gwilliams2]

Just curious, who cleans the excess Alox off thier boolits after thier all set in the case and who (like me) just sends them down range as is? I love the smell of burning alox in the air at the range, not to mention the smoke... :Fire: :) At one time I was a little concerned about "gumming up the works" with the excess, but haven't seen that as a problem yet...

[WallyM3]

gw2, are you talking about liquid Alox?

[gwilliams2]

Yep, liquid Alox.

[mpmarty]

After tumble lubing mine twice I shake them around in some motor mica to kill the stickies and just shoot them.

[Shiloh]

I shoot them as is.

[MilSurpFan]

I use them as-is. All I do is make sure they stay clean.

[John Guedry]

Guess I'm the odd guy I wipe 'em off with mineral spirits on a rag.

[trk]

After tumble lubing mine twice I shake them around in some motor mica to kill the stickies and just shoot them.

Same, only with one thin coat of LLA.

[Gohon]

I clean mine off with carb cleaner or mineral spirits. After seeing how the seater die gets gummy I can just imagine what the tube of a tube fed rifle would look like. One would also think some rimless cartridges could also possible be affected.

[chris in va]

I'd like to spend the time cleaning off the boolits, but considering I have something like 600 sitting in my box, it would be quite a task. I just shoot them as-is, but now realize just a THIN coating of LLA is all I need. Before I was gooping the junk on there straight from the bottle and it was really messing up my seating/crimp die.

[miestro_jerry]

I coat mine with mica dust that I get from Midway.

Jerry

[steg]

I clean mine by placing them in an old towel, and a sprinkle of mineral spirits, pick up the towel an end in each hand, the cartridges will form the towel into a sort of a sack, raise one hand while lowering the other, back and forth. I usually do around 20 or so reps, and then into a catch container, it gets every speck of ALOX off the cartridge, and it's easy as all heck to do, Depending on the size of the cartridge, you can do a bunch at one time,and following batches only require a small dose of mineral spirits to get the next batch going.................steg

[timkelley]

Send em downrange.

[mpmarty]

I clean mine by placing them in an old towel, and a sprinkle of mineral spirits, pick up the towel an end in each hand, the cartridges will form the towel into a sort of a sack, raise one hand while lowering the other, back and forth. I usually do around 20 or so reps, and then into a catch container, it gets every speck of ALOX off the cartridge, and it's easy as all heck to do, Depending on the size of the cartridge, you can do a bunch at one time,and following batches only require a small dose of mineral spirits to get the next batch going.................steg

The danger with this method is chemical penetration of the primer and subsequent misfires.

[Gohon]

Just spray or pour some cleaner on a rag and wipe the exposed bullet clean. Only takes 10-12 minutes to clean a 100 rounds.

[HangFireW8]

The danger with this method is chemical penetration of the primer and subsequent misfires.

Penetration? By what, LLA or mineral spirits? I would think MS would evaporate before you even got it loaded. LLA is no threat.

Are you aware of the testing done a few years back on primers? Primers soaked for months in WD40, gun oil, etc fired 100%. The tester had to hose the priming pellet out with carb cleaner until it was dissolved away before he could get a primer to fail.

Today's primers are not 1930's.

-HF

[steg]

I never had a mis-fire doing it that way, and I've been doing it since the mid 70's.......steg

[Jon]

I just shoot them. I find they aren't all that sticky if you take it easy on the alox.

[jonk]

If I want my bullets to look pretty, I use my lube-sizer.

If I want convenience I tumble them.

The beauty of tumble lubing is speed and ease. If I got an accuracy improvement by wiping them I would.

I don't.

It takes 2-3 minutes to clean the feed ramp or seater die of any built up alox.

I agree, it takes 10-12 minutes to wipe down 100 coated bullets.

2-3 minutes is less than 10-12.

Why on God's green earth would I make all that extra work for myself?

[44man]

If the lube smokes, it is burning in the bore leaving ash.

[putteral]

Just shoot mine too. Like said it only takes a little while to clean the die.

[Gohon]

Why on God's green earth would I make all that extra work for myself?

Why on God's green earth do you consider it work? Besides, every time you stop to clean the die you have to go through all the trouble of properly adjusting the seating depth again.

[lwknight]

Just shoot em and smoke em. I can't tell that it hurts a thing and the smoke is kinda cool anyway.