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Recently acquired a large number of .308 cast rifle bullets.
They were made a long time ago.
Any advice on how to clean the years of corrosion off them,
other than scrub each one individually by hand?
Has anyone had any experience with this dilemma?
Thanks
If it were me, I'd melt them down and cast them again. A couple of years ago, I acquired about 30lbs of 120gr .30 cal (M1 Carbine) that a guy cast a gazillion years ago. He had sized and lubed them but stored in an open container in his garage and then forgot about them. When he "rediscovered" them, they were covered in dust/dirt/sawdust/etc. the most simple solution (for me) was to smelt then recast.
Semper Fi
I appreciate your advice but I'll probably resize and lube them as they measure .311
I was just wondering if anyone had been in this situation and resolved it easily
If they are crunchy I would melt them and recast.
Melt and recast.
I have boiled smaller batches (several hundred at a time) of boolits in water with a little dish soap added to remove old lube. The lube floats to the top and can be skimmed off. Not knowing how many your "large number" is, I would say do this in batches, or simply remelt them.
Thanks, Guys. I appreciate your experience in these matters.
I will try a bit of all of the recommendations and see what works best in this case.
If I can utilize their design it will be to my advantage as my molds do not drop the weight of bullets that my buddy's grandfather's did.
I've washed them in gasoline (yes, I know the hazard), put them on an old towel in the sun to dry and then run them through a sizer and lubed them. Got a bunch of SWC .38s in cardboard tubes one time that the lube has melted out and I didn't have a SWC mould at the time and that's how I handled them./beagle
Ditto to what beagle wrote -- I've done exactly the same thing, 'cept I put them on a window screen (same screen I put pin-tumbled, wet brass on to dry) instead of a towel. (Bullets were my own castings I had in garage, and then -- oops -- did some routing, sawing, and sanding)
geo
Another option might be to powder coat them? I have lots of boolits that were cast years ago (mostly for pistol calibres) that now have light oxidation on them. I tumbled them in my vibrating tumbler with black plastic Air Soft BB's and a tablespoon of PC powder and then baked them as per usual. I got terrific results and they shoot great. I've resurrected a lot of them using that method now ...