Favorite solvent for cleaning poorly lubed boolits

[DrCaveman]

In my attempts to get the hang of pan lubing, I have generated quite a handful of terrible boolits which will need to be de-lubed then re-lubed.

Needless to say I am using quite a variety of materials within my lube, ranging from ivory soap to beeswax to lithium grease.

So far I have had decent success saturating the bad boolits in liquid wrench penetrating oil, letting sit for a while, then shaking it up until the lube is gone. Then drying out the boolits before attempting a re-lube.

Gasoline worked not quite as well. The LW pen oil is pretty spendy to squirt 2 ounces into a container for adequate saturation/submersion.

What do some of the rest of you use? I am thinking deisel may be a good one, but I don't have any sitting around. Thoughts? Economy here is the main objective.

[Slowpoke]

I think I would just boil them in plain old water.

It works for lube sizers so why not bullets? Never tried it.

good luck

[DrCaveman]

Slowpoke

That is a great idea. So simple that it never entered into my radar, which means it may be the best of all. Since I will surely screw up several more batches this lovely afternoon, I will try it and get back with results. Maybe I will add a tiny bit of soap.

[Larry Gibson]

Coleman fuel.

Larry Gibson

[imashooter2]

I also boil to remove lube. Very efficient.

[williamwaco]

I think I would just boil them in plain old water.

It works for lube sizers so why not bullets? Never tried it.

good luck

+1 Add some 409 if you have it.

[imashooter2]

The best part of boiling is that you can recover the lube off the surface when the water cools.

[mdi]

A lot of folks will boil them to melt off the old/bad lube, but 'cause I have a toaster oven handy I bake mine. I'll fold up two or three thickneesses of paper towel and set the bullets on it in a pan. Bake at 175 degrees or so until lube has melted off and paper towel has absorbed it. And no, the paper towel does not flare up/catch fire. I bought 500 bullets from a feller in Arizona that had stumbled on some cast bullets stored in a shed for quite a while. Summer heat had made a mess if the lube and I got them real cheap. Melted off the lube in my toaster oven, relubed, and shot every one...

[btroj]

Mine just got back in the pot.

[Blammer]

I use my smelter.

[boltons75]

Set in a metal pan and place on the hot plate, melts the lube right off.

Always carry, never tell.

[geargnasher]

I use my smelter.

That or the casting pot. Adding a handful of culls from the can I keep behind the luber/sizers is a good way to conveniently do a quick de-drossing in the middle of a casting session without searching for a pill of lube or dealing with sawdust.

Gear

[Lloyd Smale]

yup its probably less work in the long run

Mine just got back in the pot.

[largom]

Boil in water or heat in oven, but I would never put them in a can of solvent and shake them around, Too many dents and scrapes. In all honesty I would just melt them down and recast, good practice.

Larry

[DrCaveman]

Largom

That is my de facto response at all times, since I really like casting. I was trying to make best use of my single cavity cast 358429s because they do take a while to build up with a SC mould. So I broke my rule. But I have found the trimmings from pan/dip lubing to be pretty good alloy flux material. I didn't find any dents in the boolits I shook free of lube, but they were pretty cooled by that time.

In my first 6 months of casting, I have deposited probably 200 boolits to my remelt container (made up of my recovered shooting lead and pulled bullets) strictly because the lubing sucked. So I generally do agree with you. But it is still handy to remove lube from nice boolits without scrapping them.

Lube dipping instead of pan lubing has already reduced this problem to the point of infrequent inconvenience for me. I would recommend anyone with a similar need to try dip lubing their next time out.