Cleanning Bullets

[joeatact]

After you set the bullet in the case can you clean off the lube that is on the exposed bullet?

Joe

[Jim]

Welcome aboard, Joe! Pull up a chair and make y'self at home.

Can as in able? Certainly! A piece of soft cloth with a bit of mineral spirits on it and the lube will come right off.

Can as in should? That's a can of worms, no pun intended. I have round nose boolits I load in .44 Special. I clean the lube off those. I also have some hammer head boolits with a nose that has the bullet diameter sticking out the case. I don't clean the lube off them 'cause I want that full diameter to be lubed. I have some .30 caliber rifle bullets that I don't clean the lube off of for the same reason.

This could go on, ad infinitum. Time for the next poster to chime in with why and why not.

[fredj338]

I'll wipe down ammo used in competitionbecause it sometimes hits the dirt & dirt & lube make a mess I don't want to feed back into muy gun. A rag alone or w/ a bit of ms works, just twist & box em.

[fryboy]

can you ? yes ... should you ? unless a bore rider or a full diamter ( as mentioned ) yes , if there's any chance of getting dirt in/on the lube ? most certainly . do you have to ? no sir , if a tumble lube and dry non-tacky ( such as with recluse's recipe or rooster labs ) it's not needed , for regular lube yes you should , again all my humble opinion and your mileage may vary
indeed welcome to the forum ! there is a whole lot of knowledge ( big understatement lolz ) and knowledgeable people here , quite often the search function can be a new member's best friend ( albeit results may vary with keywords used ;) )

[mdi]

I like to wipe all my finished reloads as I put them in the box, final inspection (and I'm kinda anal about pretty ammo). Depending on the lube I'll use either a plain paper towel or in the case of xlox a rag dampened w/mineral spirits. I usually box my reloads or put 'em in plastic zip-lok bags and 99% of the time they won't get dirty/gritty before they're shot...

But PLEEEEEZE! let's not get into the tumbling live ammo debate, again...

[WHITETAIL]

joeatact, Welcome to the forum.
You can wipe off your boolits before
you store them.
I do for most of my boolits.
But when I coat the boolits with JPW
I leave the dry lube on.:castmine:

[Sonnypie]

I clean the bases before I load them.
And I clean the noses before I load them.
I try to avoid loob in my powder.
And I don't like loob building up in my seating dies.

Plus I don't see any reason to loob the holes in the targets. A clean boolit makes a hole just like one with goo on the tip.

Ready to load:

http://home.earthlink.net/~pie/Sonny%27s/Boolit%20Gloob/california_nut-loobed_boolits.JPG

And why I don't like loob on the noses:

http://home.earthlink.net/~pie/Sonny%27s/PB270044.JPG

And that's what works for me, currently. :mrgreen:

Oh, and yeah, I wipe mine down afterwords with a solvent damped rag. Extra work, extra quality.

[DLCTEX]

Properly prepared and applied 45/45/10 tumble lube will dry hard, leave no sticky residue, will not gum up dies or contaminate powder or collect dirt or debris. But for the anal, a rag with mineral spirits will wipe it off.

[williamwaco]

Properly prepared and applied 45/45/10 tumble lube will dry hard, leave no sticky residue, will not gum up dies or contaminate powder or collect dirt or debris. But for the anal, a rag with mineral spirits will wipe it off.



Ditto.

And I don't even use the 10. I use 70/30 - LLA/Mineral spirits.
( And yes, the White Label Liquid-Xlox is 100 percent functionally identical to the LLA and a lot less expensive. )


Merry Christmas.






.
And yes, I do wipe off the rifle loads, but hot the handgun loads.


.

[Bullwolf]

I guess I am a bit anal too. I often clean lube off the bases of my tumble lubed boolits, although I have skipped doing it before, and other than a little more smoke the load will still function just fine.

I like to put all my finished loads in a loading block, or in a Styrofoam or plastic ammo box insert to stand them all up before I clean the lube off of the noses of the loaded boolits.

I use mineral spirits, or lately just a bit of plain old Baby Oil on a paper towel. A couple quick swipes and the noses are all clean while the boolits are all standing up in the block. It's easier to see the boolits with the lube removed, and it also gives me one more chance to inspect the quality of my cast boolits, crimps, etc.

I find that the baby oil is easier on the nose (it has a much nicer smell if you are indoors) and it works just as well as mineral spirits.


- Bullwolf

[joeatact]

Many thanks for all the good suggestions

Joe

[jonk]

The time spent cleaning out a seater is minor compared to the time spent wiping lube off thousands of bullets.

Not that it is a problem for me often, maybe once a year for the calibers I load for often.

As for exposed lube on grooves above the case mouth, as I put the loaded rounds in sealed boxes after loading, no chance for dirt contamination and so i leave it.

[MikeS]

When I load boolits that are conventionally lubed I tend to wipe the exposed portion of boolit sticking out of the case to remove excess lube. When I load tumble lubed boolits I rarely bother removing the excess lube from them. Unlike most folks, I find the tumble lubed boolits actually cleaner to load than conventionally lubed ones. But then I normally use either NRA 50/50 or something like it that's just a bit firmer, and they tend to be messy when storing boolits in bulk, much more so than tumble lubed boolits are.