Moly coating bullets

[jcw1970]

I was on Midway looking for a tumbler and saw a Lyman Moly coating kit. Can some explain this to me? What does this do?

[docone31]

Moly coating is designed to make it harder to get good bullets. You get to spend a lot of time cleaning.

[jhalcott]

Moly is SUPPOSED to give better accuracy and less pressure. There have been several such products in the past. Tetra was one. I have tried some of them with varing results. There are stories about moly building up in the bore, others SWEAR that isn't possible. I know it causes less barrel heat for the same number of fired rounds(LESS pressure/friction?) I know it takes a few rounds to get the accuracy back. It also takes a few grains MORE powder to get the velocity up to where it was PRIOR to moly. SO FAR I haven't had any damage to a firearm from using moly, but it does take a lot of time to do molying correctly. If you do not use the wax, your hands and anything that touches the bullets will be blackened.

[Scrounger]

There are other ways. And my observations indicate that cleaning a rifle is easier, not harder. The moly coats your barrel and prevents copper from getting to it so there is no good reason to remove it, just push the powder fouling out and you're ready for your next shooting session. Look, the pro/anti moly thing makes as much sense as the Ford/Chevvy debate. I have read quite a few reports from match shooters who used moly for months on end without cleaning their barrels, we're talking 1000-1500 rounds; I have fired as many as 500 rounds in a day's varmint shooting without so much as pushing a dry brush through the bore without a lessening of accuracy. I think the anti-moly crowd just likes to see bright shiny bores instead of gray ones. Don't take what I say as gospel and don't believe anyone else either. Find out for yourself. When you start shooting it, it will take 5 to 10 shots to get your bore coated evenly; if you decide to quit using it, just shoot 10 uncoated jacketed bullets through it and it will clean out all the moly and replace it with copper which you will now have to clean more often. Now coating the bullets: You can buy another tumbler drum or bowl to use exclusively with moly, be sure to keep the lid tightened down, the stuff is insideous and will get into the air and everuwhere else. Or you can get a large plastic pill bottle, seal your bullets and a half teaspoon of moly in it, and just put it in your tumbler and run it a couple of hours (makes a lot of noise this way). You will need some sort of screening device (I use a kitchen strainer I picked up at a garage sale for a quarter) to separate the bullets from the moly which you will re-use. Dump the bullets on an old T-shirt or cloth and roll them around for a few minutes to remove the unbonded moly. That's it, you're ready to load. Give it a try and shoot at least a hundred rounds to disprove the cleaning myth.

[shooterg]

For lead boolits, I don't think I'd consider it. For jacketed rifle bullets, I like it(and G. David Tubb does pretty good with it !). The wax coat does make 'em nicer to handle - my guns using moly have never seen a brush, just patches and Kroil. Either naked or moly exceed my hold anyway !

[leftiye]

How about mixing the moly powder with powdered mica (so that you don't get too much moly), and just rolling your lubed boolits in it?

[shooterg]

The moly is really supposed to become impregnated into the surface - and 1/4 teaspoon or less is all I need for several hundred jacketed bullets ! So rolling 'em in it would use up a lot of it and I'm not sure it would accomplish anything.

[madsenshooter]

I've tumbled cast bullets with steel shot. Used the spray moly, slapped the lid on and ran it for about an hour. The bullets were well coatedand the moly was bonded to them, but I lost a little in the diameter department, about .002 if I remember right. You could experiment with the time. It was my first experiment with it, and I haven't gotten back to it.