Bullet lube removal

[BRIARPATCH]

Howdy folks,
I'm sort of a newbie. Been reading for awhile but just now getting serious and have a question. I have some bullets with old hardened lube on them and as they are of a size I don't have a use for would like to clean the lube from them and melt down for reuse.
Is there a way for doing this easier than working on them with a wire brush.
Thanks and I'm sure I'll be back for more.

[jcwit]

Place in tin can with some gasoline and let soak for a few hours the spread out on newspaper to dry then melt down. Personally I'd just melt them with the lube on them and make ingots.

[wheelgunner]

Put them on a wire rack over a tray and put them in a WARM, not hot, oven and melt the lube out into the lower pan.

[Naphtali]

Following up the question, has anyone attempted to run hard lubed bullets, having old dried up lubricant, through a lubrisizer again to replace any lost original lubricant? Would dried up wax/beeswax-based lubricants found on commercially cast bullets be detrimental to accuracy when coexisting with newly inserted lubricant?

[454PB]

Welcome to the forum!

Place the boolits in a pot of water, raise the temperature until the lube releases. The lube will float to the top where it can be skimmed off.

[shotman]

just melt them an get rid of sizer Lee is the only way to size These old farts are from the 30s rick

[454PB]

A least us old farts know punctuation.

[cajun shooter]

Put them on a cookie sheet at 200 degrees in the oven for 30 minutes. Then relube with lube of your choice. Oh by the way, let them cool first!

[twidget]

I put the bullets on a paper towel and use a heat gun to melt the lube. It takes only a couple of minutes to, and then throw the towel in the trash. Just my 2¢.

[unclebill]

A least us old farts know punctuation.

that was funny!:drinks:

[BRIARPATCH]

[smilie=2:
I've gotta get goin' now to see if I actually have enough boolits to try out all those methods you've suggested.
I really appreciate the response and I see a couple there that I'm going to try perhaps today. I like the gasoline suggestion, that sounds like they'd clean up pretty easily.
If I go ahead and melt down w/o delubing, the lube can just be skimmed off right?
Thanks again for the great info.

[cajun shooter]

The lube then becomes your flux. Do you think that gasoline will not crep into the pores of the soft lead? You could end up in the briarpatch if exposed to a spark!

[Echo]

DON'T do the gasoline bit! I like the 'heat 'em in water' bit (but not in wifey's best pot) or just throw them in the pot and let the lube be flux. Smoky, but you can light the smoke and get rid of it and a lot of the attendant aroma.

[Jon K]

My favorite flux.............old boolits w/lube, just toss one in the pot every so often, stir & skim.

Jon

[Naphtali]

Water "solving" appears to be easy to accomplish. What happens to any heat treat when bullet is heated to 200 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes?

[jcwit]

Good grief cagun shooter I stated to let them DRY, of course you shouldn't try to melt them down while wet with gas. Further more "pores in the lead" yeh they'll hold lots of gasoline. Is this something like the pores in the steel? Maybe we have pores in glass, is that what fogs up the lenses? Oh well I've used this method on 1,000 of bullets & will continue, I stand a greater risk going to and from the range. Ever try to burn off LLA, makes a total mess in the pot.

[Kraschenbirn]

Oddly enough, after reading the beginning of this thread this morning, I came across something like (150) lubed (50/50 Alox) and sized 358156s that are, at least, 18-20 years old. Lube was dried, hard as a rock, and embedded with accumulated dust. Tried Twidget's suggestion of using heat gun and rolling boolits on a paper shop towel. Worked slicker'n snot on a doorknob!!

Thanks for the tip.

Bill