Anyone thought about adding moly to lead

[joel0407]

Unsure on what the results may be. The original thought was to create a more slippery bullet. First after seeing the youtube thing about a home made lube mix using some STP oil additive, I thought why not add moly or try some other additive. Then I thought why not add it to the lead whilst its moltent.

I know moly is added to barrel steel to make it more rigid and harded so maybe I might get a similar effect to lead bullet.

Any one tried it or suggestions of what the outcome might be?

I wont be trying real soon. I'm still trying to find a mould.

[odoh]

Did cross my mind when recycling some no longer needed Moly treated slugs into the melt. W/exception of unusual dross to skim off, nothing else unusual seem to come to my attn. Perhaps a metallurgist/chemist will jump in here (and tell me how deadly/toxic the fumes are).

[44man]

Too slippery can be no good.

[Glen]

Molybdenum disulfide (the "moly" used for lubrication) probably isn't soluble in molten lead, and therefore wouldn't disperse, and would just float on top of the melt, and have no impact on the bullets cast of that metal. Given the thermal stability reported for MoS2, I doubt there are any significant toxic fumes.

As for "moly" in barrel steel, that is molybdenum metal (not the disulfide). Molybdenum metal alloys very nicely with iron, and adds some very desirable properties to the alloy, but given Mo's atomic radius, electronegativity, and high melting point, I suspect that it wouldn't alloy well at all with Pb.

[cabezaverde]

Yeah, what Glen said.

[joel0407]

Thanks Glen.

Do you think Molybdenum disulfide could be stirred into the lead or would it seperate imediatly. (How heavy is the solid)

[rhead]

The MOS2 would sit on the top of the melt and slowly become MO O2 as it slowly gave of Sulfur dioxide. If it was hot enough to decompose faster the SO2 would stink and irritate the eyes, nose and lungs. If it was fast enough to be a health problem you would be aware of it.
There isn't any easy way to get it into solution and probably no advantage to it if you could.

[Potsy]

Just spitballing, but you probably could moly coat a cast bullet. Size it, then moly coat it, then run it back into the sizing press to lube it. It would already by sized so you wouldn't have to worry about the moly rubbing off in the die.
I'm sure there's some cast boolit illness it could cure, just not sure what it is. You might be able to drive a softer alloy a little faster than normal or some such (pure lead GC'ed bullets @ 2000 fps out of my .45-70?).
I tried moly in my .25-06 with j-bullets, seemed like more trouble than it was worth.

[MakeMineA10mm]

That's all Bear Creek Supply does. They make cast boolits and then moly-coat them. Looks like there is no sizing or lubing involved. They sell their boolits cheap, but it's no where near as cheap as doing them yourself, and I'm not sure moly-coating on cast boolits will solve 100% of the lubrication needs...

[joel0407]

Thank for the replys. Looks like I'll be coating after I cast then.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

[joel0407]

That's all Bear Creek Supply does. They make cast boolits and then moly-coat them. Looks like there is no sizing or lubing involved. They sell their boolits cheap, but it's no where near as cheap as doing them yourself, and I'm not sure moly-coating on cast boolits will solve 100% of the lubrication needs...

I will still be lubing boolits with the melt the lub and poor into a tin with bullets standing up way. After I moly coat.

Thanks.

[stubshaft]

Years ago (back in the day) Brownells used to sell a moly coating kit for cast boolits. You dunked the boolits in a solution where moly was held in suspension and then dried them off using some kind of strainer/drying thingee (technical term). I used it for 38 Wadcutters and it worked great but it was fairly spendy (economic term). Probably what Bear Creek is using.

[joel0407]

I use MOS2 as an additive to my car (in oil) and I have been thinking of adding it to my bore oil or maybe I could just add it to the Wax lub.

I am moly mad but trying to become HbN crazy due to its higher temp ability but its hard to get here in Australia.

[Tom W.]

Oh yes, if you want to coat a cast bullet, you will still need to lube it.
Back when, a friend of mine called and told me to bring over some cast boolits for my .45 acp, and he'd moly coat them. It was the newest and greatest thing since popcorn. I was told that no, I didn't have to lube them, as the moly replaced the lube.

Fool that I am I said O.K.


I loaded up 100 rounds and headed to the range. After about three shots, my Government Model was having a bit of difficulty chambering a round. I bumped the slide and chambered two more, and wasn't hitting the target at all. The next round would not chamber, so I dropped the magazine, ejected the offending round, locked the slide back and just happened to look at the muzzle. It appeared to have silver spaghetti or tinsel coming from it. I put that pistol away, went home and cleaned it ( which took a looooong time) and pulled the rest of my loaded rounds so I could put some LLA on the bullets..


Won't make THAT mistake again...