I have been cleaning out my father's reloading area. He did a lot of casting and I came across a considerable amount of .38 158gr bullets with 4 lube rings. They were lubed with a low temp lube (no heat required to lube bullet). The problem is that they are covered with dust and other dirt and some of the lube is falling off. I was thinking that maybe I could put them in hot water on the furnance and melt the lube but not hurt the bullet. Any ideas would be very helpful as I am not looking foward to remelting and casting them all over again.

You might put them in a cake pan in the oven at 125 degrees or 150 and see if it runs off. Probably smell to beat hell. I wouldn't want to see smoke; the smoke would be flammable. A thought anyway

I'd most likely just use them to flux the pot when I made more bullets.

You might try boiling them. The lube should float, and on cooling be able to be lifted off the water surface. The heat won't hurt a .38 bullet. They aren't going to melt, and a .38 will shoot a dead soft bullet generally.

I use mineral spirits. I put them in an old plastic peanut butter jar and then pour in mineral spirits so it covers them +1/2". Takes about one hour or less of soaking. I then dump the mineral spirits/lube and put the bullets on rags to dry. They come out nice and clean. Orygun

be careful with them even if you melt off all the lube there may be dirt imbedded in the lead that well do dammage to your barrel. Imo there not worth shooting remelt them.

grovere...Once in a while, I have that need. Usually a soak in a 3# coffee can with unleaded gas works followed by a good air dry.

Obviously, the usual safety precautions with the gasoline are in force./beagle