I've gotten tired of taking copper out of the bores of my rifles (using something like half a dozen applications of Sweets after every shooting session!), and have decided that I should switch to using only moly coated bullets.

What's the best way to do the moly coating? I've been looking at the system that Midway has in their catalog. If I understand it correctly, this uses a case tumbler to do the coating. Is this a good way to do it? How long does it take to do this, and is some medium needled along with the moly coating?

[ 11-24-2002, 18:24: Message edited by: LE270 ]

If you are experiencing heavy jacket fouling it is likely caused by a rough bore. Moly really will not help much in a bore with excessive tooling marks.
Some rifles jacket foul heavier when new and just need a little shooting with regular cleaning in between. Others will continually foul.
Rather than spend the money and time moly coating your own bullets, just buy a couple of boxes of moly coated bullets. Hornady and Sierra have lots of them. This would be the easiest way to determine if moly will help resolve your fouling problem.
VH

Although you will get fouling, it comes out easier when using moly coated bullets. If the fouling is still not to your liking though, try firelapping the bore. That will smooth it out.

If you eventually migrate to doing your own moly coating, NECO has a kit which I believe uses ball bearings with moly added. You use them in a tumbler. My kit from Moly Bore (I have no idea if they are still in business) uses micro glass beads with moly added. It produces a nice even coat and the glass beads help protect the bullets as they tumble around. Just make sure you clean and dry the bullets very well beforehand, otherwise you won't get a good coat.

Opinions are divided as to whether or not the carnuba wax is needed. Some maintain that it's only benefit is that it allows you to handle the bullets afterwards without getting moly all over your hands. Others insist it helps in accuracy and bore coating. I have never applied wax to my bullets so I can't comment either way, but I do normally wear latex gloves when handling large numbers of bullets. Regardless, it washes off easily with plain soap and water.

Bottomline is Varmint Hunter's advice was good, go out and try some factory Hornady or Sierra coated bullets and see how you like them. Be prepared to work up your load again because you'll probably need a bit more powder and/or some tighter neck tension with your new loads.

Martindog

LE270,
I use the Midway moly prep system. Actually, tumbler is a misnomer; it just vibrates. You must start out with a perfectly clean bowl--no polish residue. Also it's recommended to use separate bowls for jacketed and cast lead bullets. Dump in a box or two of bullets and about one fourth teaspoon of moly--a little goes a long way--you can always add more as needed.
It's gonna make quite a racket, so leave the area and come back in half an hour. Check to see that they all are thoroughly coated by the uniform dark gray color. That's all that is needed--when the copper color is no longer visible, they're done. Too heavy of a coating is wasted as it gets scraped off during the bullet seating process anyway.
I use this moly process in .224, .257, .308 and .338 calibers. I get more shots between cleanings and much less copper fouling. As mentioned before, the downside is that it takes more powder to achieve the same speed. Not much--but more nevertheless.
I think Shooting Times did a 5 or 10 thousand shot comparison. I can't remember which molycoating process they used--Midway, Neco or factory coated. They didn't find much difference one way or the other in .22-250.

If you want less mess in in your tumbler, put your bullets in a large plastic pill bottle, fill the pill bottle about 1/3 full of BB's. I do about 200 bullets at a time. When I put the bottle in my tumbler it rolls over and over. It just takes a little moly, 1/4 teaspoon or so is plenty. I let it tumble, or roll, for about 2 hrs. The bullets look just like factory coated. I also wash my bullets in hot water and dawn detergent before coating. I'm not sure if you have to do this, but this is what the guys told me to do. I dry the bullets in my oven and put them into the bottle to tumble while they are still warm. I seperate the bullets from the BB's with a pasta strainer. Also you are not supposed to touch the washed bullets with your hands, I don't know about that part either, but I use a big spoon. I use a big vitamin bottle and it works great. If you put it in your tumbler and it won't roll, it is to heavy, take some bullets or BB's out. Hope this helps...BA

Cabela's sells a kit put out by Lymans that has two bowls and ceramic beads. Mine has coated at least 4000 bullets and it still works well. But as stated earlier Sierra makes some very good bullets that you can get already done, it save's alot of time and Moly coated fingers.

Copper fouling in the bore is truly a product of tool marks that have been left in the barrel.
A good explantion of this is at Krieger.com. They go into very good detail why you should break in a barrell a certian way and what happens with copper fouling.

Good luck
Chuck

The best advice I can give is don't. I switched to Combined Technology Silver Tips for this last season and did a month's worth of hunting big game that finished on November 24. I had 3 doe tags, a Colorado Bull tag and a Colorado Mulie tag to fill. The CT bullets have a moly coat. I have NEVER had a barrel rust, but after a few days in the Colorado mountain, I had a nice coating of rust, except it didn't appear to be rust, more like an acid residue. Before anyone jumps on me for starting with a dirty bore, rest assured, that I cleaned the barrel prior to leaving on the hunt until patched cam out clean, then I ran a few more through the bore. I had to run a patch through the barrel at the end of every day to keep the rust out. I'm finished with coated bullets of any kind.

Lloyd, I use a method similar to Bill's except that I use small, babyfood-size Tupperware containers. Four jars in the tumbler, each containing 50 .250" ball bearings, 100 .224 bullets and around five grains (weighed) of moly powder. After you season the jars and the ball bearings, it takes very little moly to achieve nice looking bullets and your tumbler bowl doesn't get mucked up in the process. I dump the jars out on a paper towel, seperate the bearings with tweezers and roll the tumbled bullets around in the paper towel to remove excess moly.

I've used this for probably 10,000 bullets by now and the only lessons I've learned the hard way are to use sufficient moly and let the tumbler run long enough (2 hours).

Makes an awful racket, though. Ensures solitude in the garage sanctuary

Redial

I use a little rock tumbler I picked up in the local Toys'R'Us for about $20. Its called the rolling stones rock tumbler.

I use about 2 cups of regular copperhead BBs that were cleaned in Iso. Alcohol and tumbled with a little bit of moly to impact the moly to the bullets.

Clean your bullets with dishsoap or Iso. Alcohol. Add enough bullets in to nearly fill the tub and let them tumble for about an hour. Separate out the BBs and shake the bullets on some old newspaper to remove the excess. Load 'em up and you are ready to go!

Mudruck

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions. I especially like the Toys'R'Us rock tumbler suggestion!

My rifles in question -- a .270, a .300 Weatherby, and a .375 H&H -- are all Remington 700s with the original factory barrels. Each of them has been fired hundreds of times, so I would think that they've been smoothed out inside, but apparently that's not true. I will consider the fire lapping suggestion.

Le270-
I can't add much to all the above except to say that if you do decide on Moly Coating.I would suggest that you also get some type of Moly Bore Prep like that from Midway.

LE, Get this one from MidSouth...Its easy and not as messy as using a whole bowl...also comes with bore coat which is the key. Be prepared for lower mv though.
http://www.midsouthshooterssupply.com/item.asp?sku=00191A100
Send me an email if you have any questions

le270,I don't think it is in anyones interest to moly coat themselves,unless they shoot more than 2000 rounds a year.The money saved will not compensate for the time spent.As far as switching over to moly,that was the best decision I took in my shooting sport.I saved money and became a better shooter quicker.Moly coated bullets is the biggest advancement since anything.