Was having bad luck at the range,with win fail safe bullets, when a man came up to me and said here try these. As I looked at the bullets he said they were fail safe bullets he had taken the coating off of. He gave me ten of them, (pretty generious)So I went home and and I loaded them with the same load as usual in my 30-06. The next weekend I fired away. The groups were 3/4". Great since the coated ones
were grouping almost 2"... My problem is I never got the mans name. And have not figured out for sure how he got "that black stuff" off the bullet. They were really pretty shinney but looked like they had some hint of grey color on them.Have any of you guys heard of this before?
Any Ideas????? Thanks MD

[ 01-02-2003, 11:38: Message edited by: MADDOG ]

I'm not familiar with those bullets or the coating but my approach would be to wash them well to remove anything water soluble and then cover them with ammonia in a jar (but never do this with brass cartridge cases) and see if it dissolves the coating. If that fails, try soaking them for a few minutes in hydrochloric (muriatic) acid ("The Works" toilet bowl cleaner) and then rinsing well. White vinegar may work as well. Then run them through your case tumbler. Remember that ammonia weakens brass by dissolving the zinc so don't use it on critical components.

The "black stuff" is either Lubalox or moly depending upon how old the Failsafes are. The newer bullets are coated with moly.

Unfortunately, Failsafes do not come without moly coating. However, the Nosler Partition Golds do come naked. The Golds and Failsafes are virtually identical except for the hollow point on the Failsafes. You might wish to try the Golds before spending a lot of time attempting to remove the moly from the Failsafes.

If you have been shooting the moly coated bullets, you have another problem that you need to deal with before you do any more shooting. Your barrel is partially burnished with moly and you have copper on top of the coating inside your bore. You need to remove both before you shoot again.

The best method for removing moly is a nylon brush, a bore guide, Sweets, and JB bore paste. You will need to alternate between 50 passes of JB on a tight patch and a round of Sweets. Do this until there is no indication of copper on a patch of Sweets. Make sure you follow the directions to the letter and before storage, make sure you finish with a good gun oil like Butch�s gun oil.

Oils which should not be used inside a bore for storage are - RemOil, CLP, anything with Teflon in it, WD-40, 3-in-1, etc. Basically any oil not specifically formulated to be used in firearms. Many of the �bad� oils contain petroleum distillates which evaporate over time leaving a thick varnish behind. Most motor oils contain cleaners and detergents which are not desirable chemicals inside a gun barrel.

The reason for specifically oiling the bore after using any high ammonia content bore solvent is ammonia is hygroscopic (attracts moisture). You must remove all traces of these solvents with numerous oil patches. You should protect your now squeaky clean bore with a high quality oil designed for the task.

[ 01-03-2003, 19:54: Message edited by: Zero Drift ]

btt

THE best oil I have found is Amsoil synthetic automatic transmission oil. It is loaded with detergents and surfactants which will help to suspend particles while cleaning. Also, it won't hurt your bore. On this particular point only I disagree with Zero Drift. I haven't used the motor oils, only the ATF.

Since I made a batch and have been using Ed's Red this is the only preparation I now use. I use the Amsoil ATF instead of the Dextron ATF and I included about 250 grams of anhydrous lanolin. This is really the ticket, the added lanolin. I have tested this by leaving it on for a few moneths then using CRC Electro-Clean (1,1,1-trichloroethylene spray) down the bore and whoosh! it is gone. I also use the Gum Spirits of Turpentine instead of mineral spirits since it smells so much better. Use with adequate ventilation.

I also gave a quart of Ed's to a nephew who does a lot of shotgunning. He is very impressed, describing the "big chunks" of balck stuff coming out. I think he was referring to plastic wad fouling. He is sold on this and cleans his scattergun after every use.