I have a number of Remington 700 rifles -- one in 6mm Rem., one in .270 Winchester, and one in .300 Weatherby. Some time ago I switched to moly-coating all my bullets. I also cleaned these rifles thoroughly with JB Bore Paste and Kroil, and then moly-prepped the bores using Midway's Moly Bore Prep. I did this because I was getting a lot of copper fouling in these rifles and because the bores seemed a bit rough. I shot each of them a number of times -- 50 rounds or more -- without cleaning them.

Two days ago I loaded some rounds for each of these calibers, rounds that I wanted to test. All the bullets were moly coated. Since I hadn't cleaned the rifles for some time I decided to do another thorough cleaning, using JB and Kroil, and then re-treating the bores with Bore Prep. Yesterday I shot these rounds in the newly-cleaned and bore-prepped rifles.

What seems to be true, at least for me and my rifles, is that with moly coating of the bullets and the bores, the rifles do not shoot well until a number of rounds -- say at least a dozen and probably more -- have been fired through them. In other words, as you shoot the rifles more, their accuracy tends to improve. So don't clean them until it is absolutely necessary!

Have other shooters here found this to be true?

Lloyd - When you scrub with JB, you are mechanically removing much of the burnished moly. Every time you do this, you will need to re-burnish the moly before the barrel will settle back down. This is especially true for rough factory tubes.

To avoid this problem, but to ensure your rifle is clean for storage, use Butch�s Bore Shine after each shooting session. This will remove powder fouling, but leaves intact the moly coating.

Many folks believe that you do not need to clean a moly coated bore - this is not true. You should clean after each shooting session. I even run a wet patch down the bore between long strings to control throat fouling. After shooting a lot of moly, you will find that powder fouling builds up in the throat area just in front of the chamber. To control this fouling, a quick patch or two between strings will help solve the problem.

People either love or hate moly-coated bullets. I tend to fall into the latter group for all of the reasons you have noted in your post.

I also know that more than a few of the custom barrel makers do not recommend using moly-coated bullets because they feel that any slight advantage is far outweighed by the disadvantages in shot to shot consistency.

Each individual barrel seems to either accept or reject the moly coating and even then they don't seem to have any real consistency to the acceptance or rejection. Sometimes they will start shooting well after five shots...other times it takes 20 or more to "settle" them down. Sometimes they shoot well when they are left uncleaned...other times they need a squeaky clean bore to shoot well.

Rick

You will have the same problems after any extremely thorough cleaning. Especially using a paste like JB's that really srubs any residue out. I like to do a cleaning like that a couple times a year. But for general cleaning I use Hoppes for powder fouling and Sweets to remove the copper. I remember the first time I fired a target rifle I had after a SERIOUS scrubbing with JB's. It took me over 20 rds to get back to shooting its normal sub MOA. The first 5 shots at 100yds were the size of a pie plate. It scared the tar out of me. I thought for sure I had ruined the bore.

In my experience with the five rifles I use molly in, most settle with only one fouler and a molly bore prep and one custom barrel in a 223 ackley doesn't need anything other than the bore prep and it's good for 50 rounds grouping in the .3s. For bore prep I just cover a lightly Kroiled patch with a coating of molly and stroke 10 times. Even in a very rough barrel I have not needed more than a couple rounds.

In my experience, moly-coated bullets are nothing but a headache -- a cure for a non-existent problem. In fact, the rifles I owned which I devoted to moly-coated bullets jacket-fouled just as fast as those that were shot exclusively with non-coated bullets.

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