moly coated bullets ?
- Thread starter rebs
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Powdered Molybdenum coated bullets pretty much went the way of the dodo years ago for a few different reasons, it was a short fad.
Lots of folks say “Moly” and are talking about various coated bullets. Most of these coatings contain very small percentages of molybdenum, like less than 1%, in the MSDS sheet.
What projectiles are you specifically asking about?
Lots of folks say “Moly” and are talking about various coated bullets. Most of these coatings contain very small percentages of molybdenum, like less than 1%, in the MSDS sheet.
What projectiles are you specifically asking about?
Moly coating was developed by the late Roger Johnston at NECO in the late 1980s or early 1990s, IIRC. It works, actually, to reduce friction and throat wear and metal fouling. Norma still sells its Diamond line of ammunition loaded with moly-coated bullets and their site has photos of 6.5×55 sectioned barrels to show the effect and a nice 100-round group fired from a barrel with 10,000 rounds of moly-coated bullets through it.
The problem is that NECO's system used expensive lab-grade acid-neutralized moly and impact plating and a carnauba wax final coating in their system. When the moly "craze" got going, all kinds of cheaper grades of moly suddenly hit the market with everything from spray-on to cheap technical grade moly with free sulfur still in it and grades too coarse for the purpose. So, suddenly you got reports of moly building up lumps in barrels and rust and corrosion being initiated by it (because the free sulfur reacting with water to form acid radicals) and folks would just assume a problem they had with cheap moly applied to all moly and the reputation of the practice took a tumble.
Here's my experience with it: My first military match rifle was a Garand I bought through the now-defunct DCM program and accurized using the original barrel. When I first completed the accurizing work, shooting prone with a sling at slow fire pace, I put 10 rounds (47.5 grains of 4064 and 168-grain SMK's at 3.290" COL) into 0.7 moa with it at a 100-yard range. So it could shoot well when it was tight. But it's barrel was so rough and accumulated copper fouling so fast that its accuracy plummeted at about 40 rounds so it couldn't even stay in the 9-ring. If you've shot any Service Rifle Highpower, you realize that means it was coming apart in the slow fire phase of the 50-round National Match Course and was already in trouble before getting to SF in an 80-round match. It would take most of the night to get all the copper out with Sweet's (this was before Bore Tech or the other chelating cleaners were available). It was slow work and my sinuses were sure clear at the end.
Then I read about moly-coating. I got the NECO materials and it was like a miracle in that gun. I could shoot an 80-round match plus sighters and have no accuracy issues at all. The copper took much longer to build up. Further, there seemed to be less shift between cold barrel and warm barrel POI, or, at least, it was more gradual and no more trouble to correct for than slight shifts in the wind. So I was pretty happy with things at that point. I did have to up my loads by half a grain of powder to stay in the happy place. Reducing bore friction reduces start pressure, so the bullet sees peak pressure with a little more volume behind it, losing a little velocity.
These days there are other coatings. David Tubb sells hex boron nitride, which is even slicker than moly and doesn't color the bullets or your fingers don't get visibly smudged using it. Harold Vaughn found that most of the benefit of moly could be had by putting a little of it in the powder instead of on the bullet. Tubb now sells a specialized blend of hBN for that called Tubb Dust. You add about 11 grains to a pound of powder and as soon as the bore gets coated, copper fouling is greatly reduced. It's like having your own anti-copper fouling additive.
Since I bought into the NECO system long ago, I still use it. Sierra and Norma moly-bullets are coated by the same process, so I've bought them before, too. I recently got some of the Tubb Dust to try, though I haven't rung it out yet. I am thinking to go that route for as-issued Garand matches, for which I don't want the ammo looking any different from Military (no black bullets). But I also will be using it with a Criterion barrel that doesn't tend to foul badly in the first place, so it's kind of a no-clean luxury there.
Another approach is treating a bore directly. Sprinco has a product called Plate+ Silver that you can apply to the bore of a rifle for 72 hours and it makes a coating that reduces velocity the same amount as coating bullets does, indicating it has the same effect. A coating lasts about 1000 rounds, but you can refresh it periodically before you get there. Shooter's Solutions has a metal conversion coating product called Moly-Fusion that will also coat a bore and prevent copper fouling. I don't know how many rounds it lasts. So, there are numerous options out there that work to achieve pretty much the same thing.
The problem is that NECO's system used expensive lab-grade acid-neutralized moly and impact plating and a carnauba wax final coating in their system. When the moly "craze" got going, all kinds of cheaper grades of moly suddenly hit the market with everything from spray-on to cheap technical grade moly with free sulfur still in it and grades too coarse for the purpose. So, suddenly you got reports of moly building up lumps in barrels and rust and corrosion being initiated by it (because the free sulfur reacting with water to form acid radicals) and folks would just assume a problem they had with cheap moly applied to all moly and the reputation of the practice took a tumble.
Here's my experience with it: My first military match rifle was a Garand I bought through the now-defunct DCM program and accurized using the original barrel. When I first completed the accurizing work, shooting prone with a sling at slow fire pace, I put 10 rounds (47.5 grains of 4064 and 168-grain SMK's at 3.290" COL) into 0.7 moa with it at a 100-yard range. So it could shoot well when it was tight. But it's barrel was so rough and accumulated copper fouling so fast that its accuracy plummeted at about 40 rounds so it couldn't even stay in the 9-ring. If you've shot any Service Rifle Highpower, you realize that means it was coming apart in the slow fire phase of the 50-round National Match Course and was already in trouble before getting to SF in an 80-round match. It would take most of the night to get all the copper out with Sweet's (this was before Bore Tech or the other chelating cleaners were available). It was slow work and my sinuses were sure clear at the end.
Then I read about moly-coating. I got the NECO materials and it was like a miracle in that gun. I could shoot an 80-round match plus sighters and have no accuracy issues at all. The copper took much longer to build up. Further, there seemed to be less shift between cold barrel and warm barrel POI, or, at least, it was more gradual and no more trouble to correct for than slight shifts in the wind. So I was pretty happy with things at that point. I did have to up my loads by half a grain of powder to stay in the happy place. Reducing bore friction reduces start pressure, so the bullet sees peak pressure with a little more volume behind it, losing a little velocity.
These days there are other coatings. David Tubb sells hex boron nitride, which is even slicker than moly and doesn't color the bullets or your fingers don't get visibly smudged using it. Harold Vaughn found that most of the benefit of moly could be had by putting a little of it in the powder instead of on the bullet. Tubb now sells a specialized blend of hBN for that called Tubb Dust. You add about 11 grains to a pound of powder and as soon as the bore gets coated, copper fouling is greatly reduced. It's like having your own anti-copper fouling additive.
Since I bought into the NECO system long ago, I still use it. Sierra and Norma moly-bullets are coated by the same process, so I've bought them before, too. I recently got some of the Tubb Dust to try, though I haven't rung it out yet. I am thinking to go that route for as-issued Garand matches, for which I don't want the ammo looking any different from Military (no black bullets). But I also will be using it with a Criterion barrel that doesn't tend to foul badly in the first place, so it's kind of a no-clean luxury there.
Another approach is treating a bore directly. Sprinco has a product called Plate+ Silver that you can apply to the bore of a rifle for 72 hours and it makes a coating that reduces velocity the same amount as coating bullets does, indicating it has the same effect. A coating lasts about 1000 rounds, but you can refresh it periodically before you get there. Shooter's Solutions has a metal conversion coating product called Moly-Fusion that will also coat a bore and prevent copper fouling. I don't know how many rounds it lasts. So, there are numerous options out there that work to achieve pretty much the same thing.
I don't know if they've changed, but the ones I bought samples of long ago proved to have boxes full of loose graphite powder and no wax coating. They apparently didn't want to pay for a license to the Neco patent. Basically, it was cheap moly. I would clean carefully after using it. Bore Tech has a special formulation for cleaning barrels using moly and I know that Gunzilla, if you wet the barrel with it and let it sit 24 hours, will do a good job of letting you patch out any build-up.
Towards what I thought was the end of the Moly craze is when I kind of started paying attention. To the untrained eye some of the processes, techniques, and personalized steps for it seemed quite a lot like a mixture of ancient alchemy, voodoo, and a lot of hard work. I took to experimenting with -5 to -7 micron HBN and various percentages of isopropyl alcohol. Several years later, I can proudly say that what I do seems to look quite a lot like a mixture of ancient alchemy, voodoo, and a little bit of work.
Don Fischer
New member
Just a thought. I wonder if powder coating would work on jacketed bullet's to slow fouling?
I saw a velocity drop 20 to 50 fps and a significant reduction in the copper build-up. Some claimed accuracy improvement, but I suspect those were persons who had the velocity change improve their load tuning. I never saw any advantage or disadvantage for accuracy once the loads were tuned and loaded concentrically.
They suggested putting moly on a patch and running it back and forth in the bore to reduce how long it took for the bore to settle down with it. I never did, as it didn't appear to make any difference to service rifle match levels accuracy. Especially not with the first phase being off-hand, which gave the gun time to settle. But if you were trying for super tiny groups, it could help. Treating the barrel with Sprinco Plate+ Silver would be an alternate approach.
I tried this during the early or mid 90s. Another fad at the time was cryogenic treatment for stress relief of rifle barrels. Never tried the latter. As to the moly coat I bought like a pound of the stuff from Midway (I think it was Midway) and likely still have 15 1/2 ounces left. Would place about 1/2 teaspoon of the stuff in a tumbler bowl I used for only moly coating with the bullets. Let them vibratory tumble for a few hours as I recall.
Scrub my barrel till it was shinny squeaky clean then start shooting my moly coated bullets. Like Unclenick I saw a slight increase in velocity but no discernible change in accuracy. I played around with it, all in 308 Winchester, and finally let it go. Some people claimed great results with the stuff, I never saw enough improvement to pursue it very much. I still have about 50 Sierra Match King 168 grain HPBT bullets in a box I marked 3-7-99 so I may have played with the stuff again as late as '99.
Ron
Scrub my barrel till it was shinny squeaky clean then start shooting my moly coated bullets. Like Unclenick I saw a slight increase in velocity but no discernible change in accuracy. I played around with it, all in 308 Winchester, and finally let it go. Some people claimed great results with the stuff, I never saw enough improvement to pursue it very much. I still have about 50 Sierra Match King 168 grain HPBT bullets in a box I marked 3-7-99 so I may have played with the stuff again as late as '99.
Ron
I wondered ???
A number of years ago, I worked at a "Moly" mill and in a Moly mine. In the mill, we had to walk on grating as the floor was very slippery. It's not "Graphite", it's
"Molybdenum", The ore is very hard and abrasive. I often wandered about the pros and cons of using it in barrels and on projectiles. ……
I use Moly based grease and oil and it's great stuff; just not sure about bullet application. … .
Be Safe !!!
A number of years ago, I worked at a "Moly" mill and in a Moly mine. In the mill, we had to walk on grating as the floor was very slippery. It's not "Graphite", it's
"Molybdenum", The ore is very hard and abrasive. I often wandered about the pros and cons of using it in barrels and on projectiles. ……
I use Moly based grease and oil and it's great stuff; just not sure about bullet application. … .
Be Safe !!!
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Just for clarity, with a given charge weight, I always got less velocity with moly. Its lubricity reduces start pressure because the bullet swages into the throat more easily and is further along its way down the bore (more expansion) when the pressure peaks. To get the same velocity I had to add around half a grain of powder (.308 Win) to the original non-coated load, but could also go on to a little more powder to get to a little higher maximum velocity without going over pressure because of that reduced friction.
If we're talking powdered moly on jacketed rifle bullets, no info.
If we're talking polymer coatings containing moly as an ingredient, I've shot tens of thousands of them, from Precision, Bear Creek, Masterblaster, and probably a couple of others.
I used to prefer them to all other types of bullets, but I've become something of a fan of plated bullets.
I like coated bullets because they tend to be hard cast, the loading process doesn't deform them, and they shoot clean enough that I scrub the bore only every thousand rounds, and then, with a dry brush and a patch.
Plated bullets can be butter-soft, deformed just bey seating and crimping, but I've had decent performance with a thousand Rainier 124s in 9mm, and I'm going to buy some more.
They do load clean, shoot clean, and don't leave residue in the press, either.
If we're talking polymer coatings containing moly as an ingredient, I've shot tens of thousands of them, from Precision, Bear Creek, Masterblaster, and probably a couple of others.
I used to prefer them to all other types of bullets, but I've become something of a fan of plated bullets.
I like coated bullets because they tend to be hard cast, the loading process doesn't deform them, and they shoot clean enough that I scrub the bore only every thousand rounds, and then, with a dry brush and a patch.
Plated bullets can be butter-soft, deformed just bey seating and crimping, but I've had decent performance with a thousand Rainier 124s in 9mm, and I'm going to buy some more.
They do load clean, shoot clean, and don't leave residue in the press, either.
I also got into the Moly routine, coating my bullets with the NECO system. I had a Sako in 7mmSTW that shot on a dime originally, but over time accuracy really deteriorated. At that time as well I was a subscriber to Precision Shooting (or was it Shooter?) and the topic was a hot item. Various authorities offered opinions which included chemical degradation of moly at the throat due to high temperatures at firing, causing corrosion; hygroscopic nature of moly attracting water was another issue for rust.
My greatest issue was I could never tell if the rifle was clean since the patches were consistently black from moly. My opinion was the severe drop in accuracy of the STW was due to constantly adding more layers of moly with each bullet fired in addition to the aforementioned rust and corrosion. It seemed to me a better routine would have been just to moly coat the bore as mentioned by Unclenick, but I dropped the whole process and idea.
My greatest issue was I could never tell if the rifle was clean since the patches were consistently black from moly. My opinion was the severe drop in accuracy of the STW was due to constantly adding more layers of moly with each bullet fired in addition to the aforementioned rust and corrosion. It seemed to me a better routine would have been just to moly coat the bore as mentioned by Unclenick, but I dropped the whole process and idea.
Geezerbiker
New member
I was digging in my reloading supplies and found that I have 2 boxes of Hornady .224 55g moly coated V-max bullets. Do you guys think there would be any problem just loading them up and shooting them?
I'm sure I bought them by accident and I will go back to shooting plain copper jacketed bullets after these are gone... Do you see any problems doing that?
Tony
I'm sure I bought them by accident and I will go back to shooting plain copper jacketed bullets after these are gone... Do you see any problems doing that?
Tony