What happened to moly coating? Seems to have been the rage back in the 90's. You could coat your bullets, your bore, etc. All the big bullet makers offered moly coated bullets. I never really got into it, but it was discussed alot. Now you rarely hear of it. Was it proven detrimental, not worth the effort or cost, or what?
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Moly Coating
- Thread starter uncyboo
- Start date
Was it proven detrimental, not worth the effort or cost, or what?
That was my assessment hard to clean, not worth the effort.
I was using the spray moly and was testing on a 45 1911 after a few hundred rounds the barrel took on a pitted look and I could not clean although I will tell you it did not hurt accuracy but for someone who likes a shiny barrel the moly was a failure for me and I installed new barrel never used moly again. I seen rifle users swear by it but IMO its a gimmick.
Moly was the Alpha and Omega for a bunch of zealots, but the wonderful claims of improved accuracy, improved barrel life, shoot forever without cleaning, were wishful thinking.
More and more people started having problems with moly and the word slowly got out over the loud noise of the promoters.
I forget the year, but I was squadded next to a member of David Tubb’s team. Tubb has been a proponent of moly and has made good money shilling for it. Well the day before Tubb had shot poorly. The day before that the matches had ended late and Tubb had not cleaned his rifle. His rifle shot poorly the next day. This is when I found out you had to clean your barrel out at the end of each day if you were using Moly.
A gunsmith I use who is a Long Range Champion. He told me his scores were one or two points lower from 800 to 1000 yards when using moly. Moly coating bullets is time consuming, you pick it up on your fingers and handprint it everywhere around the house.
By and large, moly is just another thing to go wrong. That is why I did not use it.
Moly will fizzle out, two generations from now no one will even remember it was being used.
More and more people started having problems with moly and the word slowly got out over the loud noise of the promoters.
I forget the year, but I was squadded next to a member of David Tubb’s team. Tubb has been a proponent of moly and has made good money shilling for it. Well the day before Tubb had shot poorly. The day before that the matches had ended late and Tubb had not cleaned his rifle. His rifle shot poorly the next day. This is when I found out you had to clean your barrel out at the end of each day if you were using Moly.
A gunsmith I use who is a Long Range Champion. He told me his scores were one or two points lower from 800 to 1000 yards when using moly. Moly coating bullets is time consuming, you pick it up on your fingers and handprint it everywhere around the house.
By and large, moly is just another thing to go wrong. That is why I did not use it.
Moly will fizzle out, two generations from now no one will even remember it was being used.
James R. Burke
New member
I tryed them in a few rifles. There was no differnce that I could tell. The bores were very hard to clean. Seemed like you could not get it out. When I used them I always shot some copper ones down it when I was done. Made the mistake of buying like 1,000 for the 22-250. Not saying they did not work good they did.
Catfish25p2000
New member
I ordered 500 regular 168gr match kings and got molly instead. I just decided to shoot them rather than mess with sending them back. I have shot about 100 of them and haven't really seen any advantage or disadvantage. I do like a pretty cartridge when I get done loading and don't really like the looks of a molly bullet, I guess that is a disadvantage to me. Haven't noticed an issue in cleaning the barrel yet. I'll keep you posted.
why are you glad you didnt buy into it?
Because, from the responses so far, it sounds like moly coating ended up a bigger PITA than any benefit that came from it, that's why.
In order to get the maximum benefit from moly-coated bullets, you also have to coat the bore of the rifle, which entails cleaning the barrel right down to the metal and then applying moly solution to the bore.
Moly reduces pressures in the barrel and chamber, but that in itself reduces velocities. No problem, just load the rounds hotter.
Moly reduces metal fouling, but causes moly itself to build up and affect accuracy after a couple hundred rounds. Not a big deal, you just clean the barrel again and re-coat.
Moly (molybdenum disulfite) is a salt, and as such it is hygroscopic (attracts water), and when stored in a humid environment it reportedly can cause barrels to rust. No problem, just clean the barrel well before storing the rifle and oil the bore.
And that is the whole issue; moly may have some benefits, but at a cost of more time and difficulty cleaning the bore of the rifle, more powder to gain the same velocities, and special handling and storage. Use it if you like it, or don't if you think the extra handling negates the benefits. Many shooters have abandoned moly, others love it.
Moly reduces pressures in the barrel and chamber, but that in itself reduces velocities. No problem, just load the rounds hotter.
Moly reduces metal fouling, but causes moly itself to build up and affect accuracy after a couple hundred rounds. Not a big deal, you just clean the barrel again and re-coat.
Moly (molybdenum disulfite) is a salt, and as such it is hygroscopic (attracts water), and when stored in a humid environment it reportedly can cause barrels to rust. No problem, just clean the barrel well before storing the rifle and oil the bore.
And that is the whole issue; moly may have some benefits, but at a cost of more time and difficulty cleaning the bore of the rifle, more powder to gain the same velocities, and special handling and storage. Use it if you like it, or don't if you think the extra handling negates the benefits. Many shooters have abandoned moly, others love it.
I wasn't necessarily talking about just buying moly coated bullets.
This...
and this...
My post was wondering why it rarely gets spoken of or reccomended any more. It sounds like I got some reasonable answers.
If you have had any positive experiences with the process, I'd love to hear about it.
This...
In order to get the maximum benefit from moly-coated bullets, you also have to coat the bore of the rifle, which entails cleaning the barrel right down to the metal and then applying moly solution to the bore.
and this...
And that is the whole issue; moly may have some benefits, but at a cost of more time and difficulty cleaning the bore of the rifle, more powder to gain the same velocities, and special handling and storage.
My post was wondering why it rarely gets spoken of or reccomended any more. It sounds like I got some reasonable answers.
If you have had any positive experiences with the process, I'd love to hear about it.
reloader28
New member
I only moly my 2 varmint rifles. The only reason I do it is to keep the barrel from heating up quite so fast. It did seem to help that.
Its not hard at all to moly your own and that way you're not limited to certain factory bullets.
It does reduce speeds about 150fps in my guns but I just load them for accuracy and not speed anyway. If I have to add a little more powder to make a good group ,I do.
Its not hard at all to moly your own and that way you're not limited to certain factory bullets.
It does reduce speeds about 150fps in my guns but I just load them for accuracy and not speed anyway. If I have to add a little more powder to make a good group ,I do.
I remember some sort of tumbler set-up to moly your own bullets. I was really looking into this, and doing the bore, when the hype was in full swing, but moved from GA to MT about that time, and my job kept me on the road for weeks at a time. I kinda lost touch with the firearms trends for the last 10 years. Just now getting back into the swing.
Heck, when i quit keeping up with things a Savage rifle was a cheap, ugly alternative (that happened to be pretty accurate) to a Remington, Winchester, or Ruger. Designed soley for the hunter on a budget. Now they are the cat's meow to some, and obviously rightfully so.
Heck, when i quit keeping up with things a Savage rifle was a cheap, ugly alternative (that happened to be pretty accurate) to a Remington, Winchester, or Ruger. Designed soley for the hunter on a budget. Now they are the cat's meow to some, and obviously rightfully so.