CLeaning with Moly - info needed

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Northman999

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Fellows,

I've got some moly bullets inbound and I have no experience with them. I've also picked up some moly spray, to spray down some non-moly bullets as I've been told not to mix moly and non-moly.

What should I be doing to my barrel, if anything, before shooting moly bullets? My rifle is new, unfired. Also, what about cleaning procedures? I found some on Berger site, but they're like fourteen steps long and I'd need Kroil, which I can't get locally at all etc; sounds like a major PITA.

Anybody have any simpler moly maintentance methods with more common cleaners/solvents?

Thanks fellows!
 
First think wth a new barrel is to break it in with oridanry bullets. Fire one shot and clean. reapeat 3 times. then 2-clean, then 3-clean then 5-clean. then 10 clean and it is broken in. Clean very well with solvent over night.

Then shoot moly bullets and clean normally, but only every 200 or so shots.
 
GANDERITE said:
First think wth a new barrel is to break it in with oridanry bullets. Fire one shot and clean. reapeat 3 times. then 2-clean, then 3-clean then 5-clean. then 10 clean and it is broken in. Clean very well with solvent over night.
Click to expand...

I've never broken in any barrel and still getting very good accuracy.

For example my 30-06 Savage still shoots sub MOA after NOT being broken-in but after being occasionally over-heated, dropped to a concrete floor and being stressed under 200lbs of weight (I slipped while hunting).

My 22LR got similar punishment and shoots sub 0.5MOA. This one has never ever been bore-cleaned either.

Should I go on?
 
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Northman999 said:
Fellows,

I've got some moly bullets inbound and I have no experience with them. I've also picked up some moly spray, to spray down some non-moly bullets as I've been told not to mix moly and non-moly.

What should I be doing to my barrel, if anything, before shooting moly bullets? My rifle is new, unfired. Also, what about cleaning procedures? I found some on Berger site, but they're like fourteen steps long and I'd need Kroil, which I can't get locally at all etc; sounds like a major PITA.

Anybody have any simpler moly maintentance methods with more common cleaners/solvents?

Thanks fellows!
Click to expand...

I'm not an expert but this guy seems to know what he's talking about. Molly considerations in the second half.
http://www.snipercountry.com/Articles/Barrel_BreakIn_II.asp
 
Having just put a new Bartlein barrel on this past spring I did break my barrel in using bare bullets. Shoot 1 clean for 3 shots, shoot 3 clean twice, shoot 10 clean and was done.
I then switched to moly bullets. My method is not to clean until the groups open up. On one barrel I had I was over 800 rounds before cleaning and really should not have cleaned it then.
I do not believe "Kroil" to be the end all method of cleaning with moly bullets, it is simply a penetrating oil. When I do clean down to a bare bore I use Gunslick foaming bore cleaner.
When you start shooting moly bullets down a clean bore, it may take up to 20 shots for the barrel to really start shooting tight groups. Some barrels may only take 2 or 3 shots, some take more.
When switching between bare and moly bullets I would clean to a bare bore, however there is no reason you can't hunt with moly coated bullets.
 
From what I understand there is no benefit to using moly bullets if you do not first treat your bore with moly. The moly is only on the outside of the bullet, but the lands cut into the bullet, so the benefit of the moly is quickly lost unless the bore is coated with moly as well. If the bore is not moly'ed, you end up laying a layer of moly over the copper fouling of the previous shot, and the advantage of the product is lost.
 
I don't use moly. In the begining the claim was your barrel would last forever, not. From what I can tell, the reason to use moly is so you don't have to clean as often. I put 300 through a barrel that I carefully broke in and when I did clean it with bore foam I had no copper at all therefore I should not have cleaned it. I did use moly at one time and had problems with build up. Did I mention I don't use moly? I have a friend that uses Danzac with good results and I think there are other materials now as well. When someone really proves their worth I will consider it again. How many are winning matches with coatings in tr or br?

The barrel break in I use is from Border Barrels. Look them up on the web if you want to see a painfully slow way to break in a barrel but it really does appear to work. Done several assorted calibers and makes now and none of them copper foul.
 
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Have used moly for years in a number of rifles and thousands of rds. It most certainly has its benefits and limitations.

Moly is a dry high pressure lubricant - no more, no less. Where I found the best performance gains was in factory and surplus rifle barrels. Any barrel that was not lapped or smooth. Works awesome in pitted barrels.

In these instances, moly allows you to reach expected performance levels without excessive pressures and good accuracy. As good as you would expect from these type of rifles.

Moly DOES NOT STOP COPPER FOULING. Just makes it less of a problem.

I never found moly to give me more velocity at the same accuracy level. I always used more powder to reach the same velocity and accuracy tuning.

Moly did allow me to shoot ALOT of rds before worrying about cleaning in factory and surplus rifles. It was a benefit in any heavy copper fouling barrel.

I have yet to see any benefit in a lapped BR quality pipe. These pipes shouldn't copper foul (or very little) at the worse of times so moly offers no tangible benefit.

As to cleaning, I follow the same procedure as any other barrel. A strong powder solvent - patches start black then go grey. Switch to a very strong ammonia based cleaner - patches go blue then grey. Dry and I am done.

There is no need to go to bare metal as you will need to shoot more rds to treat the bore. Moly can be scrubbed out of a bore using JB bore brite. I have switched between the two with no issues. You just need to fire a few rds to stabilize the bore for the new bullet type.

DO NOT OIL YOUR BORE WHEN USING MOLY!!!! If you ever do, you will see what a nightmare that is to stabilize the pipe.

So, don't use moly where rust is an issue. Moly itself doesn't cause rust but leaving the bore 'bare' will.

I used to use moly in my hunting rifles but stopped because if the bore ever needed to be cleaned/dried, I would need to fire a bunch of fouling shots to get the barrel back in tune.

don't make too many friends in hunting camp when you do that.

As for barrel break in, I don't bother. Tried it both ways and never saw a benefit. In a match barrel, the bore is lapped and shouldn't foul. Anything I do to that bore only adds wear and tear. Any copper in a new match barrel is in the chambering/throat. Short stroking JB Bore brite does the same thing and saves alot of cost, barrel wear and effort.

Plus, you can easily waste the most accurate lifespan of a barrel by doing a barrel break in.

Quality barrels shoot from the first rd and if they don't, something else is at fault.

However, now that I sell barrels, feel free to fire as many rds as you feel necessary to appease the break in Gods :)

Jerry
 
.... What about Moly coated bullets?


Well known barrel maker !!!
? We do not recommend the use of moly bullets, as we have not seen an increase in accuracy or barrel life from using them. We have measured moly buildup up to .0005 for the first 2 - 3 inches in a barrel. We have not found a cleaning method that adequately removes the moly without potential damage to the barrel. If you elect to use moly bullets, we recommend that you contact the bullet manufacturer for details on the cleaning method they recommend.
 
Moly yeah or nah

This is the research from Norma

MOLY
Latley there has been a lot of discussions about moly. After Kevin Thomas article in PS Jan we have received quite a few e-mails. Since we have been coating bullets for a few years we would like to share our experience. I guess this article will solve a few questions but probably raise a few too.

Briefly we have found that molycoated bullets do:

- decrease pressure by 3-5% depending on cartridge, bullet and powder
- decrease velocity with 0,5-1,5% - reduce metalfouling
- increase accuracy under certain circumstances
- very likely increase barrellife

During testing we have also observed that first shot out of a cleaned barrel is within the following group (@ 300 m).

Moly is a superb friction reducer and it’s bearing capacity is beyond the yield point of known metals. When a molycoated bullet enters the throat and travels down the barrel it has less friction than a ordinary bullet. So it is not surprising to see a lower pressure. We have not done any huge tests with many calibers but these 3-5% has been there every time.

If pressure is reduced velocity will also be lower with the same charge. The interesting thing is that velocity is not reduced as much as pressure. Thus, by increasing the charge you can usually get 1-2% higher velocity with moly bullets.

Metal fouling is hard to measure accurately. We have observed through bore scopes and compared need of cleaning. It seems as coated bullets gives a certain degree of fouling but it more or less stays there. Our subjective estimation would be 30-40% less metal fouling and much slower buildup. This depends on cartridge, pressure, powder and bullet. I’m pretty sure we will see improvement in this area on the powder side quite soon.

During our initial testing of moly we fired some 140 gn 6,5 bullets for accuracy. These bullets look very much like Sierra’s # 1740. We could see no improvement in accuracy at all. Testing continued with 6 PPC and Sierra 107 gn MK. About 60 5-shot groups were fired indoors at 100 m with three different loads. Every load showed smaller groups on the average (6-11%) and less standard deviation with moly. That was just a hint, no significant improvement (usually significance on 95% level is accepted as true). We went back and retested the 6,5 bullets with two different powders. Same result as first time – nothing happened. Then we coated our 130 gn VLD (Bill Davis design) bullet and fired a substantial number. Significant improvement on 95% level!

Later we were going to load this 130 gn VLD bullet with MRP. Quality of the bullets was ok from the continuos testing during production but the results were quite bad for the loaded cartridge. Every single item in the cartridge was changed one at a time. When two different cases were tested things happened with one of them. That batch of cases was old and had thick necks. Suddenly accuracy was back. Also variation in pressure, barrel time and velocity was app. cut in half. Neck tension or extraction force as we call it, was the answer. We went back to the present cases and used a slightly faster powder and it worked fine. The 140 gn was tested once again but no responce in accuracy.
So, be careful when using slow powders and moly coated bullets – it is very important the powder charge starts to burn the same way each time. One thing that differ from our testing and some others is that we always use new cases because that is the way loaded ammo is produced (jealous eh?). Sized cases would not be the same. Typically moly takes down the extraction force with 50%.
One explanation of the increased accuracy could be that moly helps the bullet align in the bore. Thus, bullets with long bearing surfaces would not gain much from that help. Pistol bullets in 9 mm has been coated with no effect on accuracy. Probably more factors are involved that we don’t know of at this time.

When it comes to increased barrellife statistics start to get a pain in b- - t. It is too much a work with too many variabels to do enough tests. However, we took a new Sauer 6,5 x 55 barrel and fired it 10.000 rounds with our standard load – 130 gn at 2700 fps. It was examined with a borescope every 1.000 round + measured with gauges. After 5.000 it looked very nice but after that it started to show pressure cracks. Wear in boredimensions was more or less normal. At 10.000 rounds it was set up at 300 m outdoors in a machinerest and 10 x 10 rounds were fired. It might have been a good batch for this barrel as average group size was 71 mm c to c or less than one MOA. That was good enough for us not to worry about barrellife.

A shortcut to prove less barrelwear was to find out whether temperature of the barrel was lower with moly bullets. A heat sensitive digital camera was set up and we fired conventional bullets and moly coated bullets at the same muzzle velocity from a conventional target rifle. Of course the barrel was fired with uncoated bullets first and then cleaned. First thing was then to shoot some moly bullets to break in the barrel. It was also allowed to cool down to same temperature each time. Shooting pace was controlled etc. There was no difference in temperature at all. If it had been, it would more or less has proven less wear. David Tubb told me he had heard pistol shooters could feel the difference from moly bullets so there might be things out there!
Some of our people who meet a lot of target shooters usually bring a borescope with a monitor to the major competitions. They look through hundreds of barrels each time. Their strong belief is that moly helps to prolong the accurate life of the barrels.

A few tests were made to find out if the wax was necessary and if thickness had any influence. This was only tested with respect to pressure and velocity, no accuracy testing. Moly alone seem to give 60-65% of full effect. Wax only didn’t matter much. Moly together with wax made a better job. To have some excess wax didn’t hurt but too little made the reduction in pressure / velocity less. Only 6,5 x 55 was tested.

Yesterday we compared our normal wax coating with a thinner and much nicer looking coat. There was an increase in velocity with 0,19% and in pressure with 1,23% when using less wax. No drop in accuracy was noticed.

Our powder supplier – Bofors – ran a few tests with both moly and wax to find out if there were any negative effects on the powder. Moly destroyed the stability of the powder but only when concentration was a few hundred times higher than what normally occurs. Carnuba wax was neutral.

Better trajectory with moly?
We have done exactly the same tests as Kevin and usually we have seen a small decrease in BC. Probably due to our relatively thick wax coating. The first test we made showed an increase in BC of app. 3% but it was due to a mix of bullet batches. Also Randolph Constantine mentioned in PS Aug 98 that we found better BC using a doppler radar. I’m sorry but that was a misunderstanding. What we found was that BC was more or less the same from 200 m out to 600 m with conventional bullets. We didn’t know about moly at that time. Some good shooters report on higher impact with moly but I guess that must come from shifted barrel vibrations or different barrel time. I’ll be back on that later as we will test it in a 6,5-284 when we have the brass – May.

A good friend won a 500 box of our 6,5 Diamond Line ammo. It did not shoot very well so he used it for training. Suddenly, after 300 rounds the ammo shot better than anything he has ever used. That was the worst case of ”getting used to moly” I know of. Usually it takes 5-30 rounds to get enough moly into a worn barrel. A new one is much easier, just shoot moly bullets during the break-in.

Some people are afraid that tumbling their bullets will work harden the jackets. We ran some Berger bullets for 5 hours in our rotary tumbler and checked hardness – exactly the same or 137 Vickers / 1kg.

A test was also done to see if time changed neck tension but we were unable to see any change at all.

One important thing Kevin is pointing out in his article is that moly and wax should not be in the chamber. Too many shooters don’t clean their chambers. I’m not talking about you bench rest guys now.
We are using OKS fine moly, 0,6-0,8 micron. Well, that’s about all we have done with moly. The commercial product has been very successful for us and we can’t see any reason not to continue.

Good shooting

Norma Precision AB
Christer Larsson, R&D
 
Moly Yeah or Nah

This is a report from David Tubbs (some of you may have heard of him LOL)he has since move on to other lubricating componds hBN so while he still believe there is a benefit to coating Moly is no longer his first choice.

Moly-Coating: A Champion’s Perspective
David Tubb

MOLY EXPLAINED
Coating bullets with molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) is not a new idea. Recent popularity increases due to the ready availability of coated bullets and various bullet coating kits, however, have brought moly coated bullets to the forefront of discussion among competitive shooters.
Obviously, I think moly coating provides the shooter with superior performance; as you may know, I own and operate Moly Coatings Inc., which we believe to be the premiere commercial facility of its type. I wouldn’t have invested in this operation, however, if I didn’t believe that moly coating provided a viable performance increase and, certainly, if I didn’t believe that the advantages far outweighed any drawbacks.


My focus in this article is giving an overview of what moly coating accomplishes, why it does so, and share a few tips I have used successfully to get the most benefit from this technology.

MOLY EFFECT
Moly coating accomplishes one main thing: it greatly reduces friction between bullet and firearm bore. This effect is shown in several ways and, likewise, has various singular effects on the bullet. All these effects are positive.

The foremost effect, in my opinion, of reduced friction is that moly coating makes it possible to increase bullet velocity at the same chamber pressure.

For example, if we take one specific load that uses an uncoated bullet and simply replace the bullet with a moly coated bullet, velocity will drop. For instance, let’s say a .243 produces 2900 fps with an uncoated Sierra 107 gr MatchKing. The load is 41.5 gr IMR-4350. Replace the uncoated bullet with a moly coated Sierra 107 gr MatchKing and there will be an approximate velocity loss of 40 to 50 fps, (1-2 percent).
Pressure, however, will likely fall from approximately 52,000 psi to 49,000 psi, or lower (about 4 -5 percent reduction). Note that pressure decrease is greater than velocity loss, and this is the key to increased speed with moly coating. Note also that while all cartridge and bullet combinations will respond similarly, some will demonstrate more or less variance between coated and uncoated bullet figures due to many unpredictable variables (barrel configuration, individual component lots, etc.).

We would take the load now and increase the powder charge with moly coated bullets to attain the “old” uncoated bullet velocity level of 2900 fps. Now we’re back at the same velocity as before, but chamber pressures are still lower, so we can increase the charge a little more than that and increase velocity as a result. The net effect is higher velocity at the same or lower chamber pressures. Furthermore, if you only load back to the original velocity of 2900 fps using a moly coated bullet, you will now be working the rifle at a reduced pressure which translates into a longer barrel life and more than likely you will experience an increase in accuracy. Kind of like operating a diesel motor at 2100 rpm vs 1800 rpm -- which one will last longer and operates more efficiently?

Because it is such a tremendous friction reducer, moly also eases bullet entry into the lands. Whether the bullet is seated into the rifling or jumping, the initial contact and acceleration is facilitated with moly coated bullets. Recovered bullets have shown improved jacket integrity and greatly reduced impressions made from the lands. There’s no question that moly coating makes the bullet’s trip down the barrel much “easier.”

DOWNRANGE PERFORMANCE
Other performance advantages from moly coating again come from reduced friction and can be related to enhanced bullet flight. I have found that accuracy is usually better comparing moly coated to uncoated bullets. I believe that less stress on the bullet plays a key role in this. I further believe that moly coated bullets can be more consistent shot to shot and possibly more stable in flight. These differences are difficult to quantify due to the great number of variables that come into play when shooting 600 yards and beyond.


One entirely plausible reason for enhanced flight is again due to lowered friction:
a moly coated bullet will enter the bore much easier and, therefore, probably with less disturbance to the jacket and less stress on the core. Recovered moly coated bullets usually exhibit shallower rifling impressions, and these impressions have a more uniform appearance.

BARREL LIFE
I have found that moly coated bullets provide extended barrel life. I believe that the coating itself provides a “buffer” of sorts between the powder gases and barrel surface, and also that moly coated bullets result in less heat being transmitted to the barrel. Many time Bianchi Cup champion, Doug Koenig, told me that he can make several more practice runs firing the Barricade Event using moly coated bullets. In this event the shooter secures the handgun barrel against the barricade using his hand:
barrel heat build up dictates how long the shooter can make practice runs.
Again, moly coating reduced heat build up sufficiently that Doug could get in 3-5 more 6-shot strings before having to stop and allow the barrel to cool.


It’s been my experience that moly coating adds at least 20 percent to accurate barrel life. Barrel wear in a centerfire rifle is almost exclusively due to throat erosion (cracks and roughness in the first 3-4 inches ahead of the chamber caused by heat, flame, and pressure).

An additional 500-plus rounds may not seem like much, but it will add up over the course of a few barrels. However, that, like many advantages of moly coated bullets, are welcome side benefits to the major improvements that result from their use.

CLEANING FREQUENCY
There is far less bullet jacket fouling in the bore with moly coated bullets. Specifically, I have found there to be both less fouling in terms of the amount of deposits left behind after shooting, and a much slower accumulation of fouling. Norma AG found there to be a reduction in metal fouling of 30-40 percent. Now, the amount of fouling any one barrel exhibits has a lot to do with the barrel itself, but I think that this estimate is reliable, if not conservative. I normally shoot between two and three times as many rounds through my barrels before cleaning, depending on the caliber.

The effect here is obvious: I can get many more accurate shots between cleanings with moly coated bullets. In the past, I had to clean after each day of shooting at a major event, such as Camp Perry. Now I can shoot the entire four days there without cleaning.

This is not only a convenience but greatly enhances the consistency of my sight zeros. No matter what steps are taken in cleaning, the first two (or more) rounds through a clean barrel are always a little outside the group (moly coated or not) -- not anymore! This is the sort of advantage that can make the difference between losing and winning.

OTHER BENEFITS
There are other benefits to using moly coated bullets.
Since there is a coating between the bullet and case neck, moly coated bullets will not suffer from the “sticktion” many have reported with uncoated bullets. This dangerous circumstance results from simple corrosion between the bullet and case neck, and the result is elevated pressures.
Likewise, coated bullets won’t tarnish or corrode after handling. And there are others, but -- the reason to use moly coated bullets is because they provide better performance! Shooting them because they add to barrel life or so you don’t have to clean the barrel as often are, again, side benefits.
 
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