Molly Coated vs Regular Bullets?

Blazer 1

Blazer 1

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Hey guys,

So I was down at my local Gun store this morning, Looking for some 117gr Hornady SST's in .257 for my 25-06.

The owner says to me, I don't have any but why don't you try some of these nosler 115's that are molly coated?

So I did. Then I went to the range for a bit, and started taalking to another shooter about these bullets. He says that the molly comes off the bullets, coats and wrecks your barrel.

So my question is... Do I take them back, and get him to order me some SST's? Or do I keep them and enjoy the preformance of molly coated bullets????

Any advice I can get would be appreciated.

Thanks guys,
Blazer 1
 
HI Blazer,
I doubt very much if the moly will come off the bullets and coat the barrel. Moly makes the bullets more slippery and reduces copper fouling, that's all. If you reload with moly bullets, you will have to increase the powder charge to achieve the same muzzle velocity, because the bullets start to slide down the barrel at a lower pressure.
 
shooter64 said:
.....I doubt very much if the moly will come off the bullets and coat the barrel.....
Click to expand...

Actually, that is exactly what happens. The moly gets plated onto the bore.

sgt.rock said:
I have 2 friends that exclusively use them for everything, and he uses X bullets moly coated along with partitions.
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It really helps to prevent copper fouling with X bullets.

Ted
 
I have alternated moly and copper and they both shoot to the same point of aim in a .300 Win Mag using 190 grain Sierra Match King (M), and 190 grain Hornady BTSP (C).
 
I have been using moly coated bullets since the NECO kit hit the market 12-15 years ago? The only time my barrels have seen uncoated bullets is when I shoot issued ammo at Bisley.
shooter64's post is right on the money.
 
Moly does come off the bullet, but moly will not wreck the bore of your rifle. Moly bullets work best when the bore is treated with either moly grease which is available from Miss Moly and NECO or with powdered moly, although the latter can be messy. A coated bore allows the coated bullet to travel though and deposit a minimal amount of jacket fouling to the bore. If you shoot moly bullets in a naked bore, the moly will strip off he bullet, and jacket fouling will coat the bore when the moly has run out, the subsequent shot will coat the fouling left by the previous shot. If you shoot naked bullets in a treated bore, it will lift the moly from the bore and attach to the bullet, then a subsequent shot will foul the bore where the moly has been removed. Damage to barrels occurs when moisture is able to get between the moly and the bore. Moly is a dry lubricant, but it not a rust preventative. A molyed bored should have an oily patch pushed through them at the end of each shooting session to protect it from moisture.

If you can't find the style of molyed bullets you want, applying moly to bullets is a simple process, and if you are careful leaves no mess. Find a small plastic bottle which will hold a box of bullets. Add about an eighth of a teaspoon of lab quality 100% super fine moly to the bottle, and allow the bottle to rattle around for an hour or two in an empty vibratory tumbler. If the bottle does not have a locking lid like a pill bottle, be sure you put the bottle in the tumbler with the lid facing to the left or it will unscrew and make a mess. When the tumbling is finished lay out some heavy paper towels on a sheet of newspaper and dump the bullets out on them. Rub the bullets vigorously to remove the excess moly, then pour them onto a clean paper towel and repeat, then discard the paper towel and newspaper. The bullets now have an even black shiny finish and are ready to load.
 
Thanks a lot guys, I really appreciate the advise.

I'm still not sure exactly what I'm going to do yet... But like everything I can see that moly has it's good points and bad points.

I was told that once you do start using moly coated bullets, that you should continue to use them. Something about the coating making the barrel slippery and regular bullets not grouping well because the bore is so slippery.

Is there any truth to this?

Thanks again,
Blazer 1
 
Oh for gods sake. Feel free to shoot moly bullets down an unmolied bore. I have done it with no issues and nothing happened to the steel. If you are going to stick to moly then do youself a favour and look up how to properly moly the bore so that you get the full benefit. You may have to work up a new load to get the same velocities as when you were shooting naked bullets. You can switch back to naked bullets after fully molying your bore by scrubbing out the moly. Or you could probably just shoot naked on top of it but you might get inconsistant velocities as the naked bullets slowly remove the moly from the bore.
Switching from naked to shoot a few molied and then back to naked has had zero effect in my .308.
 
I read, meaning I have no experience with them, that there are many benefits to moly/danzac ... such as longer barrel life, higher velocities, and reduced copper fouling. One author stated he found that the fouling, from moly bullets, was more concentrated to a few inches up from the throat ... but can tavel up the barrel. The same autor felt he would also clean less vs copper, around every 50 rounds as a start point vs every 25 (he was a compitition shooter though.

One con, if the fouling gets out of hand it can take a bit more work to correct ie the use of brushes and paste.
 
I use Tungsten Disulfide (WS2) AKA Danzac in my .17 Rem and it is better than moly. Less mess too.

http://www.lowerfriction.com/product-page.php?categoryID=1

The .17 shoots pretty good too...

17Rem-1.jpg
 
I have had a chromoly barrel etched from using moly and ruined it due to humidity or a little rain water getting in the barrel.
There was an article written quite a few years ago about the efect of moly on chromoly barrels that explained the etching caused by moly .
I still use it but only in SS barrels I used to use it in my hunting rifle but like I said I ruined a perfectly good barrel because I didn't realize what it did if any water got in there.
 
coyote said:
I have had a chromoly barrel etched from using moly and ruined it due to humidity or a little rain water getting in the barrel.
There was an article written quite a few years ago about the efect of moly on chromoly barrels that explained the etching caused by moly .
I still use it but only in SS barrels I used to use it in my hunting rifle but like I said I ruined a perfectly good barrel because I didn't realize what it did if any water got in there.
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Ok I'll give this some credibility as it's something I never thought of. What happens when a bullet goes down the barrel with moly on it is that some of it decomposes into an oxide and forms a 'compacted oxide layer glaze'. See this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compacted_oxide_glaze_layer

Now this is a good thing as it protects and extends wear life of the coated surfaces, HOWEVER it will release sulphur as it forms the oxide. This means that there is free sulphur in the barrel and when it mixes with water will form H2SO4 (sulphuric acid). Now I'll have to do a little more reading into this as to whether just flushing a barrel with water will remove it or if one needs to use a chemical that will bond to the sulphur and make it inert again. A good cleaning should remove most of the sulphur as well which has been showen by it's successful use in firearms.

I'm curious if the above mentioned tungsten sulphide has this problem as well as logic dictates it should, but the higher temp stability might negate it. All suphides break down and release sulphur...rate is variable.

I would think to just use graphite but it requires a bit of atmospheric moisture to lubricate. Not sure how much moisture is needed so it might be good for bullet lube or it might not. The other thought is talc(talcum powder). I need to look into it's actual properties a bit more though to see if it's a viable alternative, but neither one will be as good as the moly oxide coating from what I gather.

Anyway I'll do more reading on this tonight when I'm not working. I should really get back to work... :p
 
Freyer 255 I personaly did an experiment with moly ,I dampened some moly powder and applied a coating to a piece of 4140 steel the next morning I tried to clean it and it was already etched rough and grey ,I then repeated the experiment on 416 stainless and it did nothing.
I read somewhere that there is some sulphur in moly and also in tungsten sulphide seems to me it was an article on 6br.com I'm not sure.
 
coyote said:
Freyer 255 I personaly did an experiment with moly ,I dampened some moly powder and applied a coating to a piece of 4140 steel the next morning I tried to clean it and it was already etched rough and grey ,I then repeated the experiment on 416 stainless and it did nothing.
I read somewhere that there is some sulphur in moly and also in tungsten sulphide seems to me it was an article on 6br.com I'm not sure.
Click to expand...

I'm surprised it happens that fast. Sulphides(which both those compounds are) by definition contain sulphur and are the cause of things like acid mine drainage. Sulphides break down at surface conditions and the release of sulphur causes sulphuric acid to form when it mixes with water.

So really I'm not surprised. Kind of annoyed now though as I treated a couple guns with moly to test it out before I left on this work rotation. Hoping I oiled them afterwards. That being said I'm in a dryer environment than you as well.
 
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