Removing Lee liquid alox

Butcherbill

Butcherbill

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Does anyone have any experience or advice for removing LLA?

Bought a box of cast 10mm bullets lubed with it and I’d like to powder coat some of them. Was reading about boiling water, mineral spirits, brake cleaner, acetone to remove it over on castboolits.com, I’ve got most of those things in the shop. Have some lacquer thinner as well I thought might work, 99% isopropyl too.
 
Hi. I use lighter fluid to remove alox off of the nose after seating and crimping. Wipe it on wait a few seconds to soften, then wipe off.
 
I boil the wax off and then swish in a small amount of gas line antifreeze, let sun dry for a bit then PC. one word of advise when boiling, after the wax has lifted off the slugs it will float to the top, let that cool and then skim off the top of the water before removing the slugs....prevents re-contaminating the slugs with a thin film of wax.
 
Thanks guys, I will try some mineral spirits first and then acetone or lacquer thinner on a handful. They are lightly coated so I don’t think it will be all that tough to get it off.

I’m going to shoot some lubed as well as powder coat a batch and see which works best for me, have a box of 500. Will just be plinking loads and a good candidate to get a PC setup dialed in for summer casting.
 
I would have a concern that some solvents like mineral spirits might leave a residue which could affect how well the PC bonds to the bullet. I think your best bets are acetone or lacquer thinner which seem to do a better job of removing oils, etc. without leaving a residue. My personal preference is lacquer thinner simply because it is less volatile than acetone. Lighter fluid should also work but is a lot more expensive than lacquer thinner or acetone although if you are only doing a few bullets it's is probably not a big deal. If the bullets have lube grooves make sure the alox is fully removed from them as well.
 
Yeah agreed, I’d be giving them a good wash after to get any mineral spirit residue off. I have a good amount of Lacquer thinner, now that I think about it I have a big can of automotive wax and grease remover that I never use. Very similar to lacquer thinner, evaporates quick as well.
 
I tried to remove the lee lube a few years ago with verying degrees of success. I had a pile of 45 lee cast bullets. The boiling and then a wash in acetone seemed to work the best. But still had blotchy coating. Unless you took the time to clean each bullet individually. I just ended up relubing them and I am still shooting them.
 
I had some bullets that I purchased that were lubed that I wanted to powdercoat. Not sure what lube though, they were factory bullets probably from the 60s. Boiled them to get most of the lube off, used gasoline to get what was left off.
 
Ruger007 said:
I tried to remove the lee lube a few years ago with verying degrees of success. I had a pile of 45 lee cast bullets. The boiling and then a wash in acetone seemed to work the best. But still had blotchy coating. Unless you took the time to clean each bullet individually. I just ended up relubing them and I am still shooting them.
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I remember I’ve watched a YouTube video of a guys wet tumbling powder coating process and he used acetone to add to the powder to increase adhesion, so acetone residue shouldn’t affect anything.
 
Butcherbill said:
I remember I’ve watched a YouTube video of a guys wet tumbling powder coating process and he used acetone to add to the powder to increase adhesion, so acetone residue shouldn’t affect anything.
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Acetone doesn't leave a residue. Also it is used as a carrier for the powdercoating.

I left mine soaking over night in mineral spirits, just need a little patients
 
Here’s a couple during/after pics and what I used, I let it sit overnight but things looked just as clean after soaking for a few hours.

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