Leading, leadcast, moly coating.

[BigBill]

I've reloaded since the early 70's. I was shooting jacketed bullets at paper targets. I soon switched over to leadcast bullets in my 44mag, 357/38, 45acp. My 44 mag was first at the range. I started getting leading in my barrel. I been testing moly since 1970 in every application. I seen the Carolina lead cast bullets that are moly coated. I started using them. I lowered my powder charge a tad too. Very little lead in the barrel ever since. The barrel sheen is a dark gray. I just wipe the barrel with a bore brush. The moly is in the pores of the metal in the barrel if we wash the barrel we remove the moly.

Same thing with moly coated jacketed rifle bullets. Moly eliminates wear, reduces friction. Again your bore will be a dark gray. Just mop it out. Using moly the bore is much easier to clean. No washing is needed. If you want the fps and accuracy to be consistent. This is why some shooters had problems shooting moly bullets. Even the manufacturer of the moly bullets didn't explain it correctly. A change of habits is needed. Bill

 

[Mike SC Hunter]

I shoot plain based cast/lubed & properly sized bullets in all my revolvers from 32 to 45.......I don't have a leading problem......Usually one pass with a nylon brush & one pass with a mop and the bores are clean.....

 

[fredj338]

IMO, moly is pretty old school, most manuf have moved on, shooters too. Conventional lubed lead bullets won't lead up to 1500fps w/ the right size, lube & alloy. Most leading issues are bullets being too small for the bore. With revolvers, cyl throat dims are as important as bore dims.
With "newer" coatings, the lead bullet is even more viable than it used to be & without the down side of moly coatings infecting the bore. I tried moly rifle bullets when they first came out. Yes they shoot fine, bore wear, maybe a bit less. The bigger issue was accuracy when switching back & forth between moly & non moly. Unless you clean all the moly down to the steel, accuracy was horrible for me in rifles. Maybe not so much in handguns shot at 25yds & less, but moly just has no place in my bores anymore.

 

[rsrocket1]

I went through the first 500 rounds of of my M&P40 using plated bullets. I then went though about 1000 Bear Creek moly coated bullets. After that I shot a couple thousand tumble lubed cast bullets but always got light leading which easily came out with a Chore Boy wrapped bore mop and about 3-4 sweeps. I have since shot about 50,000 rounds of cast lead bullets coated with powder coating using mostly Harbor Freight red and baked in a toaster oven.

Zero leading, only powder fouling.

One swipe with a patch with Hoppes No9 or CLP and it's clean.

The powder is about $5/pound and you use about 1/2 teaspoon for 100 bullets. I coated 400 45ACP bullets last night and timed myself. It took 15 minutes to shake and stack 200 bullets on a tray and 20 minutes at 400 F to bake while stacking another batch. It takes about an hour to size 500 bullets using a Lee push through sizer so the added time beyond casting is about 2 hours for 1000 bullets.

 

[Nevada Ed]

Many of the rifle shooters stopped using the old gray ""Moly"
super duper coating , that came out many years ago, due to
problems of build up and removing it from the barrels.

The "New style" coatings with better "Science" in the makeup
are the cats meow, for a clean barrel, that should not lead.

Some shooters love them some hate them........

 

[apollo99]

I just started using the poly coated bullets in 44 mag/spl, 357 mag/38 spl. I couldn't be happier with the results, a cleaner bore when done shooting, more accuracy while shooting, and I actually like the red color. The coated lead also doesn't bounce back as much as the jacketed I was previously using. I consider this a win, win.