I was told several years ago that moly coated bullets make the barrel very difficult to clean. I cannot comment on personal experience, just hearsay. There is a lot of better informed people here than me.

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It is the opposite. The problem is that before you use moly coated bullets the barrel must be cleaned of all copper fouling first. Moly will allow the bullet to squeeze down the barrel easier and leave it much cleaner after your shooting session. When shooting moly from our Service Rifles we did notice a slight drop in velocity for a given load which is due to less pressure needed to push the bullet down the barrel. If your sight dope is set to a specific velocuty (like 2800 fps) then you may need to add a tad more powder to bring the speed back up so that your dope tables work correctly.

 

I understand that commercial needs ($) always require new solutions,
and that B.R. shooters first are constantly oriented towards each new experiment,
however, to date, I have never had to regret molycoating my bullets,
this also in my Mausers_
I talk about new and old carbon-steel barrels,
where I care about not only about performance,
but about a longer lasting life too, if possible. (I hope)_
In my experience, moly-conditioned barrels are quicker to clean from the gunshot residues after use.
it is understood that the moly must not be removed from the treated barrels,
unless I want to return to the use of uncoated bullets:
this can today be easily obtained with dedicated products or foams.

 

I remember a bunch of controversy over moly coated bullets, pros and cons and probably, like me, a lot of shooters misunderstood what they were reading or being told. JMHO

 

I know around here... most people avoid them. They claim they tend to dirty the barrel..

 

I remember that the problems of sulphurous corrosion hypothetically due to moly were often concomitant with moly-barrels left in unfriendly environments and with little care. (obviously I am referring to what I read from U.S. sources, assuming I had translated and understood correctly).
To date, cleaning the shot residues from my m.barrels after use with a not particularly aggressive oil, and storing the same lightly lubricated inside, I have had no problems.
(I cross the fingers

)

 

I have a couple of boxes of Federal Premium in .30-06 loaded with 180 gr Barnes XLC (Coated X Bullet). I never shot them after I started reloading and just got reminded I had them after reading this thread. I think I might post them for a trade locally, see if anyone is interested.

 

Moly-lube the miracle engine treatment, even though this thread is all about boollets and shooting! it's still available for engines.

ca'jun56

 

I tried them in several rifles, including a br rifle. never saw any real advantage to it for me. still have a bunch I'd get rid of, seems no one wants them anymore.
Barry

 

That's an interesting question. I was pretty active in High Power competition during the Moly craze and I knew several marksmen using coated bullets. As I shot for my unit's rifle team, I was issued good Lake City match ammo and so I never tried the coated bullets. I did listen to those who did while pulling targets or after a match either sing Moly's praises or complain about its foibles. While I was tempted to try it, but I never did get around to it and I now wonder, like the OP: What did happed to Moly coated bullets?

You know, this thread also brings up the question: What ever happened to cryo freezing barrels? That was once also supposed to be the end all for match barrels. I knew a few shooters who would invest their last penny in just one more 10 or X at 600 yards and they used barrels that had the cryo freezing process as well as Moly coated bullets.

 

I think we tend to be a nation of "fads". I remember using a Moly additive in the motor oil of our delivery trucks in the 80's. We seemed to think we got some good out of using it but, it slowly faded out of use. They closed the Climax mine in Colorado and started importing from China. Seems like I heard the mine re-opened a few years ago.
That stuff is slick though.

 

I used a batch of moly-coated in my 9mm. I know you guys are talking about rifle barrels, but barrels are barrels. Moly coating left a black coating in the barrel and if you are expecting to a bright shiney barrel after cleaning you'd think that your barrel was dirty, but it wasn't. I never bought any more because I didn't think it was worth the additional cost. I guess people didn't think it solved a problem.

 

In the 70's the USAF experimented on some of our heavy ground radars to see if moly could be used to extend the life of antenna bearings since changing them involved tall specialized cranes in remote locations.
The result was that it's useless as an additive - it has to be bonded in a special process to show lubricating properties.
Steel was the only material mentioned for obvious reasons but since the process involved heat and pressure I doubt that bullets were using a bonded coating.
So all those moly engine additives are pure snake oil.

 

I have a close personal friend, he worked in the Moly Room at Black Hills Ammo. The bullets were coated in tumblers, and the dust was everywhere, even with sealed tumbler doors. The microscopic Moly dust gets in your skin, hair, pores, clothing, and it creeps in to your wristwatch, glasses, and everything else. It enters the pores in the barrel steel, and becomes part of the metallurgy. It's very hard to wash off your body, and almost impossible to get out of a barrel, too.

It makes your barrel 'addicted' to the coated bullets, groups will actually open up slightly if you shoot standard slugs through a Moly saturated bore. After weighing all the evidence, BHA quit Moly coating their match bullets. The disadvantages outweighed the advantages. The advantages were questionable, too. A slight increase in velocity, and maybe, just maybe an increase in accuracy, but not in all rifles.

 

In the 70's the USAF experimented on some of our heavy ground radars to see if moly could be used to extend the life of antenna bearings since changing them involved tall specialized cranes in remote locations.
The result was that it's useless as an additive - it has to be bonded in a special process to show lubricating properties.
Steel was the only material mentioned for obvious reasons but since the process involved heat and pressure I doubt that bullets were using a bonded coating.
So all those moly engine additives are likely pure snake oil.
Oh - I think they determined that the culprit was heat coupled with some other pressure effects from very large supported weights.
It *does* make a good lubricant for high load conditions much like graphite.

 

Well I have one rifle that I used them in. I believe the old Winchester Failsafe bullet had Molly coat. My rifle loves them. I don't use that rifle much any more but when I do I have a couple of spare boxes. Don't fix what ain't broke. Nickel moa or less.

I dont one know what slick 50 had in it but it worked on my 78 K-10 Blazer. It had a 400 ci small block. Known for running hot.
Pone day after leaving the air base I stopped and picked up oil and a can of that. Changed the oil and filter with a hot engine. The took it out for a 50 mile jaunt and parked it. I the next day it was running much cooler and my gas milagle went up by almost 3 mpg. The down side I had to put cardboard in front of the radiator in the winter to have heat. Until I changed the thermostat. Never used it since though. In my case it was not snake oil.

 

Slick 50 had Teflon it. Never used slick 50, but I am a big fan of Tri-Flow lubricants for use on my firearms. It seems, at least for me, to make barrel cleaning much easier. I first started using it back around 1980. I had a Colt AR-15 SP1 with a rough spot in the upper receiver, and after 20 or 30 rounds, the bolt carrier would tend to hang up occasionally. I tried several different lubricants, but Tri-Flow was the one that worked the best. I've been using it ever since.

As far as moly-coated bullets, I remember reading about them, but I never tried any.

 

I first used them with the Winchester Fail Safe projectiles for an elk hunt. The projectile, Fail Safe, was similar to the Barnes X Bullet from what I remember but was covered in Moly. They worked great on elk that year but I didn't get the accuracy I had wanted when developing the load. After the season when I went to cleaning, the moly would not come out of the barrel. Yes it is just a coating but I get really picky on my bolt action rifles that I demand absolute accuracy out of them. To this day, my 338 Win Mag still has moly that won't come out of the barrel.

I think it was a trend for the time to sell people as stated earlier, everything changes every year to try and make everyone buy something new. I didn't care for it and wouldn't use it again in my rifles just because of the lasting effect of it staying in the barrel.

 

It's the best thing I've ever seen for making a mess everywhere. Lord help you if you get as sudden gust through a window. I'm thinking that may have lead to it's disappearance.

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I'm not an apologist for moly coated bullets, but I'd like to understand more about them.

The bench rest shooters initially embraced them since they thought they could reduce their group sizes by 0.05-0.1". This is enough to move them from the top 25% to the top 5% of shooters at a match. These guys keep detailed records of every target shot--loads, conditions, bullets, temperature, wind, etc. They had the data to tell if moly was making a difference. (Evidently, that data eventually also convinced them to stop using it as well.)

The barrels were black inside. Copper fouling could not be easily seen. According to the wisdom of the time, on the other hand, there was almost no copper fouling when using moly. Cleaning could be done with one or two passes with a Kroil saturated patch, to remove the powder residue, and that was supposed to be all that was necessary. Moly was thought to preserve the accuracy potential of the benchrest barrels from about 1000 rounds to 2000 rounds or more. It was also thought to similarly preserve the barrels of the ultra magnums and fast wildcat calibers, which suffer bore erosion from the high pressure propellant gases by around 1000 rounds.

Although some moly coated bullets were commercially available, most users coated their own bullets in a rotary tumbler. I don't think this was commercially driven any more than is the popularity of stainless steel tumbling media.

It's interesting to me that that moly coated bullets were once considered to be essential to win shooting championships. All the big name shooters were using it. Then, no more than about 10 years later, it all but disappeared. I will continue to use moly coated bullets for some of my top loads. I think moly offers advantages in lowering internal pressures. My rifles and my shooting are not accurate enough to demonstrate improvement in group sizes.

Thanks for the thoughts and replies. Keep them coming.

 

I have several partial boxes of molly bullets. I don’t like them because they are all but impossible to clean out off bore.

 

I tried them in my Browning B78 and 1886 .45-70. Never saw any improvement as the rifles shot the same sized groups. Cleaning was a bit more involved as it more solvent and patches were needed to attain a clean barrel.

 

The custom rifle maker and BR shooter that taught me how to handload originally was a big time moly coat guy, but as time went on, started moving away from it. He found it really did nothing for him.

 

I have used molly coated bullets in a number of rifles for a long time. I am no expert but in my 22-250 Ackley I had to increase the Powder charge by 0.5gr to restore velocity. This is in a Douglas match grade barrel, did I notice an improvement in accuracy ? I am not a bench rest shooter but it certainly was no worse. What I did notice was I did NOT have to use a bore brush (phosphor bronze) 1/3 Kroil 2/3 shooters choice with a nylon brush saturate the bore and let soak for up too 2 hrs. Depending on the number of shots 1 or 2 on a nights foxing 20 mns would do then first swab with a wet patch till clean then dry. I degrease my S/S barrels with lighter fluid but leave my ordinary steel barrels damp with cleaner until required then degrease before use. This is being mindful of some reports that Molly under certain conditions can be corrosive on vanadium steel. What I DID notice was if a barrel was squeaky clean before using molly and was a good barrel with a clean bore it did not copper foul anywhere near the same if at all. just 2 cents from across the pond, Gar.

 

I found this info: https://www.brownells.com/aspx/learn/learndetail.aspx?lid=10694
Though it doesn't have a date on it. I've been handloading for over 30 years, and have never had an interest in moly-coated bullets. Through the years, I did read multiple articles about them. I figured that for the average handloading shooter, they were not worth the effort. I am a proponent of thoroughly and completely cleaning a rifle bore of any bit of copper/gilding metal fouling by using top-quality copper solvents (not Hoppes No.9) or foams and occasionally J-B Non-Embedding Bore Compound (bore paste) to make the bore metal a "ground zero" surface after every shooting session.

 

I keep seeing reference to "Kroil" What is this Kroil of which you speak?