Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles Mic McPherson is God

Last VHM, Mic admitted a mistake that turned out to be serendipitous for him, and I tried it myself today after a batch turned out poorly.
Basically, it's a new way to tumble moly. Instead of the balls and stuff, you take wet bullets and tumble them with powder, let them beat each other up.
Never seen such a color, and wow, are they SLICK. Doesn't rub off the metal much either. Seems much less finicky than the old method -- uses more moly but not enough to matter cost-wise.
So, if anyone is interested in how this works, write something and I'll keep posting as I go.

You don't even need to use wet bullets, just use clean bullets. I've been moly'ing for years with no shot. Just dump the bullets from the box into a pan, add enough cold water to cover plus 1/2 inch, put in a squeeze of dishwashing soap, and bring to a boil; yes, I've boiled thousands of plastic tipped bullets with no harm. After it hits a boil dump the load into a colander and rinse with cold water. Dump the bullets onto a towel and grab the two short ends and pick it up; will look like a hammock. Alternately raise and lower the towel ends to roll the bullets and dry them. Dump the bullets in large pill bottle, big vitamin bottle, or whatever holds the bullets with enough room to let them tumble and fits your tumbler. Put in a pinch (~ 1/8 teaspoon) of moly, tape the top on so it doesn't come loose in the tumbler, and tumble for about 30 minutes. Take them out and dump them on a double layer of paper towels and do the hammock thing again to take off any excess moly. Bullets will come out a dark silver that doesn't scratch off, and so slick you can barely pick them up by the tips. I'm still on the same jar of moly I bought 20 years ago; a little goes a long way.

Well, Mic is God because he wrote about it where I read it....
He wrote that the hydrophilic aspects of moly did some kind of voodoo with the jacket.
I do your prep routine already, with Dawn and hot, hot water. Not boiling, but plenty toasty.
One thing I'm dying to know, KC, do you wax them (I don't) and if so, is your method easy cheesy?

I used to wax them, before I figured out how to get the moly to stick so well... Now I don't bother. I even tried teflon coating them by tumbling in powdered teflon after moly, but didn't see an advantage. I did get tired of picking tefloned bullets up off the floor; talk about slick...

Dave,
McPherson use to rant about people "not" waxing..
Did he say anything about waxing in his article?
Does he still wax?
Thanks..

Only his bikini line...

John

The thread title is blasphemy!!

Seriously?

God doesn't need bullets, so beware who you call God.

By the way, I tumbled another batch with the new method and it really came out super. Couple hours with damp bullets, then about five minutes in another jar with paper towel strips to get the excess off.
Need to figure out a way to vent the moisture, the bullets get warm and I should make a vented lid with a "filter" of some kind. But this new way is way better. The tactility is "slippery."

The only two things in your post that need repeated.

I quit fooling with moly a while ago. Have found that Dyna Bore Coat is more effective in reducing bore-fouling of any sort. It only has to be put into the bore once, then last for the lifetime of the barrel, rather than having to be applied to every bullet.