Home Forums Reloading Handgun Reloading Removing lube

Was reading the thread about using coated cast bullets in Glocks and lo and behold, I recently bought two Glock 9mm's. I also have 1000 commercial lubed 9mm bullets from a small custom maker. They test out at 15 BHN on the ol' LBT Hardness Tester so I'm guessing they are Lyman #2 or something similar. The lube appears to be the typical waxy hard red lube found on a lot of commercial bullets.

I was thinking of melting out the lube and then coating the bullets. 1) I'm using coated bullets in a GP-100 revolver and really like the lack of lube smoke and 2) coating seems to eliminate a lot of the maybes and whatif's associated with lead and Glocks. I'd just as soon avoid the whole problem.

Sooo - what's the cleanest way to completely remove the old lube from 1000 bullets? I can heat them in an oven to melt it out but then they're sitting in a puddle of melted lube. If I apply powder to them then any lube still on any part of a bullet is going to melt during the curing process and carry away the powder.




To be honest, I'd just as soon not reload 9mm but I have this pile of cast bullets and a few gallon bags of empty brass and don't want to waste them.

Melt off the lube in an oven as you described, but put the bullets on a wire rack above a pan to catch the wax so they don't end up in a puddle.
Wash the bullets in a solvent to remove any remaining wax.
When using solvents I usually start with alcohol and work up if necessary to paint thinner, lacquer thinner, acetone, etc. Whatever cuts the wax effectively.
Sounds like a lot of work though; I'd probably just shoot them up as is.

Shooting lead bullets in a Glock

Shoot them or sell them. 9mm are fairly easy to sell if you don't get too greedy.

This.

I powder coat all my own bullets of course, but it's just not worth the time or trouble to clean wax lubed bullets for coating. You need to have them completely clean for the coating to stick, so a process like NVhntr described is necessary at minimum, and you really need to do several rinses in a strong solvent like acetone or laquer thinner.

It's really just not worth the trouble, especially when they'll probably shoot OK as-is if you figure out a decent load and don't over crimp or use one of those "factory crimp dies".

Good advice, I would load them and shoot them. Heck, I would melt them down & re cast them before I would go through all the trouble mentioned above!

Dick

try MEK methyl ethyl ketone soak for an hour

use spaghetti strainer over bucket, rinse MEK (and wax film) off with alcohol

Agreed, I'd be able to melt them and cast fresh clean bullets faster than I could clean them. Tried that once just because; it ain't worth it.

You could try putting them in a pot of water and boiling them. After the lube melts out it will float to the top. Let the water cool and the lube will solidify on top and can be lifted off the water. I did this on a big batch of bullets I bought a a yard sale. They were covered in dust and grit. It worked well to remove the old lube. I relubed them and shot them in a 44 I had back then.

After sleeping on it this does seem more of a wild hair idea, just more trouble than it's worth. Oh well, thanks for the reality check.

I have been powder coating my own. And yes, I decided some of the old wax lubed bullets needed to be powder coated, so I tossed 'em in the pot and recast them. That is the fastest and easiest way to get it done.