Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Any solutions to this mess???

Late to the conversation, but have rarely found any exterior "gunk" on bullets--or brass--that doesn't respond to acetone. Have rarely resorted to gasoline except instances where, say, the bolt in a really old rifle needs an entire soaking just to get apart.

This era Speers had a sheet of foam about 3/8” thick that was on top of the bullets, to stop rattling I guess? All 4 of the boxes I had the foam had melted to some of the bullets, looked exactly like Bobby’s pics above.

I’d have tried boiling some before getting right into the toxic, flammable carcinogenic schitt.

Thanks Kid. Barnes has foam in their boxes too. My experience with foam breaking down has been when it basically crumbles to dust. I'll need to keep an eye on it if the bullets are around long enough.

Don't know why your bothering with all this. That's a factory coating for bore lubricity. Package disulfide.

Looking MUCH better...

I have the same deal with some Speers as well. Thanks for the heads up on cleaning them.

"Gunk" = moly?

After giving them another 8 hour whirl in the tumbler, they now look brand-new.

Did the junk come out of the hp's?...mb

I didn't notice any of the gunk remaining in the hollow points. What's in there seems to be tumbling media.

I figured that might happen. So we're going to take a heavy sewing needle and try and break up the media and get it out of there. Will not be a fun task LOL...

I don't know if this has been mentioned but I would call Speer, send a photo and see what response they give. I suspect they don't want this in the public domain and will move to take care of you.

Yeah, it was open cell poly_ _ _? foam.

I had a sealed box of 45 ACP with the 200 gr. flying ashtrays I'd been saving for hard times, I guess. I opened them, what a mess.

One long germ storage solution I plan to avoid.

Well, I was wrong in my reply above. I had looked at a couple, and all I could see was the tumbling media. But today, I took a needle and tried getting the media out of the hollow cavities and also found there was the gunk caked in. Three of the five bullets I messed with today had it.

It does not seem to want to come out easily, either.

Thought I had won this battle with the mess but guess it's not over yet LOL...

After what I found today (gunk inside of the hollow points), I think I may contact them. Thanks...

I’m might try soaking in high test wood alcohol overnight. It’s 90 something percent alcohol and tends to cut gunk like you describe without the danger of gasoline.

You might want to try Bar Keeper's Friend. I know it does an excellent job of removing moly coating from bullets. Heck, it could be worth a shot.

Thanks for all of the suggestions!

Speer returned my called pretty quickly this afternoon. Had no solution to the problem but said "just shoot them; it won't affect anything."

They are right

I think this is it.

I order Speer bullets both in bulk and in 100 count boxes. All come with this black foam. I don't know why it broke down, but the box got contaminated. Something might have been spilled on the foam at the factory, or, since you received them from someone else, perhaps the box got contaminated there. If the boxes came like that from the factory, I hope they isolated the problem!

I just went through my boxes and pulled all the foam just in case.

This is the foam that comes in the 100 count boxes. Speer 168 gr Target Match I believe this is current production.