Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What is Lubalox and what will it do to my barrel?

Is this MOLY? what precautions do you need to take when shooting the winchester stuff with this coating?

so failsafes are moly?

from nosler's website:

Are Lubalox and Moly the same?

NO, Lubalox (CT Ballistic Tip) is an oxide-based coating, which reduces fouling and allows more shooting between cleanings, also Lubalox does not buildup in the barrel and requires only normal cleaning procedures. Moly (CT Fail Safe & Partition Gold) is a molybdenum disulfide coating which reduces fouling and friction. Moly requires a barrel be conditioned by shooting several rounds after cleaning and special cleaning procedures. Accuracy with non-coated bullets may not be up to par in a Moly conditioned barrel.

SAKO75 - if I've got it right (I think I do, but I have been wrong before): Lubalox is NOT moly. I believe it is a rather benign coating. I have heard that 1) it was intended to provide some small degree of lubrication and 2) it was applied purely for cosmetic purposes. I have never heard of its having any sort of bore-fouling capability. Winchester continued to load Lubalox bullets in their factory loads after selling out handloaders in the Combined Technology (no one has ever explained the reasons for it that I can find) misadventure and only providing moly-coated component bullets. I have heard rumors of them coming to their senses and I have also been able to find the old Lubalox bullets through ardent seaching of gunshops as well as on ebay. Hope this helps. John

I have shot a fair number of FailSafe bullets with the original Winchester Lubalox coating in a Steyr .308 Win, and I have not observed any bore effects from it.

I have heard that Winchester originally used it as an appearance coating to set the FailSafe bullet apart from the competition, especially when it was loaded in nickel-plated brass. You know how that high speed, low drag look sells. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

jim

I've never been able to discern any effects from Lubalox-coated bullets, one way or the other. This in particular applies to Fail Safes, as I have also removed the moly from component bullets and never found any ill effects, either in accuracy or pressure.

Winchester only Lubaloxes their factory-loaded Fail Safes, but molys the component bullets. They claim this is because the pure copper of Fail Safe jackets tends to increase pressures over standard gilding-metal bullets, so they moly the things to protect foolish handloaders from themselves.

I do believe Winchester is the last big-time bullet or ammo-maker to still carry the moly torch. Most everybody else has given up.

MD

Hornady still offers moly on a lot of their varmint and target bullets.

Which is on the bullets loaded in Winchester Supreme factory ammo with the Nosler Accubond bullet? I thought about trying the .300 mag Accubond loading, as it's easily available at WalMart everywhere, but I don't think I'd like the moly fouling troubles.

Combined Technologies Ballistic Tip uses Lubalox and in one of my 06s the 180gr actually shot tighter groups than the standard BT did. Easy to clean, and a great killer for deer, hogs and black bear.

It has never seemed to do anything one or the other in the Winchester factory loads that I've shot/been around.

I've always assumed it was a benign black coating meant for advertising purposes.

It sounds like form of Moly without the problems of the real thing. It's an oxide of Moly but it makes the barrel slicker and doesn't foul it. I notice higher velocities than with regular bullets but don't need to season the barrel as is with moly. Whatever you want to call it, it works.

I always thought those were moly coated.

Used to shoot a lot of 22 riimfire ammo that was coated with Lubalox. Always reminded me of some type of wax and was able to be scraped off the bullet with a fingernail. Read somewhere years ago that it wasn’t necessary to clean 22 rimfire rifles after using Lubalox coated ammo.

I've shot quite a few CT bullets in my son's 25-06. Very accurate and I never clean that one ever. Got enough to probably burn the barrel out so guess we'll be a long term test for it. They have killed elk, mule deer, whitetail, antelope and mountain goat in the 25-06.

I load them for 7 mags, very accurate in all five of them!

My Dad always had a saying about "new" products...

"Buy now! New and improved containing seismotite!"

Only problem was no one ever knew what seismotite was....

Another thread arisen from the dead.

Nothing wrong with that.

I have purchased both Lubalox and molyed Fail Safes as component bullets. The moly versions were in bulk packaging. I soaked the moly off with paint thinner. I loaded them with the data for the original Barnes X and never had a problem. The fail safes seemed to have a love hate relationship about them. One lease even banned them for deer and Ross Sigfried thought the 270 140 was about the best Elk bullet around. I liked them but the complicated design did not help accuracy, too many components that could get out of alignment.

I got very good accuracy out of 180 grain Lubalox bullets in my .30-06 with H4350.