Wet Moly coating

[Canuck257]

Can one of you guys please clarify the amount of moly used. I plan to do 100 bullets at a time in a 1lb powder bottle inside my RCBS Sidewinder with just enough water to cover the bullets. A rough idea of the amount of moly to add as a starting point would be much appreciated. I'm using the moly powder from my Neco kit.

 

[inkballedtarget]

For those interested,

I just ordered the dual 3lb drum rock tumbler from harbor freight. I think it came out to $43 using a 20% discount code 16140077.

I'm not sure how well this will work for the wet moly, but I'm going to give it a shot.

Calvin

 

[Duster_360]

Can one of you guys please clarify the amount of moly used. I plan to do 100 bullets at a time in a 1lb powder bottle inside my RCBS Sidewinder with just enough water to cover the bullets. A rough idea of the amount of moly to add as a starting point would be much appreciated. I'm using the moly powder from my Neco kit.

That's the same moly I've been using. Starting with water with no moly, I use a level 1/4 teaspoon - and it was not packed, just scooped and then roughly leveled off. I use that same tumbler, but in the drum itself. My experience has been that you want to see a lot of bullet tips thru the water - less is def better here. If they come out pink or pinkish, too much water, pour some off and run again.

After water has initially been run, I add about half that amount of moly, but I don't measure it closely. I don't think you can use too much moly in the wet process. The guy that 'discovered' the process was tumbling in near moly mud based on the way he described it.

 

[madderg]

Ive been using an old rock tumble that my father had, and he got it used 40 years ago...works great.

 

[ericbc7]

I just upgraded to a Frankford Arsenal Rotary Tumbler to wet tumble my brass which let me re-purpose my small Harbor Freight dual rock tumbler for wet moly coating. The HF unit seems to be the perfect tool for wet moly coating bullets. I use one drum exclusively for cleaning bullets (bit of hot water and dawn) and marked "Clean" and the other drum I use for the moly (marked "M" as you might guess). My first batch is Tumbling now (500 52 gr Hornady BTHP .224) I will update after 4 hrs or so.

sigh, still getting streaks of copper on bullets, decanted some water and added some moly powder. rolling for another hr or so.

Sorry for late update; wet tumbling worked fine!
Used too much water and thus too much Lyman super moly. Bullets look great and doing a batch of 75 gr A-Maxs now. This batch I am cleaning now in the "clean" drum of my HF tumbler but I plan to use a bare minimum of water with the moly in the 2nd drum for coating.

After draining in stocking I dried in food dehydrator.

 

[ericbc7]

Update on my wet moly coating:

so far so good but word of caution, I have been cleaning bullets in water and dawn dishwashing liquid (1 or 2 drops). Make sure you rinse the soap completely out of bullets - particularly the hollowpoints. if any soap is left in or on bullets the moly and water & soap will form a "mousse" that is terrible to clean out. It doesn't seem to affect the coating process much but I opened my Harbor-Freight tumbler cup and there was black "whipped cream" in the cup. I think it was in there due to the soap left in the hollow points of the 80gr SMKs I was coating. It took WAY more time to clean up than usual.

Just to repeat, clean the bullets well before wet coating with moly.

 

[Immike]

Update on my wet moly coating:

so far so good but word of caution, I have been cleaning bullets in water and dawn dishwashing liquid (1 or 2 drops). Make sure you rinse the soap completely out of bullets - particularly the hollowpoints. if any soap is left in or on bullets the moly and water & soap will form a "mousse" that is terrible to clean out. It doesn't seem to affect the coating process much but I opened my Harbor-Freight tumbler cup and there was black "whipped cream" in the cup. I think it was in there due to the soap left in the hollow points of the 80gr SMKs I was coating. It took WAY more time to clean up than usual.

Just to repeat, clean the bullets well before wet coating with moly.

I have been using wet method since it was publish in PS magazine. I don't clean or wash at all and I haven't had any problems. After 10.000+ bullets I'm still using the same water I started with. If I'm doing something wrong I sure can't tell it.

 

[ericbc7]

I may be mistaken on the cause of the "mousse" do you have any insight?

 

[Immike]

I may be mistaken on the cause of the "mousse" do you have any insight?

No Sir I don't. Since most wash their bullets prior to coating then I would think this would be a common occurrence but I'm inclined to think something else contaminated the mix. Maybe take a small sample of moly mix and add a couple drops of soap to it and find out if that was it.

 

[OldmanFCSA]

I've been using projectiles supplied by another source coated with Tungsten Disulfide.
Now I want to try myself.
Will the wet process work with (1) Tungsten DiSulfide, (2) with solid brass projectiles, (3) with Aluminum tipped AMAX projectiles ???
Would Moly work better?

I've read the 6 pages here and am definitely interested, but holding off until my order of solid brass 808 & 815 grain bore-rider projectiles arrive.

 

[Terry]

I wet moly coated 45 ACP FMJ bullets. It worked great.

 

[eddyverhoeven]

Has anyone tried using a vibratory tumbler as is, just bullets in the bowl with water and moly, no jar?

Dave, that's been my method since I first read about the wet method.
I installed a splash guard disk of plastic low down to keep the lid dry and scoop the bullets out with a rubber-gloved hand. I rinse the bullets and glove in an ice-cream container with a running hose and then towel dry the bullets. They look perfect and shoot well. The moly water gets reused over and over.

Hi daj,

I intend to use a Lyman vibratory tumbler (mod. 600). How many bullets can you treat in one run and how much water/moly do you use? Do you use ceramic polishing media in the process? How much Moly do you add for each next batch?
I'm new to this method so any suggestions are welcome.

Good shooting

Eddy

 

[daj]

Hi Eddy,
I usually tumble 100-200 at a time for 4 hrs. I tried doing only 50x 123 Scenars once and found they took forever to coat - not enough impact going on. The max/min bullet numbers for your tumbler will become obvious because coating times will take longer with too many or too few.
First time, I add enough water to cover 75% of the bullets then add 1 teaspoon of moly powder (Lyman Super Moly). After that, I just replace lost water and add a little moly each time if necessary to keep the slurry looking right. (ie creamy not watery)
I don't pre-clean and I don't use ceramic polishing media.
Hope that helps.
daj

 

[eddyverhoeven]

Hi Eddy,
I usually tumble 100-200 at a time for 4 hrs. I tried doing only 50x 123 Scenars once and found they took forever to coat - not enough impact going on. The max/min bullet numbers for your tumbler will become obvious because coating times will take longer with too many or too few.
First time, I add enough water to cover 75% of the bullets then add 1 teaspoon of moly powder (Lyman Super Moly). After that, I just replace lost water and add a little moly each time if necessary to keep the slurry looking right. (ie creamy not watery)
I don't pre-clean and I don't use ceramic polishing media.
Hope that helps.
daj

Thanks for the info.

E.

 

[michaelbz]

Anybody measure the PH of the slurry? It would be an indicator if any of the mos2 degraded to MoO3. I don't know if it would be good or bad, it is just to satisfy my curiosity.

Typically how much velocity is lost between wet moly, dry moly or bare, using the same charge of course?

 

[Ketosan]

Years ago when moly coating first became popular, I invested in all the rotary tumblers and other equipment--but found the process quite messy and finally abandoned the process.
Was glad to find this thread--and have now gone back to moly using the wet process--and what a huge difference in end product. Using the RCBS rotary tumbler I used for the dry process and have done from 50 to 250 bullets at one time--and they always come out primo.
Just done a comparison test on velocity difference between moly and non moly bullets: Used exact same load and fired within minutes of each other--
308, 24 inch barrel, 42.5 gr IMR 4064, SMK 168s, 7300' elevation, 50 degrees F: Moly gave 2656 fps, non moly gave 2672 fps.
No significant difference in accuracy: both shot .75"

 

[Mozella]

I may be mistaken on the cause of the "mousse" do you have any insight?

Yeah, it's the stuff coming off the interior of those rubber-like drums. I think they're made out of recycled Chinese flip-flops. It happens when tumbling brass too.

Go to Walmart and purchase a jug of Great Values store brand applesauce. The jug has a wide mouth and is round on the ends, but it has a "hand grip" molded into the middle which provides great agitation. It works well on the Harbor Freight rock tumbler. I use one jug for brass and a second one exclusively for wet moly coating. After tumbling for two hours, I transfer the moly slurry into a 1 pound powder jar for storage via a sieve which catches the freshly coated bullets.

I rinse the bullets under running water, give them a shake, and dump them into a pan lined with paper towels. I pat them dry and then change the paper towels when the bullets are nearly dry. I shake them back and forth for a minute or so and then hit them with a heat gun. The water trapped in the hollow points comes out and is absorbed by the paper towels as I shake them a little bit more. I let them cool and then give them another treatment with the heat gun to be sure they're completely dry.

The bullets are perfect. The coating doesn't come off, there isn't any dust, and the process isn't even messy as long as you dont' drop the bottle of moly dust. For the next batch I pour in the moly juice from the previous batch, add water to just cover the bullets, and then I add a little more moly dust, usually about the amount which will fit on the end of a screw driver.

Oh yeah, did I mention eat the apple sauce first?

 

[eddyverhoeven]

Hi Eddy,
I usually tumble 100-200 at a time for 4 hrs. I tried doing only 50x 123 Scenars once and found they took forever to coat - not enough impact going on. The max/min bullet numbers for your tumbler will become obvious because coating times will take longer with too many or too few.
First time, I add enough water to cover 75% of the bullets then add 1 teaspoon of moly powder (Lyman Super Moly). After that, I just replace lost water and add a little moly each time if necessary to keep the slurry looking right. (ie creamy not watery)
I don't pre-clean and I don't use ceramic polishing media.
Hope that helps.
daj

Thanks for the info.

E.

Thanks daj,

Tried it, liked it (very much). I won't go back to the old (dry) method

Eddy

 

[Phil]

I may be mistaken on the cause of the "mousse" do you have any insight?

Yeah, it's the stuff coming off the interior of those rubber-like drums. I think they're made out of recycled Chinese flip-flops. It happens when tumbling brass too.

Go to Walmart and purchase a jug of Great Values store brand applesauce. The jug has a wide mouth and is round on the ends, but it has a "hand grip" molded into the middle which provides great agitation. It works well on the Harbor Freight rock tumbler.

Which bottle do you buy, the 24 or 48 oz. bottle????

Can you use 2 bottles on the tumbler???


Phil.

 

[Mozella]

Which bottle do you buy, the 24 or 48 oz. bottle????

Can you use 2 bottles on the tumbler???


Phil.

48oz, one bottle for the Harbor Freight dual tumbler, but it holds nearly as much as both the H.F. drums.