Cleaning bullet lube

[Superlite27]

I cast 200 gr. SWC .45 ACP's and pan or "tumble" lube with Lee Liquid Alox bullet lube.

After drying, the bullets are completely coated with a nice waxlike candy shell. After I load them, this nice candy coating is all over the nose of my bullets.

What's the best method of getting this crap off? Any particular solvents that work really well? I'm currently hand wiping them with a Goo-Gone soaked rag, and it is getting tedious enough to make me say, "There has to be a better way."

Should I even worry about cleaning them? Will putting them through my 1911's with the candy coating still on be a problem? I really don't want to. I think this waxy coating would have a tendency to pick up grit and other contaminants and I really don't want to put this through my mags, chambers, and barrel bores. Not to mention the wax buildup itself. So I really desire to clean them whether everyone says it's O.K. or not.

So, anyone reccommend a more "user friendly" way to get this crap off my finished bullets? Or is it back to the Goo-Gone rag for me?

 

[Walkalong]

You can shoot them just as they are. Won't hurt a thing. Rooster Jacket is a little less messy than Lee Liquid Alox. You might try it.

 

[zxcvbob]

1. You can try using Rooster Jacket instead of LLA, or...
2. Dust the finished rounds with talcum powder.
3. Use mineral spirits or gasoline instead of Goo-Gone (they are a lot cheaper.) You'll want to keep any solvents away from the primers.

 

[loadedround]

As the others have stated, the lube won't hurt or gum up your pistol upon firing. However, if the lube bothers you, why not do what I do with lubed rifle rounds, tuble them for 15-20 min in clean media. It will not hurt to tumble loaded rounds and it's the easiest way to clean them up.

 

[Iron Sight]

I had bad luck tumbling Alox lubed lead pistol bullets. The media sticks to the projectiles and its difficult to remove.

 

[1858rem]

i had the same problem and they turned all grey an stuff...... but not sticky! where to buy rooster jacket?

 

[Jumping Frog]

I had bad luck tumbling Alox lubed lead pistol bullets. The media sticks to the projectiles and its difficult to remove.

My experience has been the opposite. I regularly place my loaded roads in the case tumbler after loading and it cleans the LLA off nicely. Never had any sticking or any problems.

Now, I don't go particularly overboard on drenching my cast boolits with Alox either. I've found a nice light coat works just fine on all of my pistol calibers.

Usually, I'll tumble lube and use the Lee sizer while they are still wet. After sizing, they are still wet, so I'll add just enough Alox to re-tumble the sized boolits, and then spread them out to dry for 24 hours.

Load the rounds, case tumble, place into my MTM cases, and label the plastic cases.

 

[1858rem]

i use a rock tumbler but its broken now so i use a rag. i DONT like the sticky in my seating die though

 

[Walkalong]

where to buy rooster jacket?

Start here or you could go straight here. Good stuff.

 

[Superlite27]

There Bad link.

 

[Walkalong]

Whoops.....Try it again......

 

[Bula]

With all this extra time to remove that moose snot, I always figured it was best to just run them thru a sizer/luber. Something just didn't feel right about taking the time to cast these little gems and then cover them in that aweful stuff. Try dipping them up to the seating depth. No sense wasting lube on the parts that don't touch the barrel.

 

[ReloaderFred]

Place your bullets in a flat pan, like a pie pan, resting on their bases. Flood the pan until the lube reaches the level of the top of the bearing surface of the bullet. Use forceps to remove the bullets and place them on wire racks to dry.

This will leave lube on only the portion that requires it, and none on the nose of the bullet.

Hope this helps.

Fred

PS: I use Lubri-sizers myself, but have experimented with the liquid lubes. I didn't care for them, but that was the method I used to lube them when I did it. It was a whole lot less messy than flooding them.

 

[jtuck]

Dusting with cornstarch is generally how I deal with LLA when I use it. Some people say that tumbling live ammo is a bad idea, as it breaks the powder down and increases the burn rate. How much tumbling it takes to achieve that I do not know.

 

[DukeInMaine]

I coat my cast bullets with Alox2, and leave it on the bullets. I was previously filling the grooves with lube, and that didn't work as well as the Alox2 covering the whole bullet.

Keep in mind what the purpose of the lube is. . . . .

It's to lubricate the NEXT bullet down the barrel. So, if some extra lube gets into your barrel, the better for the barrel (less lead sticking to it).

So, where I used to wipe off the Alox2 from the exposed part of the bullet, I now leave it on, and shoot the "ugly" bullets, knowing it's better for the gun.

 

[bunnielab]

I mostly buy commercial cast bullets that come lubed with that hard, waxy stuff. I will give them all a light tumble in LLA before loading as sort of a "it cant hurt" thing. I have found that I can load about 200r before the build up in the seating die becomes a problem.

I sometimes clean the lube off the loaded rounds with a rag that is damp with rubbing alcohol. I jut pop a movie in and have a it.