Bullet Coatings

truck driver · Jan 17, 2018

Been doing some reading and was wondering if anyone here use bullet coatings to reduce friction and fouling in the rifle bore?
I know Moly was used but fell out of favor and now there is Boron Nitride coatings.
Does this stuff work or is it just a gimmick?

desertcj · Jan 17, 2018

I use moly. I wet tumble my bullets in stainless media with water and moly powder. I think I get less copper fouling and it's definitely less friction. I'm consistently a couple grains of powder higher to hit predicted velocity. I also like that my copper bullets don't corrode over time after being coated. I've considered trying HBN, but I really don't have a reason to not like moly other than it is sorta messy.

truck driver · Jan 18, 2018

Thanks for the reply desertcj.
I was on David Tubb's web site looking for info on fire lapping and saw where he promoted HBN. His coating kit looked simple and clean.
HBN being a white powder doesn't look to be as messy as moly or at least doesn't show up as bad when you get it on your hands or clothes.
Moly can be a pain to clean up once you get it on your hands and clothes from my experience with it so I only use it to dust the inside of my case necks when sizing to reduce stretch or to burnish internal trigger and sear areas to reduce wear.
I'm not knocking the use of moly on bullets just don't want the mess involved.

bowfishn · Jan 18, 2018

I use HBN in my 6.5 CMs, I like it I shoot bullets at high speed using RL26 using HBN and It appears it will also increase barrel life. I broke in my barrel without HBN and up to the first 200 rounds I did not use HBN. Over 1000 rounds down my 26" X-Caliber barrel and I cannot measure a difference in the distance to the lands from when I first measure barrel new till now. I liked it well enough after break in with my 10BA Stealth I started shooting coated bullets. I also have started using HBN coated out of both Sako 30-06 rifles and my Savage 99 308 win.

thatguySHM · Jan 18, 2018

I use HBN for my wife's 6mm BR. I barely ever clean the rifle, she shoots 3" groups at 450 yards, and I never really did load development. Went with a standard 6mm BR load that's not hard on the brass, and it shoots .3's consistently.

It takes a bit of getting used to with coating the bullets and amount of HBN to use. I use the bottle that came with the Tubbs kit, and found it's a very common size and supplement bottles were the same size. It takes at least twice the normal amount the first time you use a bottle because you have to HBN coat the inside of that also. I will dial by bullets in acetone, rattle them around in a container to get contaminants off the bullets and let them dry. Remember hollow points will need to get beat around a bit to get the acetone out of the HP cavity. I use a strip of gorilla tape over the top of the bottle then wrap it with electric tape to keep the dust out. I'll let it then tumble in a vibratory tumbler for an hour or two, sometimes adding HBN if needed.

I don't see the need to do it up anything besides target shooting and there's no point in doing half your rounds in HBN and the other half not. It treats your barrel, leaving HBN in it, so if you shoot non coated bullets it's going to eliminate the positives of shooting HBN.

Just my .02¢, take it for what it's worth.

SHM

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

truck driver · Jan 18, 2018

thatguySHM":3ka5yeu3 said:
I use HBN for my wife's 6mm BR. I barely ever clean the rifle, she shoots 3" groups at 450 yards, and I never really did load development. Went with a standard 6mm BR load that's not hard on the brass, and it shoots .3's consistently.

It takes a bit of getting used to with coating the bullets and amount of HBN to use. I use the bottle that came with the Tubbs kit, and found it's a very common size and supplement bottles were the same size. It takes at least twice the normal amount the first time you use a bottle because you have to HBN coat the inside of that also. I will dial by bullets in acetone, rattle them around in a container to get contaminants off the bullets and let them dry. Remember hollow points will need to get beat around a bit to get the acetone out of the HP cavity. I use a strip of gorilla tape over the top of the bottle then wrap it with electric tape to keep the dust out. I'll let it then tumble in a vibratory tumbler for an hour or two, sometimes adding HBN if needed.

I don't see the need to do it up anything besides target shooting and there's no point in doing half your rounds in HBN and the other half not. It treats your barrel, leaving HBN in it, so if you shoot non coated bullets it's going to eliminate the positives of shooting HBN.

Just my .02¢, take it for what it's worth.

SHM

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

I was wondering about the lid coming off the bottle while in the cleaner and if you needed to have it empty to use it.
I also have been wondering about if you can just buy HBN from another source since I have seen it cheaper else where and in 2 different grades like fine and extra fine. I'm guessing the extra fine would be better and give a more even coating.
Tubbs includes coated bullets in his fire lap kit to burnish the bore after lapping and that is what got me thinking.

desertcj · Jan 19, 2018

Yes, the lid will come off on a vibratory tumbler. That's why I now have a tumbler for bullets and a separate tumbler for brass. That was fun to discover...lol.

Bullet Coatings

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desertcj

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thatguySHM

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desertcj

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