Removing moly coating from the bore

[Lawrence Hanson]

How to remove moly bullet coating that has built up in the bore; that is the question.

I have a 223 Remington rifle that I shot moly bullets in for a couple of years; it’s an Interarms Mark X Mini Mauser, with a carbon steel barrel. During that time, I did not clean the bore thoroughly thinking it was not necessary using moly coated bullets.  I was also using ball powders at that time.  Recently, I decided to clean it down to bare metal because it is now winter and I have the time for stuff like that.  Well, after a couple of weeks using every solvent and abrasive compound at my disposal, the bore remains fouled. Patches continue coming out black or dark grey after solvent soaking and brushing.  For example, I can saturate the bore with Hoppes #9 cut with Kroil and leave the gun barrel down over night on a paper towel.  The next morning there is a black spot where the muzzle was placed on the paper towel, no blue, just black.  I don’t have a borescope so I can’t see what’s in there.  This has been going on for two or three weeks now and I am becoming frustrated and tired of it. I have used moly coated bullets in other barrels in the past but have not experienced this much trouble cleaning them.  Has anyone else experienced this situation and how did you deal with it?  Is it more of a problem than just moly fouling?  Has the moly created some kind of corroded surface that cannot be easily removed by conventional cleaning methods?  All thoughts and experiences are welcome.

LE Hanson        
    

[John VM]

 Generally I have stayed away from moly for these very reasons. I used moly bullets for a while and they shot fine and everything went well enough  until it stopped shooting at about 1 thousand rounds. I was having the barrel set back and the bushing that fit in the muzzle would jam tight in the breech end with over an inch cut off. Well Joe had to scrub the bore out with jb for a while to get the build up out of it, but it never was the same again. As a note, even though every one who promoted it said you did not have to clean as often but I still did any how, so it was not for the lack of cleaning.
 On BR central there was a person who said that the orange abrasive hand cleaner got moly out pretty good.

[DanO]

I used to use a product called Danzac for coating bullets.
My findings were that is was accuracy neutral, no better or worse than naked bullets.
For cleaning it did reduce the copper build up in the barrel, but did nothing to reduce the carbon fouling.
I seemed to aid in ironing the carbon into the bore, making it more labour intense to remove it.
I did clean as often as I would with naked bullets, to stay a head of what I felt was building up in the bore.
JB's was a necessary part of cleaning.
Copper is easier to clean out in my opinion, so no more coated bullets for me.
Like so many of our decisions, this is based on two barrels in two different calibers, which is a small sample
for making any truly meaningful judgement.
The recommendations of the day were to use JB's to scrub it out and Kroil to aid in getting underneath it
to lift it from the steel.
Nothing here that you have not already tried, there are a lot more solvents out there today, so maybe one of them will work better.
DanO

[Lawrence Hanson]

This is a follow up to my original post from a year ago. 

Since that time two significant things have happened.  First; I have acquired a bore scope and determined that my bore is free of all fouling, including moly fouling.  I have learned that moly fouling can be removed with JB compound and scrubbing with a bronze brush. Secondly; the moly coated bullet load that formerly shot well no longer shoots well at all in a clean bore.  I have started load development from scratch and have found a naked bullet load that shoots well.  So it appears I have not ruined my bore with moly fouling or damaged it attempting to remove moly fouling from it. None the less, I am relieved that the gun is still capable of shooting well.  I will not return to moly coated bullets as they are not worth the trouble in my experience.

Lessons learned:  A bore scope is worth the money, moly coated bullets are not worth the trouble, and, you should be skeptical of what you read in gun magazines.  My rifle is back to shooting well again with naked bullets and I am grateful for that.

LE Hanson             

[Bill Gammon]

Well you have learned 3 valuable leasons in one try, not bad for a good days work.