Left: Unplated bullet damaged by seating in improperly prepared case – inside neck deburring would prevent any scraping that damages jacket. Right: How moly plating does not look. This bullet was not cleaned properly and it did not plate. The moly only loosely adheres and does no good at all (seating completely wiped moly from much of bullet shank).
8. Dump bullets onto paper towels, to remove even more water;
9. Use portable hairdryer to heat bul- lets, to remove fi nal traces of water as fast as feasible to limit corrosion that results from having bullets re- main wet);
10. Pour bullets into molying tumbler drum;
11. Add moly, set timer for four hours; 12. Wait; 13. Dump bullets onto clean and dry towel;
14. Clean bullets, to remove gross por- tion of excess moly;
15. Place bullets and clean corncob in cleaning drum;
16. Tumble for about 15 minutes; 17. Separate bullets from corncob; 18. Clean to remove cob dust; 19. Add bullets and powdered carnauba wax to waxing drum;
20. Heat bullets and drum to about 120 degrees F; and,
21. Tumble for about fi ve minutes. What occurred on the last batch
was that I failed to properly dry the bul- lets. This happened because this batch included the 30-grain Berger HPs, which have an unusually large cavity (this in- cludes the entire length of the ogive) and an unusually tiny hollow-point opening. Surface tension physically trapped wa- ter within this hollow cavity and I did
Example moly-plated 17-caliber bullets, left-to-right: 20-grain Hornady V-Max; 25-grain Hornady V-Max; 25-grain Berger Match HP (factory plated). Note that while actual color of each is very similar, density of color varies. Bullet on left is “lightest,” bullet in middle is “darkest.” Variation seems to coincide with degree of slickness and with durability of plating. (I have no idea why moly failed to stick to plastic tip of middle bullet.) Note that tip of 20-grain V-Max has dislodged slightly; this seems to harm nothing.
not heat those bullets long enough to evaporate the trapped water – doing so would have taken hours! The results of a combination of boredom, fatigue, and lack of motivation (otherwise known as laziness) precipitated a most-useful discovery. Next morning, when I examined
that batch, which had tumbled in the unheated and rather cold shop for about four hours (before the timer turned off the tumbler), I was distressed to dis- cover that those bullets were contained within a black goopy mass with the consistency of peanut butter. My fi rst instinct was to remove everything that would dump out, wipe the tumbler (to remove as much goop as I could), heat everything to dry out the water, tumble the bullets in clean corncob medium (to clean off excess moly), and start over. Then I realized that I was contem-
plating a path that would create a dirty, dusty mess – as the moly dried, the black dust would get everywhere. So, I thought, “Why not just warm things up and let the tumbler run with the lid on (which has one tiny vent hole at the center) until the water dries out. At least that way, I can keep most of the moly sealed away, might even save some of the valuable stuff.” I had no idea what the result would be but I suspected that this approach would be at least an
easier way to clean the bullets so I could start over.
Remember, I do not use the steel
balls. Other than air, all that was in the tumbler was bullets, water, and moly. DISCOVERY
So, I set up a space heater next to
the tumbler, set the timer for six hours, and continued my work on baseline load development for the K-Hornet, using bullets I had plated the previous day. After lunch, I found that the machine had turned off. I had no idea what to expect when I opened it but I certainly anticipated some problem (excess moly caked on the bullets seemed likely). What I found was perfectly dry moly dust and perfectly plated bullets. I was thrilled! I would not have
to do this batch over. Later, when I was ready to start working with those bul- lets, I dumped that batch onto paper towels, to begin sorting. I then discov- ered that the plating on those bullets was fundamentally different from any bullet I had ever previously plated. I found it practically impossible
to pick up individual bullets using my bare fingers. While separating more than 3,000 bullets in the previously completed batches I had never had any such trouble. For those, I had simply picked up individual bullets using my index fi nger and thumb. Now I was frus-
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