Moly or Not?

I have not used moly but am just starting to look into it. What advantage do you get using moly bullets? Do you moly your own bullets and how? How often and how do you clean the barrel when using moly? I shoot a 270 win. and on some varmint shoots accuracy drops before I am ready to go home and was thinking moly might help.

[rost495]

Hi Harv

The benefits I see are increased shooting with no cleaning and less pressure. Run an 80 at 2800 bare vs an 80 moly at 2800 and you'll use a bit more powder with the moly but you'll have less pressure.

What I dont' see is increased accuracy(could never tell that it was better or worse IE stayed the same) and could never say I have had longer barrel life. That also stayed the same.

I moly my own in the RCBS sidewinder tumbler. I use #4 steel shot, Neco Wax and Dow moly(because a friend worked for dow and had some)

I shoot sometimes up to 400 rounds in practice before cleaning. With iron sights at 300 yards in the prone position with a sling the rifle is still capable of MOA accuracy at this point.(about as good as I can shoot) I've never benched it a high round count to see exactly whats going on. All I can say is I can't tell any difference at 300 or 600 yards.

If I have time at some point I'll run a wet patch, followed by a brush and a couple of dry patches every 200 rounds or so. When I clean I'll wet the bore with hoppes 9BR Copper solvent. Then I brush it about 10 times. Push that out with patches. Hit the barrel with 2 rounds of JB loaded patches. Then run solvent again and dry patches and then wet the bore and leave it for a day to see how clean we are. I have no zero changes after cleaning. But we are shooting a large 200 yard target standing as our first shots of the day. Often times with a clean bore and naked bullets I could see the impact difference for about 2-4 shots. I used to make sure my barrels were fouled in those days.

I know thats not scientific, but it answers the questions I need to cover for XC shooting. Hope it helps.

Jeff

[chris matthews]

rost495,
The way I always understood it was by putting more powder under a moly bullet to bring velocity back up to snuff with the non-moly bullet, you brought the pressure back up. More powder= more pressure=more velocity.
Which is pretty much why I don't use moly- why burn more powder to do the same thing?
Plus I haven't seen any real loss of accuracy in high # of shots with no cleaning. 80-120 in 308, 200 in 223.

[rost495]

I use moly in all my match rifles. I can see advantages since I shoot at least 88 shots without cleaning and the last of these shots will be at the longest range. I can see no disadvantage to it. But I shoot 223 almost exclusively.

Moving up in the world to long range hunting rifles-- what is the consensus?

Jeff

[H-BAR]

Rost- I too use moly coating in my 223. I find when hunting with the 223 that the moly does not cause any problems and probably helps by less engraving of the bullet. When shooting deer this is a plus for a 22cal bullet because it allows better penetration before the bullet comes apart. I find moly coating as a detriment on larger bullets for the very same reason that it helps the smaller bullets. With the larger thicker jacketed bullets I have actually had some bullets not expand when they were moly coated. To me this is a problem!!! I attribute this to the engraving being decreased and total bullet deformation to be less. I now am a firm believer that the larger bullets need this deformation to expand properly. Good Luck!!!

[Mysticplayer]

Been using moly for several years now and come to this conclusion. For really smooth match barrels, no harm but really not much benefit. For rougher production and aftermarket barrels, can have significant benefits.

I use the midway system and have found it to work very well. Simple and effective. I do not wax my bullets.

Have used in all cal I shoot from 22 to 30cal. No problems with hunting bullets on game.

Overall, I use it because it is simple to put on and doesn't seem to hurt and might just help. Never done a side by side comparison.

Jerry

I agree with Jerry on the attributes of moly for rough factory barrels. Not needing it in Chris' 5R barrels is understandable, also. I had a M700 VS in .223 and it did very well with moly, but I have since gone away from using it all together, as I only have one factory tube left, and it only sees one shot at a time. Its a M700 SS in a McMillan Mt Rifle stock and is chambered in .300WM.