HNB Coated Bullets Info & Advice Please

[levers4life]

I bought out a reloading room and the gentleman has coated most of his bullets with HNB. He was a military rifle match shooter. Do any of you guys have experience with this? Are they ok to shoot in anything? Any special procedure to load? They are mostly .30 cal and .22 cal match bullets, but he also coated 30 Carbine and some hunting bullets. Advice and thoughts please....Thank you in advance.

 

[Reemty J]

Looks like moly to me, not HBN 😳

 

[levers4life]

Looks like moly to me, not HBN 😳

He marked all the boxes "HNB" and there was a partially used HNB kit in with all the stuff. All the bullets are a uniform gray color. That first pic is a .224 80gr A-Max.
What would the appearance difference be? I've seen moly coated bullets before but never had any experience with the HNB.
Unfortunately, I bought it all from his wife as he had passed. I wasn't able to ask him.

 

[VALKYRIETP]

Looks like moly to me, not HBN 😳

My Tubb TBN is white, But it's a blend. Is HNB something else ?
T.P.

 

[gohring3006]

Those rifle bullets look suspicious to me.
I don’t think it’s hex unless maybe he added graphite or something. They also look annealed.

 

[Bravo 4]

Yeah I don’t know what HNB means but if he meant HBN then I’ve never seen them look like that. I’ve been using HBN for several years and the only kind I’ve seen is white powder (from a couple different sources).

 

[turbo800]

HBN is white. It stands for Hexagonal Boron Nitride I believe. It hasn't turned any that I have done grey, just dulls the bright copper look of new bullets.

 

[Reemty J]

That’s moly I bet a 6 pack your choice of brand!

 

[levers4life]

I did make a typo, it's all marked "HBN" I wonder why he would use moly but then mark them all HBN? Thanks for the info fellas.

 

[TN David]

May have left in tumbler too long? The process I use is to tumble in a medicine bottle with steel BB,s and HBN. I did a batch once and walked away and forgot about them for about 3 hours. They came out black…

 

[RYEWSKY25284]

I bought out a reloading room and the gentleman has coated most of his bullets with HNB. He was a military rifle match shooter. Do any of you guys have experience with this? Are they ok to shoot in anything? Any special procedure to load? They are mostly .30 cal and .22 cal match bullets, but he also coated 30 Carbine and some hunting bullets. Advice and thoughts please....Thank you in advance.
View attachment 367170 View attachment 367171

That looks like moly coating

 

[epoletna]

Agree with others who say this is moly. I've used HBN, and it comes. out white.

 

[dmr400]

Just another thought, could he have used HBN but tumbled cast lead bullets in the jar or used lead shot as a tumbling media, which gave a Grey color to everything?

 

[epoletna]

Just another thought, could he have used HBN but tumbled cast lead bullets in the jar or used lead shot as a tumbling media, which gave a Grey color to everything?

I had not considered this. I haven't heard of anyone using lead shot to peen the HBN into copper bullets, but I suppose it might work, and might give aa grey cast.