Bullet lube on old conicals

[short_start]

I have many conical bullets that are 10-25 years old. I buy a box (who knows how long they've sat in the shop), shoot a few, and then let the rest sit. The lube on them often hardens and starts to fall off. When I think about shooting them again or trying them in a different gun, there's always the question of whether the old lube will affect accuracy or permit leading. Besides there seems to have been a shift in the thinking of how much to lube certain bullets...like the TC MaxiBall.

I'm thinking of heating up the bullets I'm interested in trying, melting off the old lube, and relubing with Bore Butter or some other bullet lubricant. Has anyone done this? Do the bullet lubes used for centerfire handgun bullets work...or, if not, why not? What would be recommended?

Thanks,
Bob

 

[michiganmuzzy]

Some of the maxi-BALLS have a large front groove that can hold enough lube to destabilize the bullet so some that shoot them only lube the rear groove. I shoot some maxi-hunters and just scrape out the dried lube the re-grease with any good bullet lube(but softer is better, imho) i do prefer idaholewis’s recipe of adding Synthetic 2 stroke oil to the NASA bullet lube.
CF bullet lube may be to stiff? Idk, having never used it on ML bullets.

 

[MSalyards]

Put your bullets in a cake pan or pie tin . Heat up hot water and pour it in. The hot water will melt your old lube and float it to the top. Let it cool and peel it off the top of the water. A few good recipes on the site. Maybe Lewis's lube is still here.

 

[edmehlig]

I have it if you need it.

 

[Bert621]

I just put them in some boiling water, old lube floats off

 

[stubshaft]

I boil water and immerse the bullets to remove old lube.

Modern lubes designed for smokeless powder in handguns and rifles do NOT generally work well in BP guns. Their focus is on preventing leading and providing a seal in the bore. They do not address one of the main objectives of BP lube which is to keep the fouling soft. In fact, I have found that they create a harder tar type of fouling when used with BP.