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Posted: 3/4/2013 12:22:23 PM EDT
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Ok some years ago I bought a bunch of pulled SS109 bullets. The bullets still had the green paint on the tip and the 'tar' on the back side that was used to seal the cartridge.
The tar was getting in the way of loading - so to help clean it off I soaked the bullets in some Acetone. It got rid of most of the tar, and some of the paint.  However I didn't nead to load any more at the time and put them away.
Fast foreward to today - I'm loading these bullets and I'm finding they now have a slightly 'gummy' feeling to them and they have picked up a bunch of dirt grime. So much so that I'm having to wipe down each bullet after it's loaded into the cartridge. This is slowing down production.. 
Anyone have any suggestions on how I can clean up these bullets? I thought about putting them in the tumbler, but my media seperator's holes are too big and bulelts will fall through. |
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Thanks for all the suggestions.
I was down in the shop yesterday mulling over what to do when I spied the red slotted cap that came with my Hornady tumbler (I normally use the solid top). So the lowest cost solution for me would be to tumble them with the mineral spirits. I tried three batches. First batch ran 20 minutes. While not sparkling (to be fair the media was NOT new) they gumminess was gone. The second batch ran for about an hour and it was similar to the first. I put in the third batch before heading upstairs. The tumber is on the timer and I knew it would run for at least 3 hours before it shut down for the night (or I went to check on it). I had planned on going in the shop this morning to make sure the power switch was off... Well I just went down there - figure they were in the tumber last night for 3 hours, and tonight for at least 3.5 hours. These were close to sparkling. Definately shinier, most of the green tips remained and just a few black smudges where the tar had been. No gumminess. I'll probably end up rerunning the first two batchs to clean them up like the last one... Thanks again guys for the suggestions. |
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