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Posted: 5/28/2016 4:58:48 PM EDT
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Looking for ideas for cleaning case mouth sealant from pulled bullets. I have a .30 cal ammo can full of pulled 110 grain .30 Carbine bullets, and from a quick review, they pretty much all have some remnant of the asphalt sealant used on the original rounds.
I'm hoping to avoid needing to hand clean these guys. I'd also like to avoid needing chemistry that gets me on a watch list and/or requires expensive respirators. In the past, I've only had 100 or so pulled bel lets at a time to deal with, an I used automotive tar and bug cleaner on them - it worked fine but was kind of time consuming. Any constructive suggestions (aside from sending these bullets of you "for proper disposal"  ) are greatly appreciated.
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Quoted:
Looking for ideas for cleaning case mouth sealant from pulled bullets. I have a .30 cal ammo can full of pulled 110 grain .30 Carbine bullets, and from a quick review, they pretty much all have some remnant of the asphalt sealant used on the original rounds. I'm hoping to avoid needing to hand clean these guys. I'd also like to avoid needing chemistry that gets me on a watch list and/or requires expensive respirators. In the past, I've only had 100 or so pulled bel lets at a time to deal with, an I used automotive tar and bug cleaner on them - it worked fine but was kind of time consuming. Any constructive suggestions (aside from sending these bullets of you "for proper disposal" ) are greatly appreciated.Are they total jacketed? if so tumble. If not, i would try acetone on a few first. Edit: May I ask where u got them? |
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These are pulled GI bullets, with exposed lead at the base (very consistent bases, by the way). I bought them online several years ago, and never messed with them until now because I never had time to work up a .30 Carbine load. I wish I remember who I got them from. They came in the .30 cal can, so it was "a great deal," but honestly I have no real clue about their source.
Newcalshooter, the tar won't "keep 'em tight" in this case. It will interfere with seating and taper crimping these bullets, and the unknown amount of stickiness they add to the bullet pull would cause my loads to be inconsistent. I weighed the can full of bullets: it's about 44 1/2 pounds. Since a .30 cal ammo can weighs less than 4 pounds, that's over 40 pounds of these not too large bullets, so one at a time isn't a viable option. Dan, my dry tumbler is made of plastic - won't mineral spirits attack the tumbler? Or are you saying to soak the cloth in mineral spirits and just roll the bullets around in the cloth? |
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Quoted:
These are pulled GI bullets, with exposed lead at the base (very consistent bases, by the way). I bought them online several years ago, and never messed with them until now because I never had time to work up a .30 Carbine load. I wish I remember who I got them from. They came in the .30 cal can, so it was "a great deal," but honestly I have no real clue about their source. Newcalshooter, the tar won't "keep 'em tight" in this case. It will interfere with seating and taper crimping these bullets, and the unknown amount of stickiness they add to the bullet pull would cause my loads to be inconsistent. I weighed the can full of bullets: it's about 44 1/2 pounds. Since a .30 cal ammo can weighs less than 4 pounds, that's over 40 pounds of these not too large bullets, so one at a time isn't a viable option. Dan, my dry tumbler is made of plastic - won't mineral spirits attack the tumbler? Or are you saying to soak the cloth in mineral spirits and just roll the bullets around in the cloth? Mineral spirits wont hurt the tumbler.I used just a damp rag.......something like an old wash cloth........and some old/used tumbling media. |
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load 20 as is and load 20 after wiping each one in lacquer thinner on a rag, outdoors in a a Well vented area with a fan, then see if your carbine and paper
can tell what load was what. Save your time for shooting not cleaning a few thousand bullets. but please let us know what you end up with. |
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Quoted:
Mineral spirits wont hurt the tumbler.I used just a damp rag.......something like an old wash cloth........and some old/used tumbling media. Quoted:
Quoted:
These are pulled GI bullets, with exposed lead at the base (very consistent bases, by the way). I bought them online several years ago, and never messed with them until now because I never had time to work up a .30 Carbine load. I wish I remember who I got them from. They came in the .30 cal can, so it was "a great deal," but honestly I have no real clue about their source. Newcalshooter, the tar won't "keep 'em tight" in this case. It will interfere with seating and taper crimping these bullets, and the unknown amount of stickiness they add to the bullet pull would cause my loads to be inconsistent. I weighed the can full of bullets: it's about 44 1/2 pounds. Since a .30 cal ammo can weighs less than 4 pounds, that's over 40 pounds of these not too large bullets, so one at a time isn't a viable option. Dan, my dry tumbler is made of plastic - won't mineral spirits attack the tumbler? Or are you saying to soak the cloth in mineral spirits and just roll the bullets around in the cloth? Mineral spirits wont hurt the tumbler.I used just a damp rag.......something like an old wash cloth........and some old/used tumbling media. I have tumbled lead bullet rounds ONCE... media embeds in the lead. Maybe harder lead bullets would be ok.. but I would test a few first. Thats why I mentioned TMJ clause above. Not sure embedding media in the bottom of the bullet base would matter or not. I wouldnt want it in my loads. |
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I used xylene to clean dried Lee A-Lox off of cast bullets when I got into powder coating.
It only took a few minutes of soaking and sloshing in a home made parts cleaning basket. It was completely a no touch operation. Vapors are very strong too so work outside or in open garage. Motor |
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This........................
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load 20 as is and load 20 after wiping each one in lacquer thinner on a rag, outdoors in a a Well vented area with a fan, then see if your carbine and paper can tell what load was what. Save your time for shooting not cleaning a few thousand bullets. but please let us know what you end up with. Why waste your time if it doesn't make a difference...............This is an M1 carbine after all............ |
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Wet tumbler works great for this.. Pull the SS pins out, add water, soap and lemishine. Tumble for 30 mins or so. Before: <a href="http://s46.photobucket.com/user/dogpile_album/media/Mobile%20Uploads/20121226_184909.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f144/dogpile_album/Mobile%20Uploads/20121226_184909.jpg</a> After: <a href="http://s46.photobucket.com/user/dogpile_album/media/Mobile%20Uploads/20121226_185308.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f144/dogpile_album/Mobile%20Uploads/20121226_185308.jpg</a> This looks like a winner for me. I have the wet tumbler, I have plenty of soap and Lemishine, and I have over 2500 bullets to clean. For those who've suggested ignoring the sealant, I thank you for suggesting the easiest way to handle my bullets. But I really want the bullets to be clean when I load them, and the potential for changing bullet pull is only one issue. |
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OP............. I don't care what you do.......... it's your time and bullets.
But we are talking about an M1 Carbine and surplus pulls. Any chance you could just test it? Can you be unbiased and take 20 cleaned and 20 non. Load them up as carefully as you would any other. Run them over a chrono while grouping them. Shoot 20 USGI with those as well. Post the results? I've always wondered the practical, actual shooting effect, or not, of the "sealant question." |
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Wet tumbler works great for this.. Pull the SS pins out, add water, soap and lemishine. Tumble for 30 mins or so. Before: <a href="http://s46.photobucket.com/user/dogpile_album/media/Mobile%20Uploads/20121226_184909.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f144/dogpile_album/Mobile%20Uploads/20121226_184909.jpg</a> After: <a href="http://s46.photobucket.com/user/dogpile_album/media/Mobile%20Uploads/20121226_185308.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f144/dogpile_album/Mobile%20Uploads/20121226_185308.jpg</a> "Green paint" on the tips? (I assume these are Armor Piercing.) |
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Quoted: "Green paint" on the tips? (I assume these are Armor Piercing.) Quoted: Quoted: Wet tumbler works great for this.. Pull the SS pins out, add water, soap and lemishine. Tumble for 30 mins or so. Before: <a href="http://s46.photobucket.com/user/dogpile_album/media/Mobile%20Uploads/20121226_184909.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f144/dogpile_album/Mobile%20Uploads/20121226_184909.jpg</a> After: <a href="http://s46.photobucket.com/user/dogpile_album/media/Mobile%20Uploads/20121226_185308.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f144/dogpile_album/Mobile%20Uploads/20121226_185308.jpg</a> "Green paint" on the tips? (I assume these are Armor Piercing.)  Those are SS-109, steel core not AP. Black tip AP on top, SS-109 on bottom. Notice saw marks on steel core. |
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OP............. I don't care what you do.......... it's your time and bullets. But we are talking about an M1 Carbine and surplus pulls. Any chance you could just test it? Can you be unbiased and take 20 cleaned and 20 non. Load them up as carefully as you would any other. Run them over a chrono while grouping them. Shoot 20 USGI with those as well. Post the results? I've always wondered the practical, actual shooting effect, or not, of the "sealant question." I really don't have the time to do the test you suggest, although more research has indicated that there's probably no real problem with loading these bullets as is. As you say, it's my time. I wet tumble my brass to allow me to do a better job of inspecting it, and to make it look good. I really just want to start out with clean bullets to go with my clean cases; the issue with the left over sealant came from some (superficial) research I'd done in the past about actually using asphaltic varnish/tar case mouth sealant. If you actually use a sealant, it changes the pull enough that it needs a different load (although maybe just a tiny bid different). I probably shouldn't have even mentioned it in my post, though the idea popped up while I was typing. One real issue with using a tar-based case mouth sealant like USGI ammunition has/had is that it MUST be even all the way around, and it MUST be the same "width" (depth of the application in the case) for each round, or velocities and accuracy will be erratic. |
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Quoted:
"Green paint" on the tips? (I assume these are Armor Piercing.) Quoted:
Quoted:
Wet tumbler works great for this.. Pull the SS pins out, add water, soap and lemishine. Tumble for 30 mins or so. Before: <a href="http://s46.photobucket.com/user/dogpile_album/media/Mobile%20Uploads/20121226_184909.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f144/dogpile_album/Mobile%20Uploads/20121226_184909.jpg</a> After: <a href="http://s46.photobucket.com/user/dogpile_album/media/Mobile%20Uploads/20121226_185308.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f144/dogpile_album/Mobile%20Uploads/20121226_185308.jpg</a> "Green paint" on the tips? (I assume these are Armor Piercing.) Those are pulled down 62grn M-855 LC projectiles.. |
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Quoted:
I really don't have the time to do the test you suggest, although more research has indicated that there's probably no real problem with loading these bullets as is. As you say, it's my time. I wet tumble my brass to allow me to do a better job of inspecting it, and to make it look good. I really just want to start out with clean bullets to go with my clean cases; the issue with the left over sealant came from some (superficial) research I'd done in the past about actually using asphaltic varnish/tar case mouth sealant. If you actually use a sealant, it changes the pull enough that it needs a different load (although maybe just a tiny bid different). I probably shouldn't have even mentioned it in my post, though the idea popped up while I was typing. One real issue with using a tar-based case mouth sealant like USGI ammunition has/had is that it MUST be even all the way around, and it MUST be the same "width" (depth of the application in the case) for each round, or velocities and accuracy will be erratic. Quoted:
Quoted:
OP............. I don't care what you do.......... it's your time and bullets. But we are talking about an M1 Carbine and surplus pulls. Any chance you could just test it? Can you be unbiased and take 20 cleaned and 20 non. Load them up as carefully as you would any other. Run them over a chrono while grouping them. Shoot 20 USGI with those as well. Post the results? I've always wondered the practical, actual shooting effect, or not, of the "sealant question." I really don't have the time to do the test you suggest, although more research has indicated that there's probably no real problem with loading these bullets as is. As you say, it's my time. I wet tumble my brass to allow me to do a better job of inspecting it, and to make it look good. I really just want to start out with clean bullets to go with my clean cases; the issue with the left over sealant came from some (superficial) research I'd done in the past about actually using asphaltic varnish/tar case mouth sealant. If you actually use a sealant, it changes the pull enough that it needs a different load (although maybe just a tiny bid different). I probably shouldn't have even mentioned it in my post, though the idea popped up while I was typing. One real issue with using a tar-based case mouth sealant like USGI ammunition has/had is that it MUST be even all the way around, and it MUST be the same "width" (depth of the application in the case) for each round, or velocities and accuracy will be erratic. OP: I do respect the idea behind you wanting to cleaning them........... and from some of the suggestions here, it shouldn't be hard to do. It's just the question comes up but I've never found a really good test/examination of the question/effect. Partially since most of the bullets are not match quality but you might? see some sort of difference or not??? Sortta like putting lipstick on a pig, cleaning it off and ending up with a clean pig................ It's on my list actually, but like you I don't have the time right now to test stuff like that............ |
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Seems like filling the can of bullets with a solvent would be the easy way but you will have a mess to clean up. Try a few common items like gasoline, white gas on a few bullets first. You can always do smaller batches in a glass jar. Thanks for your suggestion. As I said in the original post, solvents, especially a can full of solvent, weren't on my short list. I'm also not 100% certain that the ammo can the bullets came in is completely water tight. I had thought of soaking them in solvent originally, but then the safety, fumes and mess aspects came to mind. That's why I asked for other suggestions. |
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I went with muta4warrior's advice, with great results! I'm somewhere short of halfway done, but I ran out of steam this afternoon, so I'll do the rest later. I'm very, very impressed with how well this worked, and how quick and easy it was. Except for hauling the tumbler around several times, of course!
Here's the ammo can, now about 1/2 empty. You can see how the bullets have varying amounts of sealant left on them, and they're generally grungy. 
I've used a very scientific process for deciding how many bullets to run in a tumbler load. I actually counted out 550 bullets, filling up a Dillon (clone) output bin pretty much as far as I could without spilling. That was the first batch. The second batch was "that looks about as full as the first one." I think I could have put more in each batch, but I didn't want to overdo it. And a detail of several dirty bullets. Sure, they're OK, but they're dirty enough to get everything else around them dirty. 
I wear nitrile gloves when I handle stuff like lead bullets, and I wore them handling these. The blue gloves turned black where I touched the bullets, just from scooping them up to pour them into the bin. Now, a few very, very clean bullets! 
This was better than I'd hoped for. The bullets are clean all over. There are no remnants of anything on them, except for a faint trace of where they had been crimped in the original round. You can't see it in my pictures, but the bases of these bullets had been kind of nasty - I think there were remains of powder and other gunk on some of them. The clean bullets are clean, even on the bases. And a bunch of them - there are two layers on this baking sheet, for about 1200-1300 bullets. 
The bullets dried very quickly. I'd thought "I'll just dry these the way I dry cases!" No go. Only the innermost slots on my dehydrator's trays are narrow enough to keep the bullets from falling through. While I was giving the dehydrator the old college try, the bullets dried by themselves. Finally, a close up of the bullets. I'm very impressed with these bullets overall. They have very consistent, very square bases. Sorry for the artsy lighting. That's just how the light worked out as I tried to get a closeup. 
And there's one more plus for doing this. My tumbler is clean. Really clean. |
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