Official Moly Coating Process
The following is a detailed list of instructions describing how Berger Bullets moly coats their bullets. This process should not be done in your living room. Moly is washable with soap and water but the amount of moly that can distribute itself around the area where you moly can make a bit of a mess.
Materials Needed:
Tumbler
Molybdenum Disulfide (finest micron size available and from hereon referred to as moly)
Carnuba Wax (powder form)
Scale That Weighs in Grains (2 trays needed, one for moly and one for wax)
Terrycloth Bath Towel (consider using one will not be needed in your bathroom again)
2 Separate Tumbling Containers (One for tumbling media, one for wax)
Timer capable of 2 Hours
Sharpie Marker
Moly Coating Procedure:
Note: Bullets must be completely clean for the process to work properly. Bullets will arrive clean but some brands are not completely clean. To insure cleanliness wash your bullets in lacquer thinner containing minimal petroleum products or use acetone. We like good ole dawn soap. Make sure the bullets are completely dry either by laying them in the sun or heating them up with a blow dryer. Fluid can stay in the hollow point area of the bullets and should be quickly evaporated away rather than allowed to dry slowly indoors.
We prefer moly coating your bullets in tumbling media. It is very important that two drums are used and that one is always used for moly only and the other is always used for wax only. Mixing this process in both drums will ruin your ability to coat properly and a thorough cleaning (which doesn’t always work) or replacement drums will be required to correct this particular result. To avoid mixing these drums use a sharpie marker to clearly label one drum for MOLY and the other for WAX.
Using this process you can coat from 1 pound of bullets up to 15 pounds. Bullets of different sizes can be mixed and tumbled together if you want to coat many small quantities in fewer cycles. Depends on what size your tumbler can handle.
- Pour the clean bullets gently into the drum marked MOLY.
- Measure the moly using the provided measuring spoons. Note
- Put the moly into the drum marked MOLY with the bullets.
- Tumble the bullets for 2 hours.
- Pour the bullets onto a large terry cloth bath towel.
- Grabbing the ends of the towel with each hand alternate pulling each end of the towel up allowing the bullets to tumble back and forth inside the towel. Do this 20 times or so until all the excess moly has been removed from the bullets. You should not see any clumping or excessive powder on the bullets.
- Transfer the bullets from the towel into the ½ gallon bucket. There are a few ways to do this without getting your hands dirty but they are difficult to describe. Try a few different techniques until you find one that works for you. (Think: pouring them out of the towel)
- Pour the bullets gently into the drum marked WAX.
- Measure the carnuba wax using the grain scale and the wax tray (squares of plastic will work but are harder to manipulate without spilling).
- 1 to 3 lbs of bullets use 0.1 grains of wax
- 4 to 7 lbs of bullets use 0.3 grains of wax
- 8 to 12 lbs of bullets use 0.6 grains of wax
- 13 to 15 lbs of bullets use 1.0 grains of wax
- When you use the WAX drum for the first time double the wax needed.
- Pour the carnuba wax into the drum marked WAX with the bullets.
- Tumble the bullets for 15 minutes.
- Empty the bullets into any container. They are ready to shoot.
- In some cases excess wax will appear as clumping. This can be reduced slightly by following step 7 (make sure you use a different towel). Once your drums are used a few times you should not see clumping after the wax process.
There are other ways moly can be applied, but the above is how we used to do it at Berger Bullets