Decades ago, a buddy was helping clean up somewhere and came across a box of "nasty" (his word) bullets that looked to be 30 caliber. He called to see if I wanted them. "Sure" I said. The box turned out to have once held a home car battery charger. The bullets had been dumped in loose. And yeah, nasty. Not the bullets themselves, but whatever had been tossed in the box on top of them to corrode and rust away onto the bullets.
I tossed a few into my vibratory tumbler and ran them in play sand. They eventually cleaned up well, but had matte finish. At least I could shoot them if I wanted. I set them aside for several years until the advent of wet tumbling with SS pins. Oh my. About an hour and a half of wet tumbling and those bullets are now pristine. I never counted them, but my guess is close to 1000, all M1 173 gr. FMJ.
Unfortunately, there is MUCH more to that story. Short on details because I can't remember, just look up "Mexican match" ammo and read what really happened.
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A companion article.
https://jouster2.com/sea_stories/end_of_an_era.pdf
Much good reading at the above website, all downloadable for free.
Decades ago, a buddy was helping clean up somewhere and came across a box of "nasty" (his word) bullets that looked to be 30 caliber. He called to see if I wanted them. "Sure" I said. The box turned out to have once held a home car battery charger. The bullets had been dumped in loose. And yeah, nasty. Not the bullets themselves, but whatever had been tossed in the box on top of them to corrode and rust away onto the bullets.
I tossed a few into my vibratory tumbler and ran them in play sand. They eventually cleaned up well, but had matte finish. At least I could shoot them if I wanted. I set them aside for several years until the advent of wet tumbling with SS pins. Oh my. About an hour and a half of wet tumbling and those bullets are now pristine. I never counted them, but my guess is close to 1000, all M1 173 gr. FMJ.
Unfortunately, there is MUCH more to that story. Short on details because I can't remember, just look up "Mexican match" ammo and read what really happened.
Tom762
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