Some of the bullets will have a black substance on them. This looks to me like an asphalt based sealant. I have gotten pulled bullets from Lake City Armory that had what appeared to be the same substance. Easy to remove with disc brake cleaner, and a little rubbing. Does not hurt a thing if you leave it on. Out of 100 Barnes XPB bullets, 5 had a stain that I could not remove with the disc brake cleaner. There was something inside the HP on just those 5 bullets. I dug it out with a dental pick, and it was very fine treated corn cob. Looks like the vendor tried to clean the stain off by tumbling. If you get some of these and are going to try hunting with them, I suggest that you clean out the HP cavities so that expansion is not impeded.