Tumble lube vs regular lube boolits?

[sportrider]

Hey guys! I'm getting ready to step into casting my own boolits. I've been reloading for the past 11 years and recently have been reading everything i can on casting. This forum has been fantastic when it comes to info on this. The question i have is i see boolit molds for tumble lube and then ones that arent. What's the pro's and con's on the two different styles?

[1Shirt]

Both work, and work well. It is a matter of choice and the degree of mess involving tumble lube projectiles.
1shirt!:coffeecom

[x101airborne]

Wellll.... The pros and cons are a matter of opinion and experience. As far as my novice experience goes.... I really like Alox thinned with mineral spirits. It has worked well with all my rifle and pistol needs and is really quick to apply. Unfortunately, all those pretty shiny boolits that I tried to cast will then have a layer of alox making their appearance dull. It is easily taken off with a rag soaked in paint thinner. I cant really say one is definately faster than the other when you take into account the time to remove the layer of Alox after loading, or the initial drying time it takes to do a layer before sizing and then another after sizing. It is really personal preference. I do know that my alox loads are generally more accurate than conventional lubing.

[ku4hx]

Both are great when used with a good alloy at its optimum temperature. I have both kinds and in fact tumble lube (with great success) boolits designed for traditional lube.

Once all my TL boolits are sized (if needed), lubed and allowed to dry they're coated with a light dusting of Motor Mica to take away the tackiness of the LLA coating.

[williamwaco]

Both are great when used with a good alloy at its optimum temperature. I have both kinds and in fact tumble lube (with great success) boolits designed for traditional lube.

Once all my TL boolits are sized (if needed), lubed and allowed to dry they're coated with a light dusting of Motor Mica to take away the tackiness of the LLA coating.




Plus 1 here.

I recommend you start with a tumble lube because is at saves you a bundle on both the mold and the sizing dies and you give up nothing to get it.

Then when you get hooked, you can ease into the more expensive equipment.

[Smoke-um if you got-um]

I pretty much stopped using Lube machines/stick lube after becoming acquainted many yrs ago with the tumble lube process. Most have their own preferences as to how thin or thick the Alox liquid should be when applied and experimentation may be in order for you find your own preference. Personally I use the Alox just slightly thinned with Mineral Spirits and do not tumble them at all for my rifles. I finger lube just the shank portion of the bullet and sit them upright to dry on wax paper. I do not find this inconvenient as I don't cast in great volume for my rifles. I seat the checks prior to lubing with a Lee Die the same size as the bullet as cast. For loads that will be used for hunting at approx. 2000 fps, I lube them a second time. For light load pistol bullets at target velocities I still tumble lube them in a plastic bowl and simply dump them out onto wax paper to dry. This process has worked well for me for many years with little to no leading as long as the alloy is appropriate for the speed and pressure. I also found that the process works well with as cast bullets as long as they are not under-size for the bore. In this case a thou or two oversize is better than as little as one thou too small. As far as accuracy is concerned I do not believe Alox Lube is any better or worse than traditional methods except in some rare instances when a particular rifle/pistol tells you different. I just found it to be much more convenient than my presses and stick lube while maintaining an acceptable level of accuracy for my needs in almost all cases. I should add that I use Alox on both types of bullets. Hope this helped.

Mike

[Bullet Caster]

Howdy.

I'm new to the forums and boolit casting and have found the info given on this site and others has been downright helpfull. I've only 3 casting sessions under my belt. The first was a tragedy as I started out with a big ole dutch oven with some sizeable chunks of pb in it, lit the fire on my grill's side burner and waited. And waited and waited and finally after much black smoke and very little pb melted, I gave up. Then I got on these forums and found out some great information--like using my coleman stove and a smaller pot. So I burned about $20 on fleabay and got me an' ole timey pot. I know I've filled it with more than 10 lbs of pb, but it wouldn't hold too much more. If I keep the coleman pumped up, not only do I get molten pb, but it maintains a good temp for casting as I have learned to cast fast. In my last 2 casting sessions, I've made about 400 255 grain boolits for my .45 colt clone and around 380 124 grain for my 9mm.

Now I plan on tumble lubing the 9mm ones and using my finger to apply the lube to the ringged sections of the boolit. Heck, I guess I'll do that with my .45s too. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, I reckon.

I noticed that you guys don't use the Lee Liquid Alox straight out of the bottle. I've got some mineral spirits...how much do I use for a 4 oz. bottle of LLA?
And for sizing do I need to size my 9mm .356--as I've read that you don't usually have to size cast boolits. I take the cyl out of my .45 colt clone and drop my 255 grain through the chamber. If they drop through, I'd say they were good. I occassionally stick one in the beginnin' of the bbl (forgot what part that was called) and see if it goes up to the first driving band. That's my quality control for .45s. I guess I could take my 9mm apart and check the boolits in its chamber. Can't afford no more press parts!

[MT Gianni]

I started with tumble lube and LLA. I am stubborn so I didn't drop the hobby. After 20 years I went back to it for RanchDog molds as I don't have a .460 lube die. Other than the RD molds, I own a few TL molds but get much better results in most loadings with conventional designs.
TL is fast and easy and functions. I like Recluse's modification of it for a quick study of some boolits but usually go back to FWFL.

[Echo]

I cast a little RN .38 boolit for popcorn loads for training. It is a PITA to try to run through a lube-sizer, either Star or Lyman/RCBS, so I tumble-lube them, and have NO problems.

[MtGun44]

Many folks swear by tumble lubing, many folks swear AT tumble lubing. IMO, it is a good
cheap way to get into the hobby, but is messy, leaves the whole boolit covered with sticky
goo that attacts dirt, and very often is a marginal lube system that fails if the task is
hard. Many have found it wanting for higher velocity and hotter loads. It seems like
9mm is a real problem child with this system.

For moderate cartridges like .38 Spl and .45 ACP, it seems like most folks have some or
better success. As you move towards .40 S&W and 9mm the satisfaction rate drops off,
and even more as you move to the magnums.

I hate the smell, mess and have totally given up on the stuff. But for the beginner that
is shooting moderate cartridges, it is very cheap to get started, so is attactive. Understand
going in that sometimes it works fine, sometimes it fails miserably, but it is CHEAP, and
that is sometimes the most important thing when $$ is tight.

Bill

[44man]

I swear at TL. Not the boolit because some of my most accurate are TL designs like the great RD.
I have a pile of Lee size dies I lapped out for every diameter I need so I actually don't size much but I use the dies to remove excess lube or seat checks.
I smear Felix lube in the grooves by hand and push them through the Lee die. It works good and after so many boolits I get a big donut of lube that falls over the punch, I peel it off and keep lubing. Yes, it is messy!
I kind of retired my lube-sizer. I don't like clean, polished drive bands and prefer a skin of Felix. All I do is remove any excess on the nose with my thumb nail, I never wipe boolits just the brass.
I have experimented with LLA for years and always got leading so I just gave away all the bottles. Accuracy was never good with it either. Many other lubes will double groups for me too, I did a thousand back to back lube tests.

[williamwaco]

, but is messy, leaves the whole boolit covered with sticky
goo that attacts dirt, and very often is a marginal lube system that fails if the task is hard. Many have found it wanting for higher velocity and hotter loads.

As you move towards .40 S&W and 9mm the satisfaction rate drops off, and even more as you move to the magnums.

Bill



Bill, You must be doing something wrong. I use Lee Liquid Alox almost exclusively after five decades with the Lyman Lubrisizer.

I use it on everything but the longer multi groove rifle bullets. The only reason I don't use it there is that I haven't tried it. ( More on that later.)

I use Lee Liquid Alox regularly on .38 Special, .357 Magnum, 9mm, .44Mag., and .45ACP. ( I don't own a .40 S&W ). I find it to be no more messy and only slightly more smelly than the Lubrisizer and at least 300 times faster. I can lube 300 158 gr SWCs or 300 124 gr 9mms in about three minutes. Five minutes if I have to hunt for something or go to the kitchen for a new zip lock bag or waxed paper.

No, I don't count the drying time. I pour them out on a piece of waxed paper on a cookie sheet and place them on a stool under the ceiling fan. In an hour they are sticky but dry enough to load. In two hours they are almost not sticky. In four hours they are completely dry and completely not sticky. They do have a slight brown color. Mostly though, I tumble them in the evening and let them dry over night. At no time during this procedure does a single drop of LLA ever touch my hands or my bench top. ( I sure can't say that for conventional lube.)

After drying, I can dump them loosely in a box for long term storage. Try that with a conventional bullet lubed with 50/50 alox/beeswax.

I load the .38s to about 900fps. The 9mms to about 1100fps. The .357s to around 1300fps ( 1600 ) in my rifle. I find LLA to be completely effective in controlling leading. Completely effective, to me, means zero leading.

See:

http://www.reloadingtips.com/pages/leading-zero.htm

For a photo of what I call zero leading.


I have even used it to "repair" reloads that were loaded with inadequately libbed commercial cast bullets.

see: http://www.reloadingtips.com/pages/lla_bullet_lube_2.htm

For re-lubing already loaded bullets.

[Sonnypie]

Welcome to Cast Boolits, Sportrider!
I recently returned to pouring molten metal into molds for fun and profit loss....
When I got my first sizer die it came with a bottle of LLA. Nice, since I really had no other way to lube my cast boolits.
25+ years ago I had used a friends luber/sizer for a pile of 9mm he gave me. Messy! Not the operation, or such, but the handling of the lubed boolits.
Flash forward to my new adventure and LLA... Messy! Again, the handling of the lubed boolits.
So I've been rattling around in the shop trying various ways found here by others. Including some baby powder to dust the boolits and kill the stickies. (Which worked)
I wipe down my reloads anyway, so that step is a wash either with store bought bullets, or my cast boolits.
Just yesterday I went to my local Goodwill Store and bought a $5.99 crock pot for Ranch Dipping. I put in the balance of my LLA, and some MJ Lube a friend here sent me for testing. I tried Ranch Dipping method, and also my own idea of rack dipping.
Both fully filled out the loob grooves. And I used my Cake Kutter to scrape the excess off. But still had the "toilet waxed ring" on the sizer die.
And I spent a lot of extra time with a solvented rag cleaning each little darling before finally racking them for the loading bench.
Cast, checked, loobed, sized, cleaned, ready. (I think the smell is gone from my hands, or I got use to it.)
I hope you have the patience of Job (Jobe, biblical). You will need it. And money.
But the satisfaction is you can make your own boolits. And load them any way you wish. Another plus is you can melt them back down and recast them differently.
I buy Magnum Shot and use it for shotgun reloading, and melt it down for pistol boolits. 2 for one out of that lead.
And I use Lyman #2 for rifle lead.
Get a nose clip like swimmers use. :cbpour:

[Boerrancher]

LLA is fine, and I have used it with no problems, but several years ago I switched to Johnson's Paste Wax.(JPW) I have never looked back. I use JPW on everything I case. Pistol and rifle. Once dry it forms a hard shell over the bullet. Most of the time I don't size unless I am seating gas checks for my rifles. Just drop a couple tbl spoons of JPW in a jar with a lid, fill the jar half way with boolits and start shaking until all are fully coated. Then I stand them up on a piece of wax paper to dry and I am done.

Best wishes,

Joe

[Rocky Raab]

I don't even own a sizer/luber machine. I lube with LLA or JPW, or a 50/50 mix of the two. I thin all three a bit with mineral spirits. I have Lee sizers for bullets that require gas checks, but shoot most bullets as cast.

I have nothing to complain about. Not leading, not accuracy, not mess -- heck, not even the smell. As mentioned, the only trick with tumble lube is learning to use LITTLE enough. You truly won't believe how little it takes - and will use too much for a long time until you do.

I take that back. There's a second trick: mica dusting. You can use corn starch or baby powder, but mica works best. Again, a very little is all it takes, and one can of Motor Mica is a lifetime supply.

[mpmarty]

I've got a Star and a Lyman lubrisizer. I quit using them. LLA/JPW mix works great for me and I melt the JPW in a soup can on the wood stove until it is liquid and then add an equal amount of LLA. Stir and pour into an old mustard dispenser with a flip top spout. When I need to lube a batch of boolits I set the jar of lube mix in a pan of hot water to thin it some and squirt it on and shake around. Dump out on wax paper and let them cure overnight. I'm quite happy with the results in 308, 45/70, 358 Win. as well as my 45acp and 10mm pistols.

[sqlbullet]

I have used both LLA, LLA cut with mineral spirits, LLA cut with mineral spirits + JPW, Felix lube pan lube (you don't know messy till you have pan lubed with a soft lube), Felix lube + paraffin for a hard pan lube, and a lachmiller lube-a-matic on which the a-matic isn't.

I have concluded they are all effective and they are all messy in their own way.

If you want clean and fast, you need to run a star sizer and a hard lube with a heater. This equals $$ up front.

If you don't mind dull, brownish boolits in your loaded cartridges, then a thin coat of LLA/mineral spirits/jpw will work great at pistol velocities. I have found this lacking in my Garand and Remington 700 at 2000 fps, but ymmv.

I have only found that medium soft lubes like Felix really work well for me in my four rifles. Don't know a way around the mess with these.

I highly value the experience of having tried different options and methods.

[tommygirlMT]

I like tumble lube --- but I have a love/hate relationship with the little micro groove boolits made specifically for tumble lubing --- some work good --- and a lot of them dont because the little itty bitty bands get squeezed down by neck tension and frack everything up

For a beginner --- yes tumble lube is a great way to get started --- but I suggest not buying a Lee tumble lube type boolit mold to start with --- instead buy a conventional lube groove type boolit mold and tumble lube those --- works just fine on them too

Also --- straight Lee brown goo takes too long to dry for me --- (Im not a patient person) --- so I mix it with JPW and tumble the boolits hot (like 200-300 degrees F) --- that is not heating up the lube --- that is heating up the boolits to be lubed on an old cookie sheet in oven --- then dumping them into big old cooking pot --- then dropping in a half a teaspoon of my lube mix or so and then grab the handles on each side of the pot and give it a gentle rotation motion to swirl the boolits around inside --- and then dump them out into a cardboard box that is tilted at an agle towards on of the corners and any excess lube will flow down and collect in that corner --- and they dry completely in less then an hour and arnt tacky at all and I dont have any leading problems --- and I shoot big magnum cartridges --- 10mm 44mag 357/44Barns 454Casull 50AE etc etc etc

[Charlie Two Tracks]

I like tumble lube but on my heavy .357 loads, I use Carnuba Red. There is a very good article in the "stickies" about this tumble lube stuff and how to make it. Check it out. It explains a lot.
Welcome to the forum. There is so much great information here.

[MtGun44]

Like I said, lots of folks swear by it. ;-)

Bill

[rintinglen]

I have shot 311-291 boolits at 2300 FPS using LLA, from a 30-40 Winchester 1895 with excellent accuracy. The Louverin 30 cal boolits all do very well with LLA as well. These days I use the Recluse 45-45-10 LLA/JPW/mineral spriits mixture, but I have not tested it at higher velocities. I find it indispensable when lubing large quantities of pistol boolits for mid-range use. H&G #50 144 grain WC's work wonderfully in my 38's, and I go through lots of them.

[44man]

JPW does the same to LLA as beeswax does with Alox. It raises the flash point.
With the stinky smoke I got from LLA, I can only determine it burns in the bore. Where there's smoke, there's fire.
Flash point has been a big concern with BPCR loads and lubes are made from high flash point oils. Peanut oil, Safflower oil and seed based automatic transmission oils. A good one is Ballistol.
We have enough powder fouling and I don't like lube ash left with it.
I read all kinds of responses to leading at the end of the barrel that say not enough lube and it ran out, but did it burn instead to have boolits run over ash?
Now remember how I clean lead from my sprue plates. I strike a wood match, blow it right out and use the head to rub off the lead. Just ash!

[Jon K]

Ditto...Ditto what MtGun44 said....LLA-not for me.

Jon

[Rocky Raab]

To each his own, I always say. There are folks who don't like lobster and some who won't eat steak.

[prs]

I mostly shoot black powder cartridge in 45 Colt and a nice soft variant of Emmert's lube applied with a 450 Lyman right at .454" But, lubing boolits one at a time is tedious and I am not a fountain of patience. So, my .357 and .40 S&W get tumble lube. I generally go ahead and lube about 40# to 50# all at once. I use the 45/45/10 blend of LLA/JPW/mineral spirits and use very sparingly in an almost full 3# coffee can. I like to let them dry for a long time, so the finish is more like dried varnish than sticky/icky. No bother to use mica or to wipe the boolits noses. No leading noted at all, even in Glock 23 with OE barrel shooting Lees TL-401-175-TC of approx 95 lead. 2 tin, 3 antimony alloy air cooled. But I don't crank 'em up hyper velocity, just good target loads.

prs

[lbaize3]

I use both methods, but lately have been using the 45/45/10 and do not size the bullets. Sure makes life easier on my low velocity loads. On the high velocity loads I size and lube and then tumble lube. I have a large supply of mica to dust the bullets with to ease loading and keep the mess down...

[Ecramer]

I've been using Rooster Jacket to tumble lube bullets for cowboy action shooting with excellent results. For those of you using Johnson Paste Wax (and bear with me because I'm new here) what version of it are you using? Is it an off-the-shelf item at Lowe's or Wal-Mart, or is it something that I need to use the Interweb to find?

I size and lube my BP rifle bullets, but the Rooster Jacket is much faster and easier to apply for hundreds of CAS bullets at once.

[Chill Wills]

"(you don't know messy till you have pan lubed with a soft lube),"
No ofense meant but I pan lube as much as I can because it is both fast and the least messy of all for me. Lube them in mass with a soft lube and press them out of the cake without a kutter device just use your thumb to push them down over the edge of a work table. Fast, fast, fast and zero mess. Just lube in the grooves.

I shoot a lot of plain base for BPCR and handgun. Any GC bullets might get the lube/sizer or panlube and then the push-through Lee.
Just something to think about.
I keep reducing my loading to things that work but are simple and fast.

[prs]

Chris, you are good salesman! I might have to revisit pan lubing. My main match type black powder prs boolits drop at the size I like, so it sure would save time. My previous experience with pan lube made a horrible mess with many boolits only having the lube groove partly filled and some devoid of lube. I may just try again.

prs

[Rocky Raab]

As mentioned above, I've gone solely to tumble-lubing. But when I briefly tried pan lubing, I made this little kutter from a .30-30 case and a golf ball. I cut the case at the web, glued it into a drilled golf ball and very slightly belled the case neck.

The slight bell not only made it easier to slip the case over a bullet but as a bonus, it also served to force lube tightly into the grooves. It worked great for my .30-caliber cast bullets.

BTW, if anybody wants this little tool, I'd be happy to send it to you for $5 to cover Priority Mail.

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c170/RockyRaab/IMG_0551.jpg

[MtGun44]

Nice idea, Rocky.

Bill

[44man]

I like it but what caliber is that ball? It sure is a strange looking thing! :drinks::mrgreen:

[Figment]

The only tumble lube I have done is for a 310 cadet which has a heeled boolit . Works great , no leading but it does cover up those nice shinny noses .

[243winxb]

Regular lubed/sized boolits have more lube in the correct place = BETTER . [smilie=s: Edit : I do not like tumble lube on the base of the bullets, coming in contact with the powder or on the nose where it builds up in the seating die, changing COL . Lee tumble lube, extra work >
If you are sizing your cast bullets, it is necessary to lube them first. Because the sizer will remove some of the surface of a larger diameter bullet, you may need to re-lubricate the bullets after they have been sized.

[mpmarty]

Regular lubed/sized boolits have more lube in the correct place = BETTER . [smilie=s:

IMHO the "correct place" for lube is at the boolit barrel interface so the tumble lubeing makes perfect sense to me. Plus all my rifle and pistol rounds work fine with the fifty fifty LLA/JPW mix.