odd lube situation today

[Lloyd Smale]

Im allways test firing guns off the front porch and shoot them into the snow all winter long. Well the snow FINALLY is melting and im finding bullets all over the yard. If you havent shot into snow youd be amazed how well it stops bullets. The bullets you pick up are allways about perfect and other then the rifling marks you could reload them. Well i noticed today as i picked up about a hundred of them in various calibers from 475 to 32 that about all of them had all the lube still in them. Now it isnt a hard lube problem as most were lubed with 5050 and felix lube. I sure would have thought that the lube would have been used in the barrel. I pick up bullets all the time in the dirt bank behind my target and they usually all are sans of lube. Could it be that even with soft lubes that most of the lube is still in the bullet when it hits the target or dirt bank and come off then. Now granted it was cold when i shot but all the ammo usually comes out of the warm house and i just walk out the door and blast so it doesnt have a chance to get cold. Another thought is most of the time its just one or two rounds fired. Maybe the barrel needs to get hot to use the lube.

[runfiverun]

i have noticed the same thing.
i think, the bbl uses what it can. and the missing lube in the dirt is that it hits
so hard most of it flies out, i have found them in the dirt with most of their [hard]
lube still in them, but only in soft dirt.

[targetshootr]

Hmm. A lot of the boolits I pick up at the range still have lube but I never gave it much thought.

[waksupi]

Lloyd, the lube, being a liquid, in incompressable. So, only the surface of it, actually contacts the bore, and the rest goes along with the bullet. I have found bullets in the back stop both with, and without lube in them. I suspect the time they have been there has some bearing, in my case at least. Almost all of my boolits carry FWFL.

[Lloyd Smale]

guess it just go against what i allways thought and preached. I thought only hard lube stayed on bulets and most soft lubes were consumed in the barrel. I think what really happens is it comes off in the dirt when it hits.

[theperfessor]

Wonder if RPM has anything to do with it? Any evidence of whether the lube stays in the grooves when shot at higher velocities/RPMs? Or would a longer barrel use up more lube?

Has anybody noticed this in rifle bullets or pistol bullets from something like a contender/encore?

[runfiverun]

my rifle boolits are in little pieces when they hit stuff, but same findings in model 92's at 1500
fps.

[Whitespider]

I just picked up a full coffee can of revolver boolits on my range the other day. Been doing that for years in the spring, snow and frozen ground is an almost perfect bullet catch. Find them lying on top of the ground like gold nuggets. I’ve even measured them for bore size and it matches closely with my sluggin’ measurements. Most still have some lube in the grooves, some even look quite full. Some of the lube is still very soft, don’t know what to make of it.

[clintsfolly]

shot in a handgun class last weekend at one point as close as 2 ft everyone got a big kick out of my targets specked with lube this thin out and stopped at 10-12 ft clint

[Boerrancher]

The bore will only use what lube it actually comes in contact with, which is very little. This is why Tumble lubing works well. I only takes a few thousandths thickness of lube between the bore and the boolit to do the job. Look at a 22 rimfire. It is a pure lead slug with a few thousandths of wax coating it. Also consider when there is a leading problem, the lead is not on the lands, it is in the groves, which have the least contact with the boolit.

Best Wishes,

CPT T

[joeb33050]

We never find bullets that have been stopped by snow.
joe b.

[runfiverun]

joe look just a bit further north.

[Gussy]

Kind of makes me think the mini grove bullets used in BPCR is the way to go. Some just knurl the base and pan lube. Anyone try that ??

[sundog]

ala Clint, above. I shot a 'practical pistol' match one fine and warm summer day a few years ago and someone 'commented' on why I didn't shoot nice 'cut out' holes (I was shooting 452374 in a stock 1911) and why I splattered lube on the cardboard sillywets. We walked up and counted and pastied the mostly A and a few B hits, and I justed walked away without saying anything...

[jonk]

I am not surprised. I suspect (and this verifies) that most lube grooves are far deeper than need be. That's why Lee's TL bullets work.

[mtgrs737]

I figured that the soft lube would be thrown off by the spinning of the bullet in flight.

[leftiye]

Looks like that regardless of where it comes off, it's still all mostly in the grooves when it leaves the muzzle. This supports the new smaller groove and tumble/dip lubing ideas. It also suggests that we need to design lubes that coat our barrels (not too much or thickly enough as to act as fouling in the bore) with protective coating for the boolits, as whatever coating may be there on the bore is probly more reliable and is doing more than the lube in the grooves that isn't getting on the bore. Less lube - more protection?

[runfiverun]

i have been thinking lately of keeping my bore wet in one rifle and shooting it with a boolit with a smaller lube groove, it is right on the edge of leading the end of my bbl, and testing it against another that has a much larger lube groove.
basically identical rifles and velocities, and seeing if i could notice a difference, if nothing
else i might learn something about 1st shot flyers.