500gr and liquid alox lube?

[Spokerider]

I have aquired a bunch of 405 gr non-GC hard cast bullets which I intend to use for 45-70 GG paper punching. Now I'm looking to order a Mountain man custom 45-70 mold for hunting. I'm wanting a .460 500 gr to 550 gr GC mould for this purpose. My question is......what sort of lube groove design would best suit sizing and lubing with a Lee sizer [.460 ] and lee liquid alox lube? I can't spring for a lyman luber sizer at this time so I figured I go with the Lee set-up and order a custom sizer die, as this is much cheaper than the $200. for the Lyman 450. Is this lube [ lee liquid alox ] adequate for the intended application? Is there an alternate method of getting stick lube into the grooves? and is it even necessary?

Thanks. Before I spend the $$ on the mould, I thought I ask.

[pdgraham]

I could be wrong on this.. it happens several time a day..

But.. I was under the impression that the Lee Tumble Lube bullets were the only ones designed to work with the Lee Liquid Alox way of lubing?

I lubed up some non-Tumble Lube bullets in 357 and 9mm with liquid alox and ran them through the appropriate lee sizer...then re-lubed them.. what a mess.. and not much of it stayed in the lube grooves..

You might be better off to go ahead and lube and size them the lee way but also get a stick of Alox lube... melt enough of the stick in a pan.. just deep enough to cover the lube groove.. set the bullets in.. let the lube harden .. and figure out some way to get them out of the lube and still retain lube in the groove...

Anyway.. all my Lee Sizing stuff went up on sale ebay the moment I won the bid on a Lyman 450... This 450 just "ROCKS"!!!! :lovebooli

BTW.. I only paid $51 plus $8 shipping for my 450... and it came with a 9mm die and top punch.. Ebay is your friend.. :)

[Scrounger]

I could be wrong on this.. it happens several time a day..

But.. I was under the impression that the Lee Tumble Lube bullets were the only ones designed to work with the Lee Liquid Alox way of lubing?

You might be better off to go ahead and lube and size them the lee way but also get a stick of Alox lube... melt enough of the stick in a pan.. just deep enough to cover the lube groove.. set the bullets in.. let the lube harden .. and figure out some way to get them out of the lube and still retain lube in the groove...)

Not necessary. I've shot thousands of 'normal' bullets, sized or unsized, with Lee Liquid Alox and it works fine. You don't need near as much of it as you do 'normal' lube.

[pdgraham]

Not necessary. I've shot thousands of 'normal' bullets, sized or unsized, with Lee Liquid Alox and it works fine. You don't need near as much of it as you do 'normal' lube.

So.. sniff... I was wrong again.. :cry:

Thats the 3 rd time today.. :groner:

[The Nyack Kid]

your best bet would be to get a boolit with regular lube groves and pan lube use a cookie cutter that is a few thous. over boolit diameter to cut the boolit out of the lube then just run this though your lee . once you deside to get a luber/sizer then the boolit is just ran into that with no changes need to the boolit. if your going to pan lube a 500 gr boolit you going to need quite a bit of lube to start out this amount of lube may cost more than a used luber/sizer.

[versifier]

Liquid alox is fine for what you want to do. At the very least, it is, as you mentioned, a relatively inexpensive way to get started. Some of us have a real hair across their ass when it comes to the Lee system, but I am of the personal opinion that those who despise it the most have to do an awfully large volume and/or live in a climate too warm for it to harden properly in a reasonable amount of time. Then, too, it does require that the bullets sit at least overnight, and those with either limited time and/or patience find this to be intolerable. Whatever floats your boat. Only experimenting will tell you if it works best with whatever alloy you are casting in the particular barrels you are sending them downrange through. If you get leading in your barrel, then you need to think maybe about a larger diameter sizer or trying a harder alloy (or dropping them straight from the mold into H20, or oven-curing). If the above changes don't help, then go for a conventional sizer - there are lots of us who use them to explain the plusses and minuses of the various manufacturers.

[grumble]

I've mentioned this several times, but I don't guess the idea has stuck.

1- cut the liquid alox 50-50 with mineral spirits
2- don't use a whole lot on the boolits
3- spread them out in a shallow pan (I use an aluminum foil turkey pan), and use a hair dryer for about 5 minutes on the lubed boolits, enough to get them uncomfortably hot to touch
4- if after an hour they are still tacky, dust some motor mica on them if you want
5- run them through the sizer
6- dribble some more thinned-down liquid alox on them and roll them around (again, not too much, just enough to coat them
7- Hit them with the hair dryer again
8- if you're in a hurry, dust them again with the mica, otherwise cover them with a cloth and wait a day for them to dry

There's no need to fill the lube grooves, a thin coating on the bearing surfaces is all you need.

This whole process is fast, clean, and easy, except for the actual sizing. You can apply the liquid alox to a thousand boolits as quickly as you can to fifty. If you want to goop on too much of the thick alox and then try to handle the boolits in less than a couple days, you won't like the stuff. Do it as I suggest, and you may find that the Lee system ain't such a bad way to go.

[David R]

Lyman 450..... $87.00 when I bought it waay back in the early 80s.

Lee liquid Mule Snot $3.99 max.

I use both. I have no leading problems with either. Conventional boolits too.

I use the lee stuff for my 7.65 mauser because I don't have a .314 sizer die for the 450 YET. I use it on LEE soupcans and LEE C314-1502R. It works great, no problems for ME. I used to use it on 45 cal 200 grain TL boolits out of a 6 banger when I was shooting bowling pins. You go through a lot of ammo in a little time. Accuracy was not important at 25 feet.

David

[Spokerider]

Thanks for all of the input fells. There is some good info here.

Wondering.....how well does the lee luber sizer crimp gas checks? Anyone use this tool for crimping? I'll be buying Gator .458 rifle checks and the bullet will have a stepped shank.

I'll probably end up buying the Lee luber sizer and get a custom .460 die. I'll try the alox lube first. If worst comes to worst and the system is ineffective for my purposes, I'll use the idea of melting some stick lube in a pan, setting the bullets in it allowing it to cool and harden, and devise some "cookie cutter" type tool to scrape the excess lube from the bullets. Pass them through the Lee luber sizer and it'll be done. Kinda labour intensive but what the heck.... I only need to do 200 bullets or so per year.

A new Lyman luber sizer here in Canada goes for $200. plus the die and nose punch.

[SharpsShooter]

Pan lubing is not too labor intensive. Until just recently, I used that method for every 45-70 boolit that I shot. Take a fired case and drill the primer pocket out to 5/16, and find a similar diameter rod to use to push the boolits out of the case after you have pushed the case mouth down over the boolit to cut it free of the lube. Use a round pie pan and you can get 50 at a time with no problem.

[Buckshot]

"...........Wondering.....how well does the lee luber sizer crimp gas checks? Anyone use this tool for crimping? I'll be buying Gator .458 rifle checks and the bullet will have a stepped shank."

The Lee sizer does a good job of putting on GC's if a couple things can happen. Primarily it requires a little resistance from the boolit's passage through the die to do the best job. If you can place the GC fully on the shank it will get correctly crimped to the shank as it passes though.

If the GC is NOT fully on the boolit's GC shank, and there isn't sufficient resistance, the push rod won't be able to fully force the GC flush with the boolit's base. In this case the GC WILL NOT be correctly crimped on.

If I were going to design a 45 cal rifle slug to use primarily with LA I would spec them a tad shallower then a conventional cast slug. They would be about .003" deeper then the lands and possibly shaped in cross section like a buttress thread. But that's just conjecture on my part.

................ Buckshot