Wiping noses of alox reduces smoke?

[FieldShunt]

When I restarted casting a couple of years ago after a long hiatus, I couldn't find my old RCBS Lubrisizer in the garage attic with all my old Lee molds and pot. Based on reports here, I took up using Lee alox and sizer and was surprised to find I liked the process and outcome quite a bit.
For me, there's one downside: the smoke during firing. It seems to be bothering me, acting as a respiratory irritant. This is outdoor shooting, too. I just go back to plated Berry's indoors, on the rare occasion I shoot indoors (such as winter PPC).
I wiped off the noses of the loaded Lee 158gr round-nose TLs I used in an IDPA match a couple of weeks ago and I swear it was far less smoky on the firing line. Understand, I was more focused on beating the Glockers with my old wheelgun than the environmental conditions in the moment, but it just seemed better.
Wiping off two or three hundred rounds at a crack takes time and could be a bit annoying, but reducing smoke and lung irritation would be worth it.
Am I correct in thinking that wiping the noses helped?
How about rubbing the bases on a dry cloth just before they are placed in the case mouths?
Thanks
Bill

[Shiloh]

Alox on .38 wadcutters with Alliant Bullseye make for a acrid, smoky distraction. Especially indoors. That is my one grievance. Thay are quite accurate though.

Shiloh

[OLPDon]

Makes perfect sence to me, as alox on nose of bullet oops Boolit does little if any good reduceing group size. It would be to me simmilar to a fry pan on high heat with any oil or grease and just leaving it on the fire after you finished cooking and forget to turn off the gas. The oil or grease has done its job while cooking same as the lube has, anything more don't help.
Don

[stephpd]

I wipe them down but more to keep the stuff off the feed ramp of my pistols. I had a few failures to load because of the buildup.

I just clean them in the tumbler after making up the rounds.

[R.C. Hatter]

While wiping alox off boolit noses can reduce smoke, which is desirable, I take issue with a members advice that he removes alox by tumbling loaded rounds. I don't believe you can get ANY tumbler manufacturer to say that such a practice is safe, nor advocate such practice. Tumbling loaded rounds can have a detrimental affect on the powder, by causing it to become finer, which can change it's ballistic properties.

[handyrandyrc]

. I don't believe you can get ANY tumbler manufacturer to say that such a practice is safe, nor advocate such practice. Tumbling loaded rounds can have a detrimental affect on the powder, by causing it to become finer, which can change it's ballistic properties.

I'll take that as a challenge.

Venture to guess why your factory rounds are soooooo shiny when they come out of the box?

They are tumbled AFTER BEING LOADED.

[Willbird]

Well if it DOES cut down on that smoke, that opens up the question, can we JUST lube the bullet noses and not the body ? Maybe fire the FIRST bullet from a clean bore with lube on it's body then the rest with just lubricated noses.

It does sort of make sense that some lube is moved down the nose into contact with the bore due to acceleration.

Bill

[FieldShunt]

My theory, and I'm waiting to be disabused of it, is that the nose lube is getting vaporized by the burning cloud of gas as it exits the bore and the much higher-speed cloud surrounds it.
That's all I've got.

The truth is, I'm not sure that the nose-wiping helped that much, since I was paying attention to other things. It just seemed as though it did.
Guess I'll stop at the club tomorrow on the way home and do some side-by-side.

Bill

[Shiloh]

My theory, and I'm waiting to be disabused of it, is that the nose lube is getting vaporized by the burning cloud of gas as it exits the bore and the much higher-speed cloud surrounds it.
That's all I've got.
Bill

Could be. Sounds plausible. Friction from the trip down the bore along adding to this??

Shiloh

[OLPDon]

My theory, and I'm waiting to be disabused of it, is that the nose lube is getting vaporized by the burning cloud of gas as it exits the bore and the much higher-speed cloud surrounds it.
That's all I've got.

The truth is, I'm not sure that the nose-wiping helped that much, since I was paying attention to other things. It just seemed as though it did.
Guess I'll stop at the club tomorrow on the way home and do some side-by-side.

Bill

Fry Pan Theoy

[FieldShunt]

Not sure about the Fry Pan Theory, but now I'm hungry.

[mikekj]

While wiping alox off boolit noses can reduce smoke, which is desirable, I take issue with a members advice that he removes alox by tumbling loaded rounds. I don't believe you can get ANY tumbler manufacturer to say that such a practice is safe, nor advocate such practice. Tumbling loaded rounds can have a detrimental affect on the powder, by causing it to become finer, which can change it's ballistic properties.

I have worked for an ammunition manufactoring facility, and can assure you all the ammo was tumbled after loading to make it look good.:)

Mike

[35remington]

My opinion is that wiping the nose of the bullets clean of lube doesn't do much for reducing the smoke.

Neither bore friction nor escaping gasses that propel the bullet do much work on the nose of the bullet. Most of the smoke comes from another place - the sides of the bullet carrying the lube and friction and gasses removing it as it goes up the bore. If gasses worked on the nose of the bullet we'd see gascutting on the bullet nose, and we don't. Gascutting is confined to the sides and edges of the base.

The gap twixt the smaller diameter nose and the barrel is considerably greater, so the gascutting forces are much less (gasses that expand to fill a larger space lose their cutting effects) and the friction to rub the lube off is near nonexistent.

[gilbossi]

I have tumbled all my reloads since the get go and never had a bad experiance. I like shooting pretty cartridges!!!

[35remington]

No argument there - some like less lube on the bullets to avoid gunking up the feed ramp, etc.

I just don't believe it reduces smoke.

Tried it.

[Recluse]

While wiping alox off boolit noses can reduce smoke, which is desirable, I take issue with a members advice that he removes alox by tumbling loaded rounds. I don't believe you can get ANY tumbler manufacturer to say that such a practice is safe, nor advocate such practice. Tumbling loaded rounds can have a detrimental affect on the powder, by causing it to become finer, which can change it's ballistic properties.

Been doing it for over thirty years with absolutely no detrimental effect. Have a friend who is a chemist and ballistician at a well-recognized powder manufacturer. She assured me that I would have to tumble for days upon days upon days to even begin to hope to change the ballistic properties of smokeless powder. And when the loaded rounds are at capacity or compressed, you can tumble all you want--ain't nothing gonna happen.

I'll tumble in the Thumler's for fifteen to thirty minutes to get all residual stuff off the finished rounds.

As far as the LLA and smoke, I cut my LLA with JPW and then a light cut of mineral spirits. Tumble lube with very light coat, size, tumble lube with very light coat. I get very little smoke doing this and consistently superb accuracy.

:coffee:

[R.C. Hatter]

OK, I'll take my medicine and backwater on tumbling loaded cartridges. You guys that
like to do it, go right ahead, but I won't do it. I didn't make what I said up, I read it in some publication a long way back, but I've forgotten what the publication was. Go
ahead & laugh, I can take it.

[GrizzLeeBear]

Fieldshunt, you might want to try the Rooster Jacket tumble lube. Midway carries it. It says its made for pistol and rifle loads of 1000 fps or less. Dries to a hard, non stick coating and has less smoke that LLA. I haven't tried it yet, but have read good things about it here.

[Recluse]

OK, I'll take my medicine and backwater on tumbling loaded cartridges. You guys that like to do it, go right ahead, but I won't do it. I didn't make what I said up, I read it in some publication a long way back, but I've forgotten what the publication was. Go ahead & laugh, I can take it.

I'm certainly not laughing at you. I'm laughing at the liability lawyers who are scared of the tort and PIJ lawyers who salivate over the thought of professional victims just looking for a place to have an accident.

In advertising, we referred to the legal folks (both agency side and client side) as Sales Prevention. More good ideas for simple ads and commercials get squashed by Sales Prevention because they look at everything that might, could, might possibly, could possibly, might probably, might be one in a bazillion chance go wrong.

And Sales Prevention's job is no longer to defend the Company or Manufacturer or Seller. No, Sales Preventions job is to immediately cowtow to the damned tort/PIJ sharks and reach an agreeable settlement rather than tell the tort/PIJ shark, "Sorry buddy. We'll see you AND your ******* client in court. We'll explain how deficient your client is for sticking his face underneath the lawnmower while it was running and trying to lick the blade on a double-dog dare."

Besides, I've already told my wife that if I find a way to blow myself up tumbling my freshly loaded ammo, go right to the source--sue the electric company. If they hadn't supplied power to the shop, the tumbler could never have worked. Obviously any mishap I might have will be laid at their feet.

Besides, to tumble or not to tumble reloaded ammo is a Ford versus Chevy argument. Ain't no one gonna win or give up ground. ;)

:coffee:

[jameslovesjammie]

Tumble...and Chevy [smilie=1:

[mikekj]

OK, I'll take my medicine and backwater on tumbling loaded cartridges. You guys that
like to do it, go right ahead, but I won't do it. I didn't make what I said up, I read it in some publication a long way back, but I've forgotten what the publication was. Go
ahead & laugh, I can take it.

I don't think anyone is laughing, especially me. I have read/heard the same warnings for years.

However, when I went to work at the ammo factory, and saw them put all those loaded rounds in cement mixers to tumble, I thought OK. This must be alright to do, since they do tens of thousands of rounds a day.

Mike

[jack19512]

I just don't believe it reduces smoke.









I could be wrong but I'm with you on this one. The only lube that I have used so far has been LLA and unless I am shooting these rounds out of a lever gun I don't even bother wiping the noses off and I really haven't noticed that much smoke. Not enough to draw my attention to anyway. I can't say that the rounds that have had their noses wiped and the ones that have not showed any more or any less smoke when fired.

[Ricochet]

Ford vs. Chevy? Toyota. [smilie=1:

[carpetman]

Try Vic's on the nose.

[hedgehorn]

just dont wipe your nose with the same rag you wipe the alox off with ;)

[carbon_15]

I wipe the extra lub off the bullet noses. I dont know if it helps with the smoke, but it sure keep smy fingers cleaner at the range (and the feed ramps on autos)

[Echo]

Well, MY theory on the smoke caused by Mule Snot on the nose of the boolits is that the MS is warmed, but not completely heated, by the boolit's travel down the barrel and therefore reacts with the phlogiston nascent in the atmosphere at most gun ranges.

I have spoken.

And RC, I believe the idea that jostling/tumbling/whatever loaded rounds would cause the powder to break up and become finer is what is called a 'rationalization'. Someone thought about the situation and came up with a statement (as I did above). As far as I know, it has never been experimentally confirmed, which is the only way to accurately engage observable phenomena.

[ghh3rd]

I have been loading my watcutters head in, sprue end out.

Last night I was getting much more smoke than usual from my .38 tumble lubed wadcutters and wondered why. I was in an inside range in a booth next to the wall. I felt guilty about all of the smoke obscuring the lane next to me. This thread may have given me a clue.

I had dried this batch of boolits all boolit head down. It make sense now - since the allox settles down to the wax paper, I loaded the more "gummy" end, and got lots more smoke.

I think that I'll try rubbing the tumble lubed boolit heads onto a rag moistened with mineral spirits and letting them dry before loading my next batch. I'm curious to see if boolits with a nice clean surface facing the fire will smoke less.

Thanks for the interesting thread.

Randy

[softpoint]

I wipe the noses after loading if I use LLA to keep them from gunking up magazines, feed ramps, and to keep them from picking up dirt. I am hoarding LLA in my seating dies, incase there is ever a shortage

[hammerhead357]

Well I don't know about reducing the smoke, but about tumbling loaded ammo, I have an old shop made tumbler that used to belong to 2 different commecial reloader and it has tumbled several hundreds of thousands of rounds of loaded ammo with no detrimental effects on the ammo.
Both of them would add a little mineral sprits to the media and tumble for about 15 to 30 min. No lube on the nose of the boolit and nice and shiney. I do the same for some of my handloads but the ones with exposed crimp grooves I do by hand. I tumbled some of them once and it was a PITA to get the media out of the crimp grooves. I suppose I could use cotton rags with a little mineral sprits but I have never tried it.....Wes

[yodar]

I doan know how many times the range officer bitched cause he thot I was firing BP on the centerfire range when I used NRA 50:50.

I use a Lithium grease gun cartridge (1 lb) and 1 lb bees wax mixed to make Lithi-bee
(my source of the recipe was Adrian Pittfield a professional caster , so I call it Adrian's Goo)

MUCH less smoke than ALOX based lubes

yodar