rcbs lube

[walker77]

Anyone ever have trouble with rcbs lube? I shot my 44 mag yesterday and it looks like i got a lot of leading. I havent slugged the barrel yet. But i was buying .429 cast so i just sized them the same. I really dont think thats the problem. If i remember right i was running 9 grns of unique. So that should put it right around 1000 fps. I am using a lee 6 cav round nose mold. And i am water dropping them as i go. I lubed them with rcbs lube that came with the press and thats the only thing i can really think of being the problem. Any ideas? Also, any suggestions on getting leading out of a barrel?

[Shiloh]

Stainless or copper Chore Boy kitchen scrubber wrapped on an undersize bronze brush works to remove the lead. If it is heavy it may take a while.

I haven's used RCBS lube in years. Even when shooting commercial boolits the guy I got them from had a blue lube. I don't recall having trouble with it other than it was a bit spendy.

Check out Lars45's lsStuff Lubes at the bottom of the page under Shootin' Links

Shiloh

[Gunslinger]

What alloy are yóu using? Note you cannot water harden lead that doesn't contain antimony and/or arsenic.... which means that if you are water quenching pure lead this might be your problem. I have used RCBS bullet lube (the green stuff) for 9mm before I started making my own lube,... I never experienced any problems with it!

Shiloh:

I've been looking for cobber chore boy for ages now but am unable to find any. You mentioned steel chore boy´- does that mean that I can use steel wool?? Off course one that is not so abrasive but steel some grade of steel wool! And would you know what it is called??

[44man]

Anyone ever have trouble with rcbs lube? I shot my 44 mag yesterday and it looks like i got a lot of leading. I havent slugged the barrel yet. But i was buying .429 cast so i just sized them the same. I really dont think thats the problem. If i remember right i was running 9 grns of unique. So that should put it right around 1000 fps. I am using a lee 6 cav round nose mold. And i am water dropping them as i go. I lubed them with rcbs lube that came with the press and thats the only thing i can really think of being the problem. Any ideas? Also, any suggestions on getting leading out of a barrel?
Try making the boolits larger instead of .429. Few .44's like that small of a boolit.

[walker77]

Im just using pure wheel weight. And i dont have any way of checking thhe hardness. I dont have any way of lubing them if i make them larger. Ill try slugging the barrel to make sure. Do i over size the boolit any once i get my diameter?

[cajun shooter]

Walker, 44 Man is Dead On as he is at most times. You should with all your cast bullets be using .001 to .002 above your bore size. A lot of shooters make the mistake of using the same size cast as they do with the J-boolits and that will give you problems as you have found out. I shoot CAS and size all my 45 Colt at 454 while most shooters insist on using 452 or 451. Later David

[Shiloh]

Im just using pure wheel weight. And i dont have any way of checking thhe hardness. I dont have any way of lubing them if i make them larger. Ill try slugging the barrel to make sure. Do i over size the boolit any once i get my diameter?

Wheel Weights water harden plenty for almost all applications, other than faster than about 2200 fps. Proper lube, Larsons 2500+ possibly, could probably get a little more.

Shiloh

[mtgrs737]

I size my 44 boolits to .432" and use Lar's BAC lube with no problems using WW alloy to about 1000fps. Like 44man said, size is the most important factor, measure your cylinder throats to make sure you are not sizing the boolit down before it gets to the barrel. You want them larger by .001" - .002" than the barrel slugs, cylindersmith can help you with them if they are undersize.

[44man]

Im just using pure wheel weight. And i dont have any way of checking thhe hardness. I dont have any way of lubing them if i make them larger. Ill try slugging the barrel to make sure. Do i over size the boolit any once i get my diameter?
Measure them as cast, you might not have to size them. A soft lube can be rubbed into the grooves with your fingers and is how I do it.
I push them through a Lee size die to remove excess lube but a tube to fit over a boolit will work. You might get them lubed smooth enough so you can just seat them, remove the excess and then crimp. Wipe the bases across a rag before seating. Felix lube works great for this and BAC should be soft enough.
Then there is always pan lubing.
I bought a pile of .430" Lee dies and lapped some so I have .430" to .434". (Yes, I made a mold for a .434" for the Marlin, didn't help a bit.) My Ruger and Whitworth's S&W both like .432".
I don't like lube-sizers and rarely use mine unless I want Carnauba Red on a boolit. Even a lot of those dies are lapped out on my RCBS.

[Larry Gibson]

Walker77

I'm not sure which RCBS lube you are using; pistol or rifle?

I have recently ran a side by side test of several lubes at low (1200 fps), medium (1850 fps) and high velocity (2400 fps). The RCBS rifle lube consistantly performed poorly and was the worst performer of any. It supposidly is of the NRA 50/50 beeswax/alox formula. However there were two other such lubes in the test (Javelina and XLOX 2500+) which performed very well. I only shot 10 shot strings with each lube at each velocty but did get leading from the RCBS lube at 2400 fps and a trace of it at 1850 fps.

I've had the RCBS lube for some years and perhaps it has gone bad or I just have a bad lot of it. I seiously doubt it's gone bad though as the Javelina I have is even older and it still works very well. I think it is just a bad concoction.

Larry Gibson

[walker77]

I dont remember which one it is. Its the green stuff that came with the press. Its a very sticky messy goo that seems to come off easy. Ive noticed some of the boolits i lubed and left sitting around has lost some of the lube around the bands. I bought some Carnauba Red. So ill try that out with my next casting. But i need to find some way to warm it up first. I tried the iron method, but it gets too hot.

[Firebricker]

Walker, Rcbs pistol lube the green stuff worked good in my 44mag and every thing else I used it in. When I joined here I found Lars lube I use CR it does everthing RCBS does at a fraction of the price and member made. I don't have a heater yet on my star so I use a hair dryer to get started.

If you want to get an idea of the BHN of your alloy send me or another member a few boolits and will check them for you.

On cleaning the bore do a search on Ed's Red. It works well and you can use a bunch of it without going broke. Once you get the right combo of boolit size and lube clean up just takes a few minutes. IMO the solution to your leading is in .44man's advise and the other post's.
FB

[walker77]

That would be great if i could get some one to take a look at the ones i make.

[walker77]

Ok, i slugged the barrel. If i did it right, the biggest i got was .430 So i guess im sizing them too small. So what sizing die should i buy? The exact same size?

[geargnasher]

Ok, i slugged the barrel. If i did it right, the biggest i got was .430 So i guess im sizing them too small. So what sizing die should i buy? The exact same size?

Never the exact same size with cast.

Measure the cylinder throats. In a revolver this is more important than barrel groove size. I do this usually by taking unsized boolits of the caliber I want to shoot and push them into the chambers from the front. Usually very little gets scraped off. I then measure the diameter at the shiny spots with a REAL 0-1" calibrated micrometer and find the largest size. THEN I slug the barrel twice, once all the way through, and once to within an inch of the forcing cone and then use multiple sections of short dowel rod to push it back out. This tells barrel/frame constriction, if any.

Example: I got a new mould worked up a load for my FIL's 10" S&W Model 29 yesterday. The barrel slugged at .429" all the way, .4294" without going through the frame, which tells me firelapping is in order. The largest cylinder throat slugged at .4322"!!! If you want accuracy, and I do, then you have to work with those numbers. Fortunately, the mould I was using cast .4321-4", so all I had to do was hog out my sizer die until it pushed out .4322" or thereabouts and packed the grooves full of Felix.

This gun would never group boolits sized at .429". It won't group j-words, either. Now we know why.

My best groups out of a box of workups yesterday were under an inch at 25 yards with crude iron sights and my not-so-good eyes. (44man, I can hear you laughing!!). This is with the first powder I tried and without firelapping.

The reason I got this project was because three people had all tried to make this gun shoot and literally couldn't get it to group under 4" and 25 yards! I was even along for one of the range sessions and tried it myself, shooting 5" 5-shot strings!

Follow this method and wth a good gun your accuracy and leading issues will go away. Lube is really the last thing, after alloy, to cause issues.

Gear

[Sprue]

A couple years ago I ran across a bunch of reloading stuff. In that deal I came by probably 3-4 gallons worth of 429 boolits already sized and lubed with what appears to be RCBS.

Although I have shot them occasionally I don't make it a habit of shooting heavier boolits in my smith except for maybe hunting - thats it. That said, I recently came by a 4 5/8 SBH. So this weekend I shot several rounds of the above mentioned boolits and afterwards I noticed some leading. (my plink'n recipe is 8gr Unique)

Later that evening I started to measuring things and discovered that the SBH has larger throats than the smith....

So without going off topic yes, I experienced the very same thing as you it seems.

I am convinced that my leading was caused by 429's in which that my boolits were too small for the ruger revolver.

I will say this though, if these boolits are in fact lubed with 'green', its sure some smokey stuff - I'll give it that.

[44man]

Never the exact same size with cast.

Measure the cylinder throats. In a revolver this is more important than barrel groove size. I do this usually by taking unsized boolits of the caliber I want to shoot and push them into the chambers from the front. Usually very little gets scraped off. I then measure the diameter at the shiny spots with a REAL 0-1" calibrated micrometer and find the largest size. THEN I slug the barrel twice, once all the way through, and once to within an inch of the forcing cone and then use multiple sections of short dowel rod to push it back out. This tells barrel/frame constriction, if any.

Example: I got a new mould worked up a load for my FIL's 10" S&W Model 29 yesterday. The barrel slugged at .429" all the way, .4294" without going through the frame, which tells me firelapping is in order. The largest cylinder throat slugged at .4322"!!! If you want accuracy, and I do, then you have to work with those numbers. Fortunately, the mould I was using cast .4321-4", so all I had to do was hog out my sizer die until it pushed out .4322" or thereabouts and packed the grooves full of Felix.

This gun would never group boolits sized at .429". It won't group j-words, either. Now we know why.

My best groups out of a box of workups yesterday were under an inch at 25 yards with crude iron sights and my not-so-good eyes. (44man, I can hear you laughing!!). This is with the first powder I tried and without firelapping.

The reason I got this project was because three people had all tried to make this gun shoot and literally couldn't get it to group under 4" and 25 yards! I was even along for one of the range sessions and tried it myself, shooting 5" 5-shot strings!

Follow this method and wth a good gun your accuracy and leading issues will go away. Lube is really the last thing, after alloy, to cause issues.

Gear
Not laughing, you did exactly right. I would not even worry about fire lapping at this point, the difference is too small to cause much of a problem.

[walker77]

do you think i could sand down and polish the inside of my die sizer to gain a couple thousandths?

[geargnasher]

Yes. I brought a .427" H&I I had no other use for up to where it makes .4322" with emory cloth strips wrapped around a bit in the drill press. Took me about 2 hours to get it perfect with no boolit taper. Squirts a little lube over the front driving band, and the bottom punch is a bit loose near the top (tried to keep the bottom of the die tight) but it works. Couple thousandths is no big deal.

Gear

EDIT: use WD-40 or water to aid sanding and prevent the paper from wedging. A hand drill will also work.

[walker77]

Ok, so i polished up the sizing die a little, and bumped it up to .431 from .429 I shot some this weekend and still get a lot of leading. I dont get it. What am i doing wrong? I read on here that water dropping the boolits could make them too hard to expand at the base and seal up to the barrel. Could this be my problem?

[lylejb]

Ok, the barrel slugs at .430, but what about the cyl throats?

It is possible to have undersize throat(s) that will size down the boolit as it passes, and cause leading in the barrel.

Please slug all 6 throats.