Using lubricant on "J" bullets??

[Eutectic]

I see Lots of knowledge here in my short time looking around. I thought I would throw out a question I have pondered for some time.

What is the feasibility of lubricating "J" bullets? Has anyone done this? NOT MOLY... NOT tumble lube,
but actual bullet lubricant...

I know Why? will come up first.

Two fold for my example. Cast lubricated boolits are easy on old barrels... Elmer Keith quoted tenfold or more barrel life with cast lubricated boolits vs. jacketed in revolvers. So easy on old barrels for one.

Number two is my primary reason though. Is it possible to shoot lubricated "J" bullets and not copper foul the bore? (similar to a gascheck). Even more important could then lubricated "J" bullets and lubricated cast boolits be mixed (as in a hunting situation) with no flyers or point of impact or accuracy change?

I have an old Winchester Model 94 in .38-55. This is the one I will experiment on. I also have a good supply of OLD 255gr jacketed bullets. Their multiple and deep cannelures are begging to be filled with a good lube!

See bullet sample below to see cannelures..

What do you think? Thanks, Eutectic

http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/3855Impbullet.jpg

[rockrat]

I don't see how it would hurt and might give you a bit more velocity. Let us know what you find out about copper fouling.

I have tried tumble lube on bronze bullets in my 50bmg, but never really checked the bore for fouling. Accuracy was on par with the AMAX.

[felix]

Should work very well. But, the supposition that cast boolits make the barrel last longer is a misnomer. Heat expelled by the load is the culprit. Lube does adsorb heat, and that might help some. I shoot 35-40K cup almost always, and barrel destruction (elongation of throat) has very obviously taken its toll. My BR barrel now has a significant amount of freebore which had absolutely none when new. Approx 15K rounds. ... felix

[303Guy]

What do you think?

http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/3855Impbullet.jpg

Absolutely!

To answer your question, yes I have lubed J-words. Does it stop copper fouling? It's hard to say. I don't get any copper fouling but is that because of the lube? Probably. But then I also had to give this bore a rather vigourous fire-lapping to get the rust out of it. The pits now probably hold lube, which helps. As for accuracy? Hard to say. Indications are of sub-MOA. This is an old No4 two-groove Lee Enfield.

The J-words I use are chamfered based and I dip the bases into molten 'waxy-lube'. Excess lube gets cut off by the case neck mouth during seating. The wax part of the 'waxy-lube' serves to hold the lube in a frozen wax state on the base and chamfer of the J-word.

[Dale53]

felix;
>>>the supposition that cast boolits make the barrel last longer is a misnomer. Heat expelled by the load is the culprit. <<<

I would like to respectfully disagree with you here. Regarding a specific case, in particular where I have records (or rather the U.S. Army does). Using military hardball, barrel life for the .45 ACP is in the neighborhood of 5000 rounds then accuracy falls off noticeably. Using cast bullets with the same powder and velocity, the barrel life is extended by over 100,000 rounds. This, of course, is with match grade pistols. I, personally, have a 1911 platform with well over 100,000 rounds through it and it still shoots in the neighborhood of 2" at fifty yards. That's with nearly all cast bullets, of course.

Further, I have a couple of .44 magnums that have well over 10,000 magnum loads through them and they still shoot as well as ever. I guarantee you that would NOT happen with jacketed bullets. Ballisticians have told me that most jacketed bullets encourage gas cutting (often the bullets are made deliberately undersize to reduce pressures and that encourages gas cutting). The add'l factor is many revolver and pistol jackets are very hard.

In rifles, if shot with jacketed bullet pressures, I would tend to agree with you.

However, at Schuetzen velocity (1400-1500 fps plain base bullets) MUCH extended barrel life is the rule.

FWIW
Dale53

[HangFireW8]

What is the feasibility of lubricating "J" bullets? Has anyone done this? NOT MOLY... NOT tumble lube,
but actual bullet lubricant...


Almost every jacketed load is lubricated, by the graphite left in the bore from the shot before it. The graphite comes coated on the powder you use, which would be yellow or off-white otherwise.

Using lube would introduce a new variable to play with. It would expect it to lower obturation force, and perhaps debulleting force, depending on your crimp. Whether that makes your rifle more or less accurate than otherwise, you'd have to test it to find out.

-HF

[c3d4b2]

I remember reading that at one time they were adding lube to bullets at Camp Perry and all was well until the next year when the ammo was a little hotter. With the hot ammo and the lube they experienced some over pressure events.

[303Guy]

Using lube would introduce a new variable to play with. It would expect it to lower obturation force, and perhaps debulleting force, depending on your crimp ...That I would agree with. The first time I experienced a primer alone pushing a bullet out of a case mouth was with lubed J's. But, at the same time, the neck was fully annealed.

However, given that a J-word can become bonded to the neck, lubing might keep neck grip more constant. Hopefully, lubing will also make the differences in neck tension less significant. For me with my No4, it ain't broke so I shan't be look'n to fix'n it!:roll:

Oh, I do the same lube thing on BT ballistic tip 25's with my 303-25. Again accuracy seems to be pretty good (85gr @ ±3100fps). Never found signs of copper fouling in this gun either.

Oy yes! I lube J-words in my hornet too. Did get a severe copper fouling once but that came out with cotton wool bore patching. None before that and none since. (The Hornet J-words are lubed by seating the bullet in an unsized neck with a paper cup which gets soaked in molten 'waxy-lube'. I get about 2700+fps with 55grainers - that can't be done with conventional loading).

Needs a little better testing than just what seems![smilie=1:

[Eutectic]

Upon close examination, My Model 94 .38-55 has mild copper fouling from some testing done about ten days ago.
The jacketed bullets are very accurate. I hollow point them to 249grains on a small lathe and expansion is devastating! I have both velocity and accuracy records from this prior shooting. I lapped my Lyman #375449 a few days ago to shoot for a .380" drop. Ready to cast but shop is so cold I may not melt the alloy! So on with the lubricated jacketed meantime!
I lubed up some bullets with BAC. I'm not removing the light copper fouling but will shoot lubed jacketed bullets over it. I'll post accuracy and fouling results back on this thread after I try them (maybe after Christmas) I'm hoping the lubed bullets will remove copper fouling... Hope I'm not wishful thinking.

Eutectic

[felix]

Absolutely, Dale, right on! No argument there. The difference in metal bearings themselves have the most effect when tremendous heat AND pressure to drive it into the barrel pores are non-existent. ... felix

[lathesmith]

I once read an article on the web by some hot-shot gunsmith that claimed around 100 fps more velocity from his handguns simply by coating jacketed bullets with liquid alox. I decided to try this for myself(I'm from the show-me state, after all), and I could not replicate it. My results showed no appreciable difference in velocity, with or without alox, this in a couple of 357's and a 44.

I didn't check fouling, but the alox did smoke more, so I may have actually added to barrel fouling. Certainly not worth the effort for me.

lathesmith

[looseprojectile]

ammo for the K 31 is lubed. The 7.5X55 Swiss is a really accurate cartridge in the Swiss guns. Most all of the bores in Swiss guns I have seen are excellent. I will go with molybdenumdisulfide if I need to lube jacketed bullets.
Other wise I will use the same old beeswax bear grease and lanolin and maybe some olive oil.

Life is good

[XWrench3]

if i had j bullets like that, i would at least try iy. unfortunatly, almost all of mine either have no canalure, or just one crimping groove. by all means, go for it!

[Shiloh]

Moly is the current jacketed bullet lube of choice.

Barrel wear starts at the throat. Intense heat and the abrasive qualities of partially burnt powder under high pressure, bead blast the throat. This is the cause of loss of accuracy

Cast boolits are much easier on barrels. I shoot cast boolits almost exclusively. Even more so now with the price of jacketed bullets.

SHiloh

[jonk]

I have meant to try this for some time now. I don't think it would hurt anything and might help.

[Wayne Smith]

Ballisticians have told me that most jacketed bullets encourage gas cutting (often the bullets are made deliberately undersize to reduce pressures and that encourages gas cutting). The add'l factor is many revolver and pistol jackets are very hard.

FWIW
Dale53

If this is true, and I also suspect it is, then adding lube will increase pressures. By how much? Who knows. True, in the '30's lubing 30-06 bullets at Camp Perry matches did cause overpressure events. That is documented. (I'm at work and don't have the reference - Hatcher?)

Will the same thing hapen today? Probably. I'd start loading low and work up carefully.

[303Guy]

It would be interesting to know just how those over pressure events occured i.e. the mechanism that caused it. My J-word lubing is effectively a wax wad melted onto the bullet base which fills the chamfer. I know I'm not the first to use a wax wad with J-words. Someone reported an exceptional barrel life doing this but I have no way of checking the details. One of the reasons for doing this is to apply a protective coating to the insides of my suppressors. It works.

[Eutectic]

I loaded and shot 5 .38-55 rounds today with lubricated "J" words on board..

Only five as it was snowing heavy enough that the aperture sights were hard to see on my 70 yard range out back.

The load was identical to those fired 10 days prior EXCEPT for added lube.

No velocity check yet due to weather conditions.

Accuracy great! Comparable to before 1 1/4" at 70 yards. No better... no worse.

Fired cases were carefully measured over the pressure ring. They ranged between .4165" and .4167". Cases fired with non-lube 10 days ago were measured (10 case sample... same load.... same lot of cases). They ranged .4165" to .4169". Pressures are very close as this brass is thin and will show a half grain increase in powder charge. If anything lubed may be very slightly less pressure....

Fouling?? Maybe slightly better! Not gone but not worse either. The gun sits dirty waiting for better weather to continue with chronograph comparison.

Eutectic

[SCIBUL]

Lubricating jacketed bullets is good but be carrefull it can be dangerous.
During the first part of the century (the 20th one), english riflemens used to lubricate jacketed bullets with a little bit of grease applied by hand just before shooting. Results were very good at long distances but some of them (the riflemen) reported very dangerous high pressures hapened when bullets were lubed and not shoot immediately. They discovered that, under these conditions, the collet of the cartridge stayed stucked on the bullet and went with it thru the bore. The explanation was an eletric reaction with jacket copper and grease who weld the bullet to the case...
This seems to be the genesis of the "don't shoot a greased bore with J-bullets"
I finaly prefer :cbpour:

[Hickory]

I'd often wondered about lubing these kind of bullets.

SEE LINK

http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0023/7592/products/thumb_BNDSLD_26422_large.jpg?1260897729

[HORNET]

Minor details:
The problems in the 30's were from greasing the newfangled cupro-nickel jacketed bullets to reduce the metal fouling. After a few rounds, the barrel would warm up and the lube would melt and coat the cases. This greatly increased bolt thrust to proof load levels, not a good idea with early Springfield actions.
Harvey Donaldson reported exceptional barrel life on his very early production .220 Swift and attributed it to a combination of a 16" twist and using a lube wad in the case neck. IIRC, he used Leupold Banana Lube and had a big argument with Phil Sharpe over the correct ingredients.

[dominicfortune00]

ammo for the K 31 is lubed. The 7.5X55 Swiss is a really accurate cartridge in the Swiss guns. Most all of the bores in Swiss guns I have seen are excellent.

Older 7.5 x 55 had a wax ring at the point where the bullet entered the case for waterproofing, not lubrication.

In the '80's they did away with the wax ring, and the ammo shot the same.

The excellent bores in Swiss rifles can be due to their cleaning procedure.

While the barrel is warm, they run a couple of greased patches through the bore to remove powder fouling.

Then dry patches to remove the grease and fouling.

If the rifle wasn't going to be shot the next day, the bore was greased for storage, and before the next shooting session the grease was removed with dry patches.

They would almost never use solvent or brushes in the rifle bores.

[303Guy]

The explanation was an eletric reaction with jacket copper and grease who weld the bullet to the case...I wonder what grease they were using that could be conductive let alone electrolytic? Animal fat based, and acidic? Animal fat can and does go rancid!

To me the significance of the Swiss ammo being wax sealed is that there is no problem with using wax. Important to me because I do!


After a few rounds, the barrel would warm up and the lube would melt and coat the cases. This greatly increased bolt thrust to proof load levels, ...Not sure how that would happen. Firstly, the bolt holds the thrust, not the case although the case does hold some of the thrust in low pressure cartridges (sometimes all of it). I routinely lube all my loaded cartridge cases specifically to minimise case binding against the chamber walls. I don't mind case to chamber wall grip but binding is a no-no! It causes case head separation - in any rifle design but far worse in a Lee Enfield.

[Harry O]

I tried this on Barnes Triple-Shock X bullets in 7mm x 140gr BT. Those are the solid copper bullets with three grooves in them that look a LOT like lube grooves. I had a custom Ruger No. 2 wildcat that shot this bullet in 1/2MOA to 1MOA groups consistently at 200 yards. I had the bright idea that maybe putting lube in the grooves would improve things.

I got a 7mm sizer that did not touch the bullet itself. I used NRA Tamarack lube in all three grooves. Loaded up a bunch of them and tried it. The groups were definitely larger. I was getting 3/4MOA to 1-1/2MOA groups at 200 yards. I cleaned the gun and went back to the unlubed bullets. The groups went back to the size they were before.

I don't think I will be doing this again.

[runfiverun]

the problem they had was dieseling.
like in the grease was trying to combust and started to cause accuracy problems.
how they determined it was dieseling i don't recall.

[HangFireW8]

Harvey Donaldson reported exceptional barrel life on his very early production .220 Swift and attributed it to a combination of a 16" twist and using a lube wad in the case neck. IIRC, he used Leupold Banana Lube and had a big argument with Phil Sharpe over the correct ingredients.

Harvey insisted on using Resin to hold his wads together. Phil Sharpe insisted resin is very abrasive to barrels and wouldn't have it in his reloads. I lean towards Phil Sharpe's position, though I have no personal evidence either way.

Mr. Sharpe pointed out that Elmer Keith wore out an overbore wildcat barrel quickly using Harvey's lube wad formula, as evidence.

I listened to Harvey when I had my 220 Swift built, though, and got a custom 1-15" barrel made for it. I couldn't bring myself to go all the way down to 1-16". Don't ask how it shoots, unfinished project...

-HF

[303Guy]

... the problem they had was dieseling.I have theorized that dieseling could be a problem with excess oil between case and chamber. No-one offered any support to that one at the time. It does make sense but maybe someone back then was theorizing just like I did. But the energy to create over-pressure has to come from somewhere.


I cleaned the gun and went back to the unlubed bullets. The groups went back to the size they were before.That's dissappointing but not unexpected really since a variable was changed which would have required load re-developement. Even then who is to say the original accuracy was possible with that bullet, lube and gun. Neck tension (or loss of) might have been the culprit. From the point of this discussion I wish you had persued the lube thing.[smilie=1:

[SCIBUL]

The explanation was an eletric reaction with jacket copper and grease who weld the bullet to the case...
I wonder what grease they were using that could be conductive let alone electrolytic? Animal fat based, and acidic? Animal fat can and does go rancid!

To me the significance of the Swiss ammo being wax sealed is that there is no problem with using wax. Important to me because I do!


Yes 303 GUY, I think that they used traditional BP grease. This was made with 1/3 sheep fat, 1/3 paraphin and 1/3 beeswax :holysheep.

[Eutectic]

Sometimes..... a somewhat precise task shouldn't be done by a person who tends to not be precise.... I say this in reference to the application of "lube" to older cupronickel loads in the early 20th century. Cupronickel would foul the bore horribly when too much speed was applied; and too much was usually above 2200fps! So the practice of "lubing" was mostly done on early .30-06 military loads with maybe 2700fps and 50,000psi at work. I see a thin film of lube on these being no problem pressure-wise....maybe I'm wrong... But what if someone from the first sentence "dipped" said round into whatever he was using and then chambered and fired this round with a 100grs of lube on its nose? Now here I could see pressure problems not only from weight but possible bore obstruction!

As far as some electrolyte type of bonding because a copper bullet lubed, is seated in a brass case.... I doubt this..... Western cartridge company loaded "Lubaloy" plated bullets for many years in almost their full line of revolver cartridges. Even low powered rifle loads like .22WRF. , .25 Stevens, .25-20, .32-20..... Early on animal tallow was in their lube mix.... (AND ALL THESE PLATED LOADS WERE LUBED!) I have never heard of a bullet "welded" in on these.... I've shot some that were probably 75-80 years old and did get leading... A pulled bullet showed the lube still there but dried out to a solid...

I can't see bullet lubricant in grooves or cannelures on a gilding metal "J" bullet being a problem. I would welcome some proof. I also would like proof for any possible benefits which started this thread in the first place and my testing done so far.

Eutectic

[Eutectic]

I chronographed my .38-55 lubricated "J" word loads today. Extreme spread was both better.... and worse. The first shot through a fouled but cold bore was 40fps faster than the average of the next five which had a S.D. of just under 10. Averaging the last five gave 22 fps less than non-lubed "J" bullets chronographed prior. Lubed S.D. was better than non-lubed. Miking all the cases over the pressure ring at case web displayed very slightly less pressure for lubed vs. non-lubed.

Copper fouling is not gone! While very mild for sure, it is not removed by lubed bullets in my tests.

Unless I see definite proof applying lubricant to "J" words doubles barrel life or something... it appears it may be more trouble than it is worth!

Eutectic