hard lube in cold wheather...

[canuck4570]

I am going hunting moose in late october and my 4570 bullets are lube with hard lube..... they shoot great in the 60 to 80 degree but I would like to know what should I expect in the 0 to 45 degrees..... thank you....

[Bass Ackward]

Charger,

I spent 3 years in really cold weather testing of lube. That's what teaches you what lube is all about. Soft cast at normal velocity levels get a flier. I have had up to 18" of flier at 100 yards. High velocity stuff can end up in the next county. By that I mean it isn't safe 20 yards from the target. I have hot weather lubes that are sub MOA that open to 6" at 50 degrees. Problem? RPMs? No. Lube in the bore. No sir, hard lube is like trying to swim with an anvil on your back. It can be done, but you have to ask yourself why am I torturing myself this way.

The bottom line is that lube thickens and or freezes in your bore, you are screwed. Same as if it sits around for a week and hardens, but amplify the effect about 100 times. You have to get hardened lube out no matter how it got that way because it will deform a bullet. And the faster the bullet goes, the more effect it has. At least muzzleloaders had pure lead to deal with fouling where pressure would obturate and reobturate and obturate again if necessary.

Lots of people believe lube is a sealer. Lets call it a velocity ceiling limiter. That is because they only think about lube that is on a bullet. But black bore condition means that lube is the entire length of a bore in an uneven fashion. More is generally used up in the breech area. As pressure drops behind a bullet and the bullet is no longer "forced" to seal, it sizes down, thus more lube is deposited out towards the muzzle where the next bullet is accelerating at higher velocity to try and deal with it.

When a bullet goes wild people say I have found the ceiling for this hardness. WRONG! You found the velocity ceiling for THAT hardness, with THAT lube, at THAT temperature.

To me, cold weather has proven that lube is a terrible fouling that the bullet must deal with. For an olgival bullet design that channels it down to the bore contact, (reverse cow catcher) the bullet must size down to pass over it. Lose enough bullet diameter and you strip. Strip .... and you get gas cutting and wild fliers.

The problem with lube is not what is on the bullet, or how hard it is, or whether it seals or not, it's how much and what it does that is left behind in the barrel. So the problem is really the first shot.

I couldn't beat it by changing lube or quantiy of lube. Lube was just too tough of an obstacle. I suppose that it is because of bees wax. But lanolin is another BIG enemy in the cold. I changed bullet design from olgivals that are forced to deal with it and size down to a bullet having a sharp edge or shoulder on the front sort of like a semi wadcutter pistol bullet or a bore rider for rifles and the problem is manageable.

The same hardness bullet in a semi wadcutter design scrapes that crap out ahead of it. And that is why semi wadcutter pistol bullets tend to lead before olgivals that utilize lube from prior bullets as lubricant. Pistol or plinking rifle velocities, OK. Fast stuff, .... lube is the limiter of the velocity design NOT the permitter of it. I suspect that's why a lot of old time designs had clean out grooves ahead of the first drive band. And why guys used water pump grease for lube (no bees wax) That is unnecessary in my book, just change lube AND lube quantity. So I use olgival designs in the summer and semiwadcutters in cooler weather.

My best advice I can ever offer anyone wanting to shoot cast. For year round "Safety", develop your loads in the hottest weather possible at the highest barrel temps you plan to encounter. For "Accurate" loads, choose your bullet design for temperature and develop loads in the weather in which you plan to shoot them. So many people reject bullet designs / loads and or believe that you need a hard bullet for anything over 2000 fps because they don't understand this concept as it pertains to lube.

Lube is like liquor, you always want to have enough of it around, but if you use too much at one sitting, crazy things can happen. :grin:

[Lloyd Smale]

I havent noticed the drastic accuracy losses bass akwards has but then i mostly shoot handguns and low velocity rife cast bullets. But i say one thing here your hard lube will proably lube as well at cold temps as it will in hot. That is it hardly lubes at all!!! Just check recovered bullets out of a dirt bank and youll see most of its still on the bullet in any temp.

[44man]

Thats the reason I hate bore butter in the muzzle loader. It dries out in the open air and gets rock hard in the cold.