Title says it all. I've had excellent results with LLA up to 1700+ fps. I can go faster without leading but not as accurate.
Im aware LLA is not a high velocity lube but didn't know where most people started having problems.
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Title says it all. I've had excellent results with LLA up to 1700+ fps. I can go faster without leading but not as accurate.
Im aware LLA is not a high velocity lube but didn't know where most people started having problems.
30-30 180 gr Lee LLA 32 gr of AC 4064, 33 gr of IMR 4007 ssc, or 34 gr of IMR 4350. Some where down the line from estimates to asking for quick loads on this site info help they are suppose to be just over 2100 fps. Though, I have never actually did the chrono test. For an inch or under for 3 shots and sometimes 5 if the weather is cold and the barrel.
NEVER. Hate the junk. Accuracy tests only and I never pay attention to leading but it us worse with Alox.
My Rossi M92 in .357 mag lost accuracy with just about any boolit I tried at 1700 fps or so with lla or 45/45/10. I've since switched to PC and now can easily hit 1900 fps with good accuracy with the Lee 358-158 rf.
the Lee CTL312-160-2R shoots great at 17-1800 fps. Gas check and 45-45-10, 300 BLK, 7.62X54R, etc.
For pistol, the Lee TL-358-158 SWC shoots fine at 1200 from a 4" .357 mag. Quick enough for me.
Lee 9mm TL boolits (TL356-124 TC) was a problem child in my SIG.
Right around 2000 fps, with a fairly heavy coat. Which is about as fast as I can push any gas checked bullet. It was in a fairly short barreled gun. I find with the really long ones, like surplus Mausers and such, if I go over 1700 or so it runs out and I get leading; ergo I use more lube-sized bullets there if I need to push velocity.
I go about 1700 fps in my 7X57. After that I start to see the groups open up. I can't attribute it to the lube necessarily.
I have most of my load recipes worked out now so I rarely shoot paper, just steel plates. But I remember going from 2" groups to 4" groups and backing off.
2300 fps from an 1895 Winchester 30-40. SD was 39, IIRC, 2 3/4 inches, 5 shot group at 110 yards with metallic peep sight. Load was a 311-291 heat-treated over WW-748. I have misplaced the load information so I can not give details as to the weight of the powder charge. That load was as accurate as anything else I have tried in this rifle.
Use a heavy coat, or better, two medium coats. Too often, folks buy into the "little dab'll do ya" fallacy when coating rifle boolits. That may work in a revolver at special velocities, but will fail in a rifle sometime above 1700 FPS. You need plenty of lube if you are going speeding.
In my .30-30 I got good accuracy at 1800 but patterns at 1900 and above.
http://reloadingtips.com/pages/exp_111201a_lla_test.htm
HmmmQuote:
Originally Posted by rintinglen
At 1700 and below I've always gotten better accuracy with very thin coats of LLA. Hence the boolits I'm trying to push faster now has barely enough to see it.
I have some drying their second thin coat as we speak. I'll give them another tomorrow night see if this helps.
Using a checkless Lee 170 made from COWW in my contender 30 Herretts, I found that accuracy goes south at just over 1630 fps (10") and 1800 fps (14") with powder coat.
Since then, I have tried checkless BLL only with a couple of different alloys. Accuracy still goes south before I get to full power J word velocities.
I could not chrono the more recent stuff.
However, I am guessing that with the right alloy, BLL only and checkless I can come pretty close to my PC results. If not, I will bet that either BLL over traditional and/or checks would get me up to the same level. Although accuracy was ok, I was getting just a little leading up near the top.
These two barrels seem to let me get to say 85% - 90% of J-word max performance without much problem. Although I will continue using BLL only on mid range and light loads, I can not ignore that fact that PC pretty much assures me of a zero leading result.
For my 10" T/C barrel in 357 maximum, BLL only and either medium weight Plain Base or 200 gr checkless again gives ok accuracy. Again, initial indications are that leading may be a concern. However, I am not through testing - I may yet find an alloy and or some other detail that lets me get to full velocities (200 gr J word does 1500 fps) with zero leading. Previous efforts with straight LLA were similar. BLL dries faster and less sticky, but I am not sure that it is that much better for the actual lubrication.
My stainless 8" Dan Wesson 357 maximum is much more picky. PC is the only way that I have been able to push boolits loads past 38 sp +p without rapid lead build up. With BLL only on a checkless Lee 200 gr, my first 5 shot full power group did not look bad. I started on a second group without cleaning and the group doubled. Substantial effort was needed to remove the lead buildup from 10 shots. Again, previous testing with straight LLA were similar.
In general, I think LLA/BLL only can work for lots of medium range stuff for most guns. For some guns, it is "almost as good" as the best of the traditional lubes. For some guns, the "almost as good" lubrication is good enough for full power. For other guns, there may be no easy was to get full power or near full power with any traditional lube or tumble lube.
For me, BLL is worth using for light and mid range due to the reduced effort. I may still dabble around and try to get my less finicky gun/boolit combinations up to full power. However, ASBB HF red PC is not unreasonable and is giving solid performance. Initially I was worried that I was loosing some of my water quench hardness with PC, but as described in post 11, 13 & 18 in the thread below, I am less worried about this now.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...g-pc-questions
With double and triple coats of LLA i've pushed to 2400 plus in the 35 whelen, but would get wild flyers at odd times at any velocity.Lube purge? No leading with triple coats though.
I use BLL now with 3 coats and shot up to 2500 plus with the same rifle and no leading and NO wild flyers.
Best accuracy however is at 2200 to 2250 fps. as always with the loads i use.
Bll is easy to make(60%alox/40% Johnson's Liquid Wax...shake well and done) and dries much better than any alox based lube i've used.
1 coat for light loads...2 coats for midrange...and 3 coats for heavy loads works for me with BLL from handguns to rifle.
Bll also works great as an overcoat on top of traditional lube.
Very versatile stuff.
I suppose everyone blazes their own path on this venture?
When I started casting it was directed at BP bullet guns, or slug guns as some call them. Paper patched and greasers, the velocities and pressures on the low side. It was inevitable that I would move into casting for CF cartridges in time and here I am this AM babbling about it.
My pursuit philosophy is somewhat of a token from the Jurassic era. I do not fiddle with inline ML rifles. I am inclined to view anything newer than 30-40 years age as suspect, be it technology or a product. In my somewhat cynical view the 7x57 Mauser is a new cartridge, and the WSM/WSSM/RUM theory a passing fad.
Back in the last century I began a curious quest that had me paper patching all manner of bullets for a .44 Mag, to include round balls. It required sizing and that led me to Lee's push thru dies and my first bottle of LLA. It sat in the back of the load bench for many years gathering dust. By the by, paper patched round balls, be it one or two at a time, worked quite well, but somewhere south of 2400 fps they begin to wander off target, to where I do not know. Suffice to say they crossed the Chrony and inflicted no harm, but the rest is a mystery.
Then the other dies and moulds began to accumulate and sometimes the arms associated with them. One of my first that provided much education was a Model 94 Marlin now chambered in .25-20 Winchester. I knew nothing, but learned in my own way. I hated LLA at first. Messy, gooey and otherwise something I wished to avoid. Somewhere along the way I read of dusting the bullets so treated with motor mica and I gave it a whirl. It was a vast improvement. Then I heard a rumor about thinning LLA with mineral spirits, and in conjunction with that began to grow fond of the stuff. The ultimate test was a comparison one day of conventional lube/SPG lube and LLA with the mica dusting. LLA won hands down in that application. I was chastised by one of the lube makers after posting a few photos of the resulting targets, but it was of no hindrance. I had, in my mind, discovered an alternative to buying a conventional sizer with all the accouterments and was well on my way to having an enormous stash of LLA due to the variety of push thru sizers that I purchased.
Not surprisingly I found that LLA is not suitable for BP shooting and that's just the way it is. Thus did I learn about pan lubing and SPG lube. Also learned that diluted LLA goes a long, long way. Maybe I have a life time supply?
Then I found this web site and have read a lot more than I post. I have been somewhat bemused to see the troubles shared by many re: leading and accuracy problems. Also puzzled that many seem handicapped by LLA or other conventional lube methods. The discussions about alloy hardness, quenching and heat treating sometimes make me scratch my noggin. I forgot to mention that I started adding graphite to the mica about 3 years back, about a 4:1 ratio of mica/graphite.
I haven't leaded a barrel yet. I suspect, but don't know for certain that I'm using alloys that are softer than most for both plain base and gas checked bullets. I'm a bit anal about culling flawed bullets and maybe that's part of the reason that I have yet to encounter a problem with accuracy degraded by velocity/pressure that I can attribute to solely to those factors. My loads with LLA and my own version of powder coating are well behaved and that includes estimated velocities in excess of 2000 fps with the Hornet (Lyman 225438) and close to that with the .30-30 (Lyman 311041). The Hornet loads were dedicated solely to fire forming, the alloy 50/50 WW/Lino. All the rest are softer than Lyman #2, running in the BHN range of 7-11.
That's been my experience with LLA, your mileage may vary.
All Ranch Dog uses is Alox and hit loads aren't light at all. I don't know if this is or isn't about gas checks but I find alox when it's done right to work just fine as long as the alloy holds up. Once you start pushing bullets at a velocity above where a check is needed I'm not sure it's the fault of the lube when the bullet fails due to velocity.