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So my sister gave me a jar of shea butter. Having no idea what I'm supposed to do with it I thought it looks like a good boolit lube(naturally) so I mixed it up with Lee alox, heated the mixture til liquid and tumbled some lead. I let it dry overnight and this seems very interesting. I'm gonna load some and see what comes out of this concoction.
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What's a shea and how does it compare to a sheep or mare for milking?
Or is it something like peanut butter?
;-)
Let us know how it works out. Since getting involved in lube making (and of course frequenting web sites that sell soap and candle making ingredients as well as lube making ingredients) I have often toyed with the idea of trying some of these various butters and such in a boolit lube.
Sheas are closely related to naugas and often the herds of the two mingled. Unfortunately the nauga's skins were very valuable for furniture-making and they were killed off in the Sixties.Quote:
Originally Posted by dbosman
Small herds of sheas have been domesticated. Their butter is highly valued in soap and cosmetic production.
dale in Louisiana
Shea butter is made from a tree (pods) in africa. I put some on my fingers when installing brass in loadmaster sometimes.
Lol, you guys kill me.....:groner:Quote:
Originally Posted by Dale in Louisiana
I tested a chunk of commercial grade shea butter a few years ago. It has good qualities towards friction and high heat, but only as good as other vegetable base oils. I gave up trying it as a base ingredient for a hi-velocity bullet lube, but think it would be great for black powder lube in such formula in a modified Emmert's. Never thought about a tumble lube modifier. Good luck....
Well I finally got to the range with my "shealox" coated boolits. Fired 150 rounds thru my 1911 .45acp. with 200gr tumble lube SW's. Results were better than I expected really. I found that using 3.7gr of WST powder i got a little leading but when i switched to 5gr of 231 powder after a good cleaning there wasn't any leading at all. The 231 powder was also more accurate so that may be my go-to load. Smoke wasn't bad either. I'm gonna continue testing using Red Dot and maybe 700X and see what happens.
How do you know if it works or not?
Well I abandoned my "Shealox" lube when I learned about powder coating, so now the project is shelved for the forseeable future. I did have good success with this lube so if anyone is interested in picking up the ball I would recommend adding something that may be slightly less, um...greasy. The shea butter makes the boolits permanently slippery as in it doesn't seem to dry. Maybe I was putting too much on?
Meh, it's a project for another day...
Save the butter for your skin and just add some petro oil, grease, wax to your Alox. Shea butter is costly and makes great skin cream.
Vegetable, nut oils work fairly well, but don't seem to do as well as petro oils and greases.
The fat is extracted from the nut of the African Shea tree. It is a Triglyceride (fat) mainly composed of steric and oleic acid, off white color and is edible. Chocolate makers sometimes use it in place of the more expensive coco butter.Quote:
Originally Posted by gunoil
Used as a moisturizer in cosmetics.
The stuff should be environmentally safe and non poisonous to humans if that sort of stuff matters to you.
Gary
I've often wondered about mixing in some copper powder to help thicken this concoction. Or maybe some Mica Wad slick powder....Hmmm