Different application of lube

[Armorer]

So I had some .45ACP TL boolits that I wanted to get loaded up and busted out a bottle of 45-45-10. 15 minutes sitting in really hot sink water had it ready to use. As I was looking over the rest of my .45s I remembered a thread where someone said that they dipped their non TL boolits and stood em up to dry. Well I didn't have anything handy to dip em in so I used a long wooden cotton applicator (read long Q-tip) and put just a drop in the lube groove. It proceeded to slide around the circumference of said boolit cooling from the temp of the lead along the way. Now what I have is an unsized boolit with a lube groove full of 45-45-10. Actually I have 25 of them. I thought it worked pretty dang slick so I did a few to test fire. Question is; can anyone think of a reason that this wouldn't work? Assuming that after I size them that there is still plenty of lube in the groove? I could always add another drop if needed. Sure is quicker than the way I normally do it. If I'm using a hard lube, I like to finger lube. The repetition is strangely therapeutic in my estimation.

Armorer

[geargnasher]

Tumble lube does zero good in the grooves. It has to be on the bearing surface and maybe a little on the sides of the grooves as they get engraved. Just tumble the whole boolit and pour 'em out to dry any old way, it really doesn't matter if they dry while laying on their sides. I spread out a small trash bag or grocery bag and pour the lubed boolits out on that, spread them so they're one layer deep and not touching each other, and forget about it.

Gear

[Armorer]

That is normally what I do. I have an el cheapo cookie sheet that I use. I just thought that since the groove was full that it would act like any other lube. Especially because of the JPW in the mix. Maybe I just can't resist trying to reinvent the wheel. I don't know.

[kelbro]

Who knows? It just might work. Let us know how it does for you.

[Recluse]

Tumble lube does zero good in the grooves. It has to be on the bearing surface and maybe a little on the sides of the grooves as they get engraved.

Gear

Gotta disagree here and so does Lee, otherwise--as they've told me--they'd simply make straight-walled boolits and forget the microband designs.

The addition of JPW to the alox helps fill the microbands and because the JPW has a lower melting point than does alox, will become viscous in a hurry going down the barrel.

There was a long discussion over on the CBA board about a theory myself and another lube guy have been bantering about for quite some time about hydraulic lock preventing gas-cutting, which in turn hugely reduces leading. The idea being that if you can prevent gas-cutting, you both increase accuracy (and consistency of accuracy) as well as eliminate leading. Obviously several factors need to occur, including proper boolit fit to bore, proper allow hardness for load and velocity, etc.

But also, viscosity so that the hydro-lock can occur quickly.

I've fired many, many rounds into recovery material to study how they expanded, folded, etc, and also to see what lube stayed in the grooves, what lube(s) didn't, how much lube stayed in the grooves, etc.

If you use straight LLA (or even thinned with MS), I still found alox in the (traditional) grooves. When I used a blend, I found less lube in the (traditional) grooves and virtually none at all in the microband grooves--so that lube was going somewhere.

I think the strength in LLA/alox is that it DOES stick to bearing surfaces better and as has been repeatedly demonstrated, has an extremely high resistance to both heat and friction-induced heat. I guess I could (also) hypothesize that because it is basically a "soap," it somewhat scrubs the barrel during each boolit run.

Likewise, I think the strength with blending the JPW in (and adding MS as needed to control viscosity) is its lower melting point which creates a hydro-lock and eliminated gas-cutting (with a correct boolit size and load configuration).

I noticed immediately after lubing with the 45/45/10 blend that I was getting VERY clean bores and that one or two dry patches was about all the bore ever needed. And when recovering the fired boolits in those same guns lubed with the 45/45/10 blend, I noticed that there was little no zero lube left in the grooves.

[Armorer]

Who knows? It just might work. Let us know how it does for you.

I sure will. Probably not til next weekend though. After the honey-do's I'm going to try and get some casting in today.