"Extreme" boolit lube, The Quest...

[geargnasher]

Ok, Mike, but just this once, and I'm not going to inhale!

Gear

[357maximum]

If I was stirring a cauldron full of the stuff you have been using I would not inhale either. Basic Brown Lithium grease is bad enough. The vroom vroom red racing grease is even worse......whewwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeee.

[bruce381]

try mixing only a few things like 20% AL stearte, PAG and maybe some micro wax heat to 200f or so till mixed then set over night

[geargnasher]

Bruce, that's one of the things I did tonight. I mixed 15 grains of alumimum stearate, 85 grains of PAG, heated until the oil just started to smoke and pulled off the heat, mixed well and poured out to set up. So far it's still runny. I'm thinking the way to go with the aluminum stearate is to buy a tube of grease and add to it until firm.

I did try the shredded paper and some Felix lube, believe it or not it actually looks like it might work, but I have no idea if it would be an improvement or not temp-wise. I honestly have zero experience shooting paper jackets in really cold weather, so as far as I know the drawbacks might be the same using the same lube base.

I also gave the Mobil 1 grease another go, this time going one ounce each grease and beeswax, then adding a teaspoon of synthetic ATF and a half-teaspoon of carnauba wax. I lubed and loaded 20 just to see what it will do, although I really don't like it much. When it cools it forms a very solid, brittle mass, but once you start to "work" it it turns to a sticky putty, and when it sets again it firms back up. The idea was to have a low-viscosity base oil, whatever is in the grease + the lithium complex binder, suspend the whole mess in a beeswax matrix, and add a little carnauba for stiffness and to lower the tack. So far the Mobil 1 has been really ornery to work with, much more so than any other lithium grease I've experimented with.

I messed with the "zombie" lube again, and I'm thinking it is showing the best promise so far, but it still needs something to make it a tad more pliable without adding any stickiness. It's sort of crumbly, but sticks together under pressure. I think it would work fine in a lube-sizer, and I like that it doen't cling to the boolit too well. Perhaps Bruce's Microwax would be just the right thing......

Thinking of the clay thickener more, I think I know why it failed. The lead is simply too soft for it. Clay grease is designed for EP, high-temp applications where microfinished, hardened steel alloy parts are crushing together. The clay will lubricate these things and track the oil to them too, but I don't think the lead boolit can stand up to it when smearing down the bore.

On to burn more powder tomorrow....

Gear

PS While I was digging around this evening, I found a stick of Javalina Alox and a can of the same that I melted out of my sizer some time ago. Even though it has proven to me more than once to not be nearly as good accuracy-wise as a properly-made batch of Felix lube, I can sure see how and why it works as well as it does: It has a microwax base (beeswax) and EP calcium soap grease made from a viscous oil.

[runfiverun]

on the grease thing.
the directions i gave does not really mix the grease "into" the wax, so the wax is a carrier, it blends them together.
you have to heat and blend a couple of times for the wax to get the grease into equal proportions throughout it.
i will fill my stars up and let the lube i am going to use next extrude through the bleed hole.
just to give it one more fold over before it gets applied to the boolit.

bruce:
will give that a try.
what do you think of the recipe i posted in post #150?

[runfiverun]

your mobil-1 did the same thing my j-lube did.
add more grease to the mix [the same amount you did at the beginning and work it like bread]

[geargnasher]

Hmmm, I'll give that a go. I've been digging through the NRA cast bullet book and refreshing my memory on the lube tests that came up with the 50/50 formula. Looking through the list of things they tried, there really isn't anything new under the sun except for some synthetics. They even tried PAG and moly together! Bentone grease was mentioned in the text, but I'm not sure they tested it. I thought I remembered the best thing they found was straight, lithium soap grease but abandoned it due to it being impractical to apply, a re-read confirmed that. Another interesting tidbit, the straight lithium soap grease did well at all temperature extremes.

Gear

[felix]

Caution: Aluminium stearate can lower ph of the lube. I have not tried various petro/natural lube mixes to see which ones do NOT create the acid condition referred to. So, assume they DO without doubt. Clean the guns. Once a good mix is found accuracy wise, place that lube on a clean section of steel for 3 months. If no discoloration of the steel, that lube is NOT too acidic for THAT steel. However, BP applications APPRECIATE a low ph lube, but then BP guns are cleaned pronto. Another downside of aluminium stearate: excessive surface tension when remelting boolits still having some lube. But, that can be good when beagling a mold which would stop finning, plus adding INstability to the lead for a wider slush stage to aid BHN increase during water dropping. Pros and cons, always! ... felix

[felix]

Yeah, I manually mix motor mica into lubes on purpose, to keep revolters which are out of time shooting OK all day. I have several guns like that, and most neighborhood guns fit that description too. Motor mica sinks when mixing the lube on the stove, so must manually mix via finger flow for 15 minutes or so when the lube is body temperature. ... felix

[geargnasher]

Thanks for the warning, Felix! As with any unknown mix, anything found to work in shooting must also be tested for long-term effect of lube integrity (bleed, etc.), compatibility with gunpowder, (fumes and residue), reaction to combustion (does it break down into harmful metal salts or such), health risks, association with cartridge brass, barrel steel, and probably a few key points I missed here. One nice thing about natural oils and waxes, you pretty much know what you have!

I wonder if Aluminum Stearate powder would make a good model rocket fuel?

Gear

[Marlin Junky]

Where's the grade 5 block grease?

MJ

P.S. Seems to me since temperature doesn't have that much of an effect on the way gunpowder burns (at least under normal hunting conditions) perhaps we should be concerned more about pressure levels. If a lube (stiff grease) goes fluid with pressure, that is not a bad thing assuming it happens after the boolit starts engraving. Besides, it's a lot easier to control chamber pressure than it is to control the weather.

Mike... what BW mirco wax did you settle on? Did you do much experimenting with BW-431?

[Marlin Junky]

...Now you know and understand the mechanics behind the "why" when I added soft microcrystalline wax to the standard lithi-bee recipe to make MML. Unfortunately when the "cold start flyer" was erased using the microwax it also caused the lube to become instant goose poop when pressurized and warmed in certain lubesizers and under certain temperature situations (HOT). This trait did fill my goal of a good HUNTING LUBE for cool weather and it does fill the bill for 99% of my shooting here in MICHIGAN....If I lived somewhere south of here where it is warmer another approach/recipe would have been neded.

Mike,

Has the MML actually been tested in 100F weather? I think I'm going to start gathering the ingredients to concoct a batch this summer.

MJ

P.S....

Is this the recipe:

1 14 oz tube of MAG1 multipurpose lithium grease (no substitutions here)
2 lbs Microcrystalline wax BW-430
1 lb Paraffin wax
1 block Yaley solid candle dye

?

...Thank you.

[geargnasher]

The formula I used, MML (Mike's Micro-Lithi) is simply amber lithium wheel bearing grease and (I forget which) micro-crystalline wax. Beeswax can be blended in as a percentage, and I've played with just straight micro-wax/grease and also with adding different concentrations of beeswax to the mix. It is an abolutely outstanding cold-weather lube, but once the temps get much above 40-50F, the beeswax is essential. Even with 50/50 bees/microwax mixed and then added to an equal amount of the grease, the stuff is too slick at 80F and up. Shooting long strings in hot weather will thin it to the point that purge flyers start to be a problem. I found, in my guns and loads, that lubing only one or two grooves in an attempt to eliminate the over-lubing and purge flyer thing, that I started getting leading at higher velocities. The stuff just isn't suited to hot weather in my opinion, although I think eliminating the micro-wax would help greatly. Problem is, if you do that, it trades off the cold-weather performance.

Gear

[runfiverun]

i think i have some insight as to how lubes works.
the lube has a wet stage that is works it's best at just like an alloy.
it also has a solid and a mush stage.
mu three part lubes have been working because there is a wet stage for the whole bbl.
the hydraulic fluid is wet at the throat chamber end, the lith takes over shortly there after and the wax is doing the work at the end once it gets enough friction heat built up to flow near the muzzle.
this is desirable also so that it is soft enough to jettison at the muzzle.
it works the same as felix lube where the castor oil starts out the wet.
we know that viscosity is the key here to a lube working.
but it is essential because of the wet stage.
look at mml winter use right?
it's because it is that close to a wet stage right now.
and why others are good in heat or hot bbls it's thier wet stage being reached.
i don't think the ingredients are as important as when they have thier wet/flowing temperature.
we know pressure also influences temperature and that harder lubes "flow" better under these conditions i think it is because they have enough pressure/heat to go into thier liquid stage and maintain it.
in the cold the lubes are doing thier part it is the last part of the bbl that the lube is failing [to go into the wet] for us
throwing off the timing of ejection in the bbl node causing the flyer.
paper and copper don't always have these issues because of the constant friction down the bbl and the pressure from the powder is all the way to the muzzle.
i think that raising the wet in step one and two might cover the third part that little bit longer giving it time to flow further down the bbl.
part of our proplem arises from the pressure behind the boolit is only helping to wet the lube for some of it's trip down the bbl then is falling off.
this is often why we see leading at the muzzle, and the cure is to make the lube softer.
it's not to add more lube to "get down there" it's to decrease the temp at which the lube will stay wet longer.

this would clearly explain why gears lubes were leaving behind the gunk and causing leading.
they never had a wet stage, only a mush stage at best.

we aren't looking for a wonder lube so much as temp stability and enough wet to carry the bbl.
i know that viscosity seems to be the most important ingredient in lube, but this is not as important as when the lube[s] components go into [or are] the wet stage.

[felix]

R5R, your post is correct. Only some unknown polymer will cover our wet needs all the way through start to finish. The cellulose component of that synthetic, as mentioned in a previous post, will keep any excess wet purged on a per shot basis. These are the requirements for the guru having access to the world's polymer databases in preparing a lube suitable for all calibers, all ambients, etc. ... felix

[geargnasher]

So, R5R, I guess you confirm my thoughts that a lube has to melt as it goes? I like you explanation, it makes a lot of sense. Lube must be dynamic to perform the multiple job descriptions from ignition to the time it says "Geronimo". Now, why didn't you stop me from using the bentone?

Now that I've proved what I think is beyond any doubt that the non-melting lubes don't work, what's next? Beeswax seems to do a fine job of "wetting" the last half to third if the barrel, so we need either a multi-viscosity base oil, or a base oil and a thicker oil, or even grease. Starting to sound like 4-1-1 lube to me. I think FWFL works so well partly because the castor oil has a pretty low viscosity index, and thins quickly with temperture. Plasticizing it tends to improve the VI, at least in the "feel" test at different feel-able tempertures, and then there's the mineral oil to provide that initial "wet". Lanolin probably helps the whole process along as a built-in "fudge factor" to cover any viscosity "holes" that may arise in the system. A good trick might be to experiment with substitutes for the mineral oil that keep a lower viscosity in cold weather and see if that doesn't improve winter performance some. A midrange lube might help the Zombie lube not lead through the middle and to the end.

I got back from the range a while ago, sending ten of the Mobil grease/beeswax/carnauba/ATF mix boolits into almost the same hole, even better than the Zombie lube because the group was a tad tighter and there was NO first-shot flyer. I cleaned and prepped the bore with straight grease and patched it out before shooting, so at least that part worked. Dadgum thing washed some patches of lead down toward the muzzle, though, I can see it for about the last eight inches of barrel, not a heavy buildup, but definitely too much. The FWFL doesn't do this with this same batch of boolits and powder charge, worst leading I ever got with it in this gun is a fine line in the trailing edge crease that was the same after one shot as after two hundred.

Still some work to do here, and maintain the muzzle jettison thing and do what it takes to "keep any excess wet purged on a per shot basis", which is as critical to accuracy as any of this.

Gear

[Marlin Junky]

So, R5R, I guess you confirm my thoughts that a lube has to melt as it goes? I like you explanation, it makes a lot of sense. Lube must be dynamic to perform the multiple job descriptions from ignition to the time it says "Geronimo". Now, why didn't you stop me from using the bentone?

Now that I've proved what I think is beyond any doubt that the non-melting lubes don't work, what's next? Beeswax seems to do a fine job of "wetting" the last half to third if the barrel, so we need either a multi-viscosity base oil, or a base oil and a thicker oil, or even grease. Starting to sound like 4-1-1 lube to me. I think FWFL works so well partly because the castor oil has a pretty low viscosity index, and thins quickly with temperture. Plasticizing it tends to improve the VI, at least in the "feel" test at different feel-able tempertures, and then there's the mineral oil to provide that initial "wet". Lanolin probably helps the whole process along as a built-in "fudge factor" to cover any viscosity "holes" that may arise in the system. A good trick might be to experiment with substitutes for the mineral oil that keep a lower viscosity in cold weather

Vaseline?

...Still some work to do here, and maintain the muzzle jettison thing and do what it takes to "keep any excess wet purged on a per shot basis", which is as critical to accuracy as any of this.

Gear

Perhaps the configuration of the lube grooves and the amount of lube held should vary with season? It might be beneficial to design a hot weather vs. cold weather boolit to compliment a couple different lube viscosities.

MJ

[felix]

I think ya'll got it figured out well. Vaseline is very good, like you say, MJ. Think custom polymers, though, for the ultimate. If anyone should meet a bone-fide lube designer for real, tell him the specs needed, or shoot him to this board/thread. ... felix

[Survival Bill]

Ok I am still new to this have done allot of reading but what about Liquid floor wax for boolit lube?

[geargnasher]

Ok I am still new to this have done allot of reading but what about Liquid floor wax for boolit lube?

Rooster Laboratories "Jacket" tumble lube.

Gear