"Extreme" boolit lube, The Quest...

[geargnasher]

More concocting and more testing to report.

Buzzing Pegasus and Neon Zombie still shoot great, this time at whopping 87 degrees, Summer's coming fast. I shot the BP lube first, didn't clean the barrel from last time or anything, first shot right on and groups are still a bit tighter than with the "default" load using Felix. The NZ lube, dadgumit, dropped the first shot 2" at 100, then printed a nice, 9-shot ragged hole that was a bit tighter still. I was using 2 oz. beeswax and 1 tsp. BG PAG compressor oil this time. Got a slight lead haze with one streak near the muzzle.

And now, for something completely different! I cleaned with Ed's and patched dry, then tried a run of boolits lubed with a mighty concoction of:

1.5 oz. lithium complex block grease
1 oz. hard, yellow beeswax
1/4 tsp sulfur ester
1/4 tsp lard oil
1/4 tsp neatsfoot oil

First shot was a little low (1/2"), but the next shot landed at the bottom of a group that ended up being 3/4" at 100, better than this gun and load normally do.

The best groups, discounting first-shot flyers, end up being NZ lube on top, then the BP lube (no flyer with either a cold, fouled barrel last shot with same or prepped with grease), and this lithi-block-bee lube was a close third, easily hanging with Felix lube and surpassing Javelina Alox by a mile under similar shooting conditions in this exact same load. I don't think the block grease lube will do well in the cold, but the slippery additives, especially the neatsfoot oil, might surprise me.

I had a little pill of really rubbery condensed lithium wheel bearing grease (conventional petroleum oil) that had been bugging me for a while, so I went ahead and loaded up ten lubed with it and sent them downrange right after the block lube, sixth one flew to the right (prolly me, my shoulder was getting sore), but it held the same group otherwise, and no leading at all with any of the lubes except for the NZ (which was long gone by the time I shot the straight lithium putty grease), so I'm even more convinced that a truly hard lithium grease with synthetic PAO oil is going to be the winner here now that I know the synthetic works and the thick grease with no wax works.

I wish I could make the NZ lube quit throwing that flyer, it's been creepy accurate. It also has the least "tack" of any lube I've ever shot except for the bentonite and soap lubes, and I think that's a major contributing factor to the accuracy. I also think the PAG oil is a bit thin by itself and may be the cause of the first-shot flyers and the slight leading, or maybe it's the beeswax thinning too much. It needs another ingredient for sure, something with a little more substance and flex.

Anywhow, I still think the winner is going to be the Pegasus lube if I can take the "buzz" part out of it entirely and sub more lithium thickener.

Gear

[runfiverun]

reshoot that lithium block grease with the bore seasoned with it, it may come around for you.
you are pretty close to where i am now with the lube carrier off sets.
the E-purple is doing real well now.
and i think the next batch will be with straight m-wax.
it ended up at 6 oz mod grease/2oz m-wax/2oz b-wax/1 oz soy wax.
i can modify the final with a natural oil now [after a week] if i wish but it feels about right finally.
i have been using it in the 44 lately and it cleaned all the carnuba red from the bbl in the first few shots.
no heat yet to try things in, we had snow again though.

[btroj]

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to shoot in both 30 degree and 100 degree weather in the same day?

[geargnasher]

Seems that the lower we go with the wax percentage and the higher with the grease the better we get. We might still need a little bit of wax (micro or bees) in the end to have a little "melting component" to the lube, but I'd like it to be a little as possible. It's nice to have a lube with a 500 degree drop point that's still plenty soft at 0 degrees in my freezer.

My theory behind the block grease lube was to use the beeswax to firm it and reduce tack, and add the sulfur oil as an EP component and also to enhance the lube effect of the lard and neatsfoot oils. The reason for adding the last three ingredients was to add some all-temp "slippery" without thinning the grease too much and to improve the performance of the oils in the grease. This version of the block grease has the complex thickener (high melt point) and the much heavier base oils, one of which has a 70-degree viscosity of something like 1400. It needs a tiny bit of help in the low-viscosity department.

One thing's for sure, it doesn't take much lard or neatsfoot oil to make a LOT of slickum! I might have used too much.

Gear

[geargnasher]

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to shoot in both 30 degree and 100 degree weather in the same day?

The capability would be nice, but it's a pain to dress for! Sounds like you have some weather like we do down here.

Gear

[btroj]

I was thinking more from the ease of testing a lube in both extremes at once. The reality of it is that weather like that would be a bear to deal with.

We get large enough swings already.

[geargnasher]

I was thinking more from the ease of testing a lube in both extremes at once. The reality of it is that weather like that would be a bear to deal with.

We get large enough swings already.

All you have to do is go up 10,000 feet on a 100 degree day, what's the big deal?

Gear

[btroj]

Have you ever seen a topo map of NE? I would be hard pressed to go up 1000 feet!

I think the idea of using a wax as an ingredient rather than as a carrier is quite interesting. I hope some of these ideas come to fruition.

[popper]

Your sulfur ester (via Mobil) is the process used to epoxify the canola oil to make it the same as refrig oil (viscosity wise). It also reduces the oxidation factor of the oils. Neatsfoot oils come in real(natural horse shin oil) or a mixture of lard and mineral oil. There are several substitutes. I don't understand your comment about using the wax to keep the viscosity correct at the muzzle end. Ne mountains are like Ks mountains. Of course there are the 6000' Davis, but that is still like being in Denver.

[waksupi]

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to shoot in both 30 degree and 100 degree weather in the same day?

That is known as "June" here in Montana.

[geargnasher]

Your sulfur ester (via Mobil) is the process used to epoxify the canola oil to make it the same as refrig oil (viscosity wise). It also reduces the oxidation factor of the oils. Neatsfoot oils come in real(natural horse shin oil) or a mixture of lard and mineral oil. There are several substitutes. I don't understand your comment about using the wax to keep the viscosity correct at the muzzle end. Ne mountains are like Ks mountains. Of course there are the 6000' Davis, but that is still like being in Denver.

Boolit moves faster at the muzzle end. Faster moving parts generally need a lower-viscosity lube. Beeswax melts on the contacting surfaces at high speed (I think, judging only by lube spatter tests), which would fulfill this "requirement". The success I've had with only base oil + lithium complex thickener (seven posts back from here) may contradict this theory. A "melting component" may or may not be required when using lithium soap as a carrier.

The neatsfoot I used in the block grease lube was Pfau Peacock No. 1 neatsfoot; the sulfur additive is actually not an ester (my bad), but a sulfurized olefin, NA-LUBE EP-5415, both courtesy of Bruce381.

Gear

[runfiverun]

i could pull off below 20 to @ 80 or so easily if i had a snowmobile.
i live at 5900 feet and can get to about 8500 in about 20 minutes but the 3-4 feet of snow we still have on the road there slows me down a bit.
i can drop down to about 4600 in about 45 minutes for the heat.
i just need the right day to do it.

[popper]

From pfau MSDS This material is considered to be stable at ambient. However, as the temperature elevates, normal fat oxidation will accelerate. Contact with metals causes slow corrosion and discoloration. Strong oxidizing materials and contact with elements 24 through 30. (sic. Cu,Fe,Ni,Zn) However, when overheated, Peacock 15º Neatsfoot Oil will produce acrolein and other carbon oxides which may cause temporary burning of the eyes and respiratory discomfort. I assume theirs, #15, is real.
Yes, the sulfur-oil is sulfurized olefinm (several compounds are used) and is 1 of the variety of 'epoxification' of oils. Reduces oxidation rate and increases viscosity at low temp.
OK, gotcha, B-W does retain good properties when 'melted' by pressure or temp, unlike parraffin. At muzzle end, temp & pressure go down and bbl shrinks back to normal diameter. I haven't made up my mind on what happens at the chamber end, bbl dia. expands due to pressure and gasses blow by or CB is getting sized to expanded size and then 'fits' as press. is reduced and seals. You have a standard CB and load you are using for the testing? What is fps? Using H4895 still?

[geargnasher]

Two loads are being used in the same .30-06 bolt gun and 183-grain boolit: H4350 for 2,020 fps and Reloder 7 for 1,965 fps. This gives two different pressure curves, both below the ultimate compressive strength of the alloy.

The chamber itself expands a bit under pressure, as I'm sure the first few inches of barrel do at pressure peak, but after that the barrel only swells as the boolit goes through, think "snake swallowing an egg". I don't know if the expansion is physically enough to cause loss of obturation or significant tolerance variations with the boolit fit, but barrel expansion might help explain why copper fouling accumulates more toward the chamber end.

I've been messing with metal soap thickeners some more. Having found some information on making a shear-stable grease from a combination of lithium stearate, magnesium stearate, and sodium stearate in certain proportions, I'm attempting to thicken lithium stearate grease with the addition of (first) sodium stearate. I can get magnesium stearate to try as well. Normally, this grease would be made by combining the hydroxide of each metal in order of solubility with a heated fatty acid/base oil solution, the resulting water from the reaction boiled out, and the remaining base oil added to the mix before cooling and heading for the grease mill. Since I'm working with the soaps already made, it's a little more difficult, mainly due to the high melt points of the stearates. All this playing with soaps has started me wondering something about the actual lube properties of the lube. Doing some simple "rub" tests of boolits on steel using different metal soaps and oils, I'm beginning to get a bit puzzled by the interactions I'm seeing. I also made "the perfect lube" with Mobil 1 grease and Cab-O-Sil, but I fear it's going to be more of an abrasive than a lube. So, my next venture here is to build a wear testing machine and study the effects of various lubes on an actual boolit/steel interface, something I think we may all have passed over too quickly here. Keep in mind that most grease formulations are designed for polished steel (of known finish) on polished steel or plated steel, not steel on lead alloy. Engine oil of course works with plain bearings with soft, embeddable surfaces, but most gunbarrels don't have quite the finish of a crankshaft journal, either. I'm suspecting that boolit lube has much different EP requirements than regular bearings do.

Gear

[popper]

Had a squib today while testing, popped the CB out - stuck 1/2" into lands) and inspecting it is interesting(20x loop). Not sure what to make of it yet. I size to .401 but CB measured .4005(slugged @ .400) - not crimped. NO swaging of either drive bands. Of course the base is black and gritty. My PB lube is now deposited at the edges of the lube groove, the front edge lube is darkened some, back edge looks fine. Don't have a closeup camera so no good pics. My conclusion so far, is primer blast goes over the rear band, blows the lube past front and back bands. This is a NO pressure load, I assume no bbl or CB expansion. I think the low vis. oil is blown down the bbl in front of the CB. After 100 rnds in the red @ 50 ', bore is totally clean, another 100 alox, now I've got to clean it - that black crud. Bbl was DRY and cold for first shot, 2" high, 4 more were 1-2" high and a little left - think that is me.

[felix]

When we get close to a keeper formula, a test should be using a known accurate boolit in that gun with various pressure curves to further emulate various metallic expansions and contractions as suggested by Popper. In other words, a complete merry-go-round mixing and matching with boolit (alloy only), powder speed, primer looking for the same accuracy. Barrel vibes might interfere with velocity and ES sameness, so a chrono won't be imperative until a final lube formulation agreed by all shooters that it is OK (for now). ... felix

[runfiverun]

actually started that with the j-lube allready.
changed from 18 grs 2400 powder [and 19 with pistol primer] to 24 grs of aa-2230 yesterday[with minimal group size change] will try the 4895's and if i still have some, 4227.
i need to cast a bunch more boolits for the 8mm though.
the one cavity mold isn't speedy and my 4 cav [140 grs] is a tumble lube type that holds too much regular lube.
the group including the cold bbl shot was still close to an inch at 100 yds, though.
my 30 cal gas checks should be here next week so i am gonna have to employ one of my 308's
to do the E-purple testing with that instead of the 44. [still need to shoot some of those through the revolver] maybe later today i can get that done.

[geargnasher]

Popper, was any of the PB lube still in the barrel past the boolit on your squib, or did it all blow out the muzzle?

I did some spatter testing yesterday, shooting clean paper at 6" and five feet to observe the difference, there was some black spray and some clean, red globs from the grease lube I was using, and I'm fairly confident that the black mist was what went around the boolit in the throat (plus possibly residue in the barrel being pushed out ahead of the boolit as the air purged ahead of the speeding boolit), and the clean globs were evidence of what survived intact at the muzzle. The five foot target had a dozen or so very tiny specks of clean, melted lube, all the black stuff only appeared on the point-blank target. I think at least half the lube survived in the grooves, and this was a very soft lube. The boolit/throat fit is very snug in this rifle.

I think the lube blowout on launch is a large part of why we often see accuracy improvements to an already good load when reducing the number of grooves lubed (total amount of lube load). If half or more of the lube precedes the boolit down the barrel, it lays down a LOT of wet for the boolit to squeegee off each shot.

Gear

[runfiverun]

a lot of the black is most likely powder fouling.
i see quite a bit of it at the muzzle when going with the softer lubes.
the bbl's look better though.
even with unique i have been seeing clean bbl's.
the revolver loads went well today no muss no fuss nothing.
i was able to go get back most of my boolits as they just made a dark spot in the dirt behind the target and clay bird chips were easy game at 25 yds.
i did find one small spot of lube in a groove but they were all empty other than that.
and nothing at the cylinder gap.
did get a whiff or two from the soy wax and a small amount of smoke almost not noticeable.
might have to ramp things up some and see if it still holds.

[popper]

Sorry, I kept on shooting. More inspection. The darker matter is from the primer, same as on the base. Lube is still soft and pliable, looks like a large fillet on the lube groove bottom edge. I did minimal lubing, just a light smear in the groove. I'm guessing > 50% of lube still in the groove. I can actually see the sizer mark on the nose(TC), then the bbl sizing, just visible. A few specs of lube just back of the bbl sizing line. Base hasn't gotten cut completely by the lands. It's a match bbl, tighter at the start of the lands. I'll clean in the morning but it is dirty all the way 4 1/2" from the alox. Same result with 30-30. Alox lube CB carries a lot os black to the target (50 yds) PB doesn't. My conclusion is that primer pressure still jumps the rear band and puts pressure on the lube before the bore seals, assuming it really does. Wasn't an 'experiment' but interesting. Now if I could put 1/8 gr. --- nope not going to try. CCI SP primer. Magnum Sp primer? Nope. R5R powder fowling? HP-38, same load, CB from same cast and size session. Alox and powder - probably.