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Thread: "Extreme" boolit lube, The Quest...

  1. #21
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    p.h. is easy, i believe we discussed that on another thread.
    any ways some of the recent powders that have been going through changes and becoming cleaner burning through the addition of nitroglycerin etc is just now getting the cheaper saw dust base.
    at one time right as smokeless was coming out, there was an invention called brown powder which was made from oatgrass charcoal [airc] which was finely ground before being made into charcoal.
    this new powder was much better than black, it burned cleaner and smoked less.
    but not quite as good as smokeless.
    rush ahead 100 years and we now [recently] have about 6 different "better" black powder formulas.
    when a better one has been there the whole time.
    i am sure what we want is available it's just finding it,or the closest thing for our purposes.

  2. #22
    Boolit Master Marlin Junky's Avatar
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    Has anyone tried substituting microcrystalline wax for beeswax; i.e., completely remove the beeswax?

    You're probably still going to require lubes of varying viscosities depending on velocity and ambient temperature, but why not start with a base (or carrier) that comes from the vendor in different viscosities vs. adding stuff to beeswax to accomplish the same goal?

    http://www.blendedwaxes.com/index.ph...stalline-waxes

    The melt point of even the softest micro wax is at least 20F higher than beeswax and by design, these waxes bind to oils more vigorously than natural waxes.

    MJ
    Last edited by Marlin Junky; 03-28-2012 at 01:34 PM.

  3. #23
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    Yes, MJ, that's been done quite a bit. 357Max has taken Microwax base to full maturity, I believe.

    R5R, those results are certainly encouraging, maybe heavy, synthetic grease is going to work after all. I see you didn't need to add any carnauba to reduce the tack? Just the PEG?

    Gear

  4. #24
    Boolit Master Marlin Junky's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by geargnasher View Post
    Yes, MJ, that's been done quite a bit. 357Max has taken Microwax base to full maturity, I believe.

    Gear
    I think Mike has only experimented with mirco/beeswax blends... what say you Mike?

    MJ

  5. #25
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    Response to your editied post #22, that is precisely what I'm trying to avoid. I have excellent recipes that do exactly what I want them to at different temp ranges, even with considerable overlap, but some of us are trying to improve on that. Conventional thinking won't get you there, and like I explained before, the melt point of microwax plummets the instant you start adding oils to it.

    Gear

  6. #26
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    My understanding was that 357 Max used strictly microwax in the end product. I think he made a different for USA for guys that use the Star and it contained some beeswax to make it have "slush" phase rather than go from solid to liquid in a hurry.

    Like gEar said, the micro waxes have been used for many recipes, I don't think they are the answer.

    I think this is going to take an entirely new thought process.

    If I understand what Run is tryig is to use a heavy grease and modify the hardness rather than adding an oil or grease to a carrier. I don't know enough about greases to amount to anything, I will, however, eagerly await the results. I will also be more than happy to test any recipes that are dreamt up.

  7. #27
    Boolit Master Marlin Junky's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by geargnasher View Post
    ...and like I explained before, the melt point of microwax plummets the instant you start adding oils to it.

    Gear
    Gear,

    Have you tried combining red lithium grease and mirco wax? I didn't suggest adding oil to micro wax (I should've been more specific than simply saying "stuff"). Red lithium (high pressure/temperature grease) will combine with Vaseline (melt temp approx. 165F) to form a gel that is soluble in beeswax which shoots very well. I haven't actually got around to purchasing micro wax but have received two different samples from BW and couldn't tell much difference between them in terms of hardness.

    MJ

  8. #28
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    it is a synthetic grease with propylene glycol solids in it. and of course calcium stearates.
    it has a lot of tackyness.
    it is malleable after being in the microwave for 3 minutes and after being in the freezer for 24 hrs.
    the tackyness might have to be backed down some with carnuba.
    the lube starts flowing instantly when under pressure.
    i could feel it on the front part of the necks of the case [another reason it might need the carnuba]
    i found none anywhere on the target even looking at the holes on the target under a magnifying glass.
    i could not find any of the boolits or any part of them and i looked and dug in newly poured berm.
    but this could also be due to the velocity 1900 or more from the regular load.
    and the dacron filler had to bump me over 2000 by quite a bit.

    this is a commercially made grease stick and there are other variations but i am not sure of it's cost.
    if it pans out i want to search out easily found ingredients so it can be duplicated from the walmart or autozone.
    this is one of the two directions i am looking at, the other is gonna take longer to check out, as it needs to keep on evolving.

  9. #29
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    Do to my location I do not hunt in extreme temp. variations. With that said, my FWFL has performed flawlessly but if there was something better I would surely want it. I just wish I had enough smarts to be able to contribute to this thread. I will follow it and think it is going to be one of the most imformative that I have seen. If anyone can accomplish this goal it will be the folks on this forum.

    Larry

  10. #30
    Boolit Master Marlin Junky's Avatar
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    This grease sounds interesting (kinda pricey though):

    http://www.amsoil.com/storefront/gxc.aspx?zo=530293

    MJ

  11. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by largom View Post
    Do to my location I do not hunt in extreme temp. variations. With that said, my FWFL has performed flawlessly but if there was something better I would surely want it. I just wish I had enough smarts to be able to contribute to this thread. I will follow it and think it is going to be one of the most imformative that I have seen. If anyone can accomplish this goal it will be the folks on this forum.

    Larry
    It's tough to beat what you use. If we can find something that equals Felix lube at normal temps and works equally well at either extreme then we'll really have something.

    I'm off to the gun room in a minute to hand-lube and check some more Lee 312-185s so I can see how this soap/atf concoction I've been working on shoots.

    Gear

  12. #32
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    MJ, I looked at that recently too. I think you might be on to something.

    Gear

  13. #33
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    thats similar to what i am using, but no aluminum.
    M.J. that kind of stuff is what we need.

    Larry and others:
    contributing can be as little as encouragement or researching greases or sights with greases that might help.
    the ability to cross reference what i have plus the information gear has, versus what else is available might be what WE need to put the final piece together.

    amsoil,chevron,royal purple,lucas oil, chemec. and dozens of other companies have engineers that make thier living dealing with valve greases,equipment needs,cold temps,pressure seals made with grease,etc every day.
    we can track down thier comments or specifications put four or five middle of the road things in a group and make some good estimates on what they are doing.
    we will have to test and stuff and it might take more time but we have numbers [a lot even have available time] and more brain power here especially if focused on one thing.

    you all should see the garage here, i have little groups of lube and some control groups and two different note pads scattered about the place.
    a lot of them have 3-4 lubed and sized boolits sitting in front of them..

    i have had to clean my microwave out twice in the last week [POP! ahhhh ****]
    polymer,carnuba,and parrafin is slippery, nu finish makes jpw melt real fast, it also makes it boil and spit out of a cup even with the lid set to just let the solvents vent.
    adding mica to trewax makes a sandy looking slippery that shrinks as it dries, hopefully it will stabilize when finished and can be remelted without it doing it again.

  14. #34
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    The krytox family of lubricants:
    http://www2.dupont.com/Lubricants/en...s_Greases.html
    May prove helpful. The temperature range is quite broad.

    Since it uses PTFE as a thickener, you may be able to add a little more PTFE powder to the grease to get it to a usable consistency, eliminating the need for a temperature sensitive carrier like beeswax.

    Powdered PTFE is easy to find, I've seen it on ebay.

    The cost, I'm sure, is going to be higher than most common lubes. The toxicity of PTFE when exposed to temperatures over 500 degrees F should be considered but should be minimal when used outdoors.

  15. #35
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    I am reading this during lunch, but I am going to stop for now and come back when I can give it more time and attention.

    This is going to be one of those threads a guy will have to study!

  16. #36
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    The thing about using grease is that it's already set up to do a certain job or range of jobs: It's a base oil, thickener, and possibly EP additives too. When we modify grease to make boolit lube, we're monkeying with a pre-engineered formula. Wouldn't it be nice to just order up what we need?

    Turns out there's a name for lube cooks, Tribo-Engineer. One who studies and practices tribology, the art of making grease. If you want to know how to engineer a grease for a certain purpose from scratch, check this out. But only if you really wanna know! http://www.klubersolutions.com/?gcli...FS-htgodtGIrmA Scroll down to the article header "Tribology, the key to proper lubricant selection". It's a PDF.

    So I learned a couple of things about grease that might be helpful. First, the NLGI rating for hardness. "zero" weight is almost an oil, 1-3 are typical chassis and axle grease weights, 4 is a firm grease, 5-6 are very firm greases, almost solid, and 7-8 are called "block grease" because they are formulated to be so hard. We don't have to take an NLGI#2 Amsoil grease and thicken it with who-knows-what to make boolit lube, we can get grease already thick enough, like the stuff R5R's playing with (valve grease). I know that's pretty basic stuff to some, but new to me. Even after 20 years of professional automotive training, an AAS in automotive service, and most of the way to an ME degree that little tidbit somehow escaped me. According to some charts the wonderful internet and search engines found me, we're looking for an NLGI#5 or 6 grease for boolit lube.

    Something else I discovered was the vast variety of grease thickeners. There are metal soap thickeners, of course, like Calcium, lithium, complexes of each, aluminum, barium and other metals. There are organic thickeners like bentonite clay, and polymer thickeners like Teflon and UHMWPE. Simply making a paste from certain solids with lubricating base oils seems to work, and as far as I can tell is THE way to go for boolit lube because it's even less affected by temperature than the soap-thickened greases. The polyethylene powder thickeners seemed to be the best thing imaginable for a boolit lube, but the stuff burns at something around 500F so I wonder if it will hold up. According to Wikipedia (has to be true, right?) there are some reactivity issues between UHMWPE and organic acids (Nitrates particularly), which makes me wonder how it and smokeless powder or residue will react.

    Like Lavenatti mentioned, you could find a grease that fit the bill but was in a more "normal" viscosity range (like the stuff MJ linked, the food-grade, extreme temp. aluminum soap synthetic that Amsoil makes) and add more of the same thickening agent to get what we want for boolit lube. Obviously this would be easier with solid, intert thickeners than with the soap complexes. PTFE might be one way to go, but I still shy away from the stuff due to the heat decomposition. It does work on frying pans, though, I have to give it that.

    Gear

  17. #37
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    gear. the ivory is causing me some problems.
    i had it bleeding water in some applications, even after the heat fizz stage.

  18. #38
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    I keep my Ivory on top of my water heater, some of it has been there for years. It's exactly the consistency of sheetrock, I shave it with spice grater and it turns to powder, only just a little foaming and then it settles down. I never saw water bleed from it, is the final mix weeping or sweating after it cools? The stuff I made a couple of nights ago is calming down and getting to where it sticks to itself better (I forget the term for that), but still not too tacky. Moisture might prove to be a problem with it though. Weather and construction is going to keep me from the range today, maybe tomorrow or Sunday.

    The more I study about greases the less I seem to know! One thing's for sure, there's stuff out there today that Col Harrison never could have dreamed of. That's why I feel it's time for a serious rethinking of this lube thing, we've been compromising for years with the same old formulas while technology has been improving grease by leaps and bounds.

    Gear

  19. #39
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    i have been trying to find over the counter #4 or #5 stuff that can be modified so we can target a specific viscosity.
    i am still not 100% sure a calcium grease is what we want.
    my f.i.l. has an old grease that first started me on this path.
    it isn't made any longer of course, it was stiffer than anhydrous lanolin but was not an e.p.
    there would be a couple of ways to do this, harden up a #4-5 or soften down a #7 [this poses it's own set of problems]
    i did get the "j" lube to thermally break down last night trying this.
    it was so hot that it melted a plastic fork on contact and the pete cup it was in. the two stroke in the wave with it was fine.
    that had to be quite a sight, me trying to get the hot stinking crumbling grease in a melting cup
    with oil running out and a fork melting in it out of the garage and into the garbage can in the middle of a blizzard with no shoes on at 3 a.m.

  20. #40
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    this is stuff i have had sitting in the basement in the dry room for a couple of years the outside powdered up by scraping a knife down it's edge the inside is still soft and there is a definate line there.
    it was some slippery water though and didn't seem to evaporate quite as quick as water.
    it sweat out of the paste i was making as it cooled and clumped.
    i re-heated it and it done it again.
    it might have come from the nu-finish ivory combo i was working on i wanted them combined and dried so i could powder them. and add them to a grease.
    it's making more of a soft soap combination.
    i might just lube boolit up with it as is.
    adding lucas oil additive did not respond too much to being thickened up by this.
    but this combo would make a decent lube with a traditional carrier.

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