"Extreme" boolit lube, The Quest...

[felix]

Treat as a polisher additive to boolit lube. Nothing harmful in it as to serious wear. For example, use as conditioner, not as a fire-lapper. Add to lube when antimony wash is detected using high speed applications. Perfect to use to break in hard steel barrels, like Ruger's 4140. ... felix

[OLPDon]

Thanks Felix for the info. I guess if I make up a batch I'll have to get new rifle. My Rem 700 only has about 100 rounds through it. I was breaking it in with the Js starting with shoot 3 clean, 5 clean, ect....

So I guess will make some up added to your FWFL.
Thanks again Felix for sharing your knowledge.
Don

[felix]

Don, no more than 15 percent should do the trick, especially if using H335/BLC2 military powder. Watch for calcium buildup in the barrel grooves. Accuracy goes bad fast is your indicator of some kind of buildup. ... felix

[OLPDon]

Felix
Thanks for more info. What would we at Cast Boolits do without you? I guess I would just be or

Don

[geargnasher]

Look out guys! I just got back from town with the case of Mobil Centaur 2 Moly grease I ordered last week, we're about to find out if calcium sulfonate does the same nasty buildup that the Aloxes and calcium stearate greases do.

Gear

[Marlin Junky]

Can magnesium or zinc stearate be used to thicken lithium complex greases?

MJ

[geargnasher]

Remember the conversations about "tri-stearate" lube a few pages back? I've been unhappy with the lithium greases because they have an annoying tendency work-soften. Sodium soap doesn't do it as badly, not sure about Mg grease, but I found a 1942 patent for a process of making a Li/Mg/Na grease which is immune to work-softening.

I played a bit with this Centaur grease tonight and it looks very promising too, although it does have a slight tendency to work-soften when mixed with various waxes.

Gear

[Marlin Junky]

I played a bit with this Centaur grease tonight and it looks very promising too, although it does have a slight tendency to work-soften when mixed with various waxes.

Gear

If the grease viscosity can be increased with stearates, why can't the waxes be left out?

MJ

[geargnasher]

If the grease viscosity can be increased with stearates, why can't the waxes be left out?

MJ

That was one of the things I tried first, to eliminate the waxes. You should go back through this thread, it's all there. As far a why not, you can't add enough Li stearate to make a suitable boolit lube because it work-softens so easily. It can be done with sodium grease easily, though, but you have the water-absorption issue. Hence the "tri-stearate' concept.

After Bruce381 scored the Li stearate samples and passed them on, Run and I have been making thicker greases and using less wax, it works very well so far, similar to the method of de-oiling the Mobil 1 grease I told you about. The achilles heel of Lithi-Bee has always been too much oil and too much wax, and adding more soap thickener takes care of both issues. Use a grease with 20% thickener instead of 10% or less, then you only need about 30% wax and 70% grease to make a nice, stiff, HV lube.

Gear

[Marlin Junky]

That was one of the things I tried first, to eliminate the waxes. You should go back through this thread, it's all there.

I don't doubt it, but I only plan to live another 10 years.

As far a why not, you can't add enough Li stearate to make a suitable boolit lube because it work-softens so easily. It can be done with sodium grease easily, though, but you have the water-absorption issue. Hence the "tri-stearate' concept.

That's why I was asking about other stearates; e.g., Mg & Zn. I guess Ca is too hydroscopic.

After Bruce381 scored the Li stearate samples and passed them on, Run and I have been making thicker greases and using less wax, it works very well so far...

Are you talking about E-Purple? I've tested E-Purple along side BAC. My first impression was that E-Purple was very loose and hard to handle. My first range results were not as good as BAC but I shot the two lubes while ambient was in the high 80's to low 90's.

MJ

P.S. Hail to the insect overlords!

[Marlin Junky]

I was wondering if anyone has tried BW-408 which appears to have the widest Congeal Point range (10F) of all their (Blended Waxes') offerings.

I'd buy a slab but I'm confused about their following comment on its application:

"This wax can be used as water or grease resistant."

Here's a link:

http://www.shopblendedwaxes.com/pdfs/BW-408-Specs.pdf

MJ

[geargnasher]

MJ, #408 is probably a lot like Vaseline in consistency.

Ca grease is extremely water REPELLANT, or hydrophobic, that's why it's used in marine greases, and why a marine-specific grease exists. It's the SODIUM, or Na that's hygro or hydroscopic (I can't rember the right spelling).

Ca grease is responsible, or at least experience has proven it to Felix and me, for that nasty buildup of crud in the rifle grooves which makes the accuracy decline in one range session at about the same rate as copper foulind does in a bench gun. Notice very few if any real competitive shooters use Alox in their lubes. Go up a few posts on this page and check the posts where I've tried something new.

Gear

[geargnasher]

I don't know all the waxes that Mike (357Maximum) tryed, but he mentioned that the BW-430 was the one he thought worked best, and he ended up only using it as an additive to beeswax, and not by itself in some of his later formulas. It's similar to the 431 I got, but has a lower melt point. The 431 needs a lot of love to make it smooth and slick, it's very "grabby", wanting to stick rather than slide on things. Vaseline or ATF is about the only thing that helps this.

Gear

[runfiverun]

the E-purple was made with aluminum stearate and micro/b-wax as the additives.
after tracking the E-lubes over a wide temp range now [below 30 to 100*]
i believe that adding or subtracting the waxes will allow it to track the temp changes better.
but two versions of the same lube might just make the cut [one thick and one thin] about the same as the moly complex does now.
i did make every single cold bbl shot on a 2" swinger at 100 yds count though.
[and they are close to the group in the cold]
and there was no lube blow back on any of the cases or leading ,so it's making that jump.
and the lube is definatly flinging off at the muzzle.

[shooter93]

Well send me a 100 sticks Lamar.....smiles.....of each ofcourse.

[geargnasher]

Shooter, come over to my place this evening and you can have prolly close to 10 pounds of my experiments. If you melt it all together you'd have one heck of a great, well, umm, flux maybe? At least it would be free!

Gear

[runfiverun]

i'm pretty sure scott has flux lots of it.
i might be willing to trade about 5 sticks of it for a bbl swap??? and possibly some hexagonal lube grooves i picked up somewhere. [couldn't get them to fit in my rcbs mold, musta got the wrong install tool??]

lube is easy
this viscosity stability stuff is tough.
especially when it's influenced by ambient temp ,friction,and pressure.
i'm thinking i am gonna have to either use less lube in the heat or use more wax.
at least to keep and hold target accuracy.

[geargnasher]

OK Run, what if I told you a really good way to make a firm, wax-free lube with a melt point of nearly 500F and will still flow through a lubesizer at zero? I made some tonight, might have to send you some to try out if it shoots in my rifle tomorrow. I like it so much it just got moved to the front of the list of (now) 20 fresh concoctions that are on the test schedule. Some will probably be eliminated in groups if they don't prove out, I'm doping out various individual ingredients, and my fresh batch of test boolits are starting to get ripe.

Gear

[runfiverun]

definatly.
let me know the results.

i come to the wax/lube volume conclusion by adding more lube to the gas check area of some boolits and mixing them in random with the single lube groove boolits.
and then shooting them [of course]
i did end up with some random flyers but i couldn't contribute the flyers directly to the extra lube or whether it was the next boolit down the pipe.
at no time were there any "wild" flyers but the entire group was bigger over all.
and the lube stars were significantly larger on the muzzle also, indicating wet lube at the muzzle.
the stars were all quite dark suggesting the boolit/lube was pushing powder fouling down the bbl also.
my on target groups were also off center.
some high, some high left, some lower, suggesting more/less velocity.
it will be interesting to get them back to the range in 80-f weather to see how they compare.

[geargnasher]

It doesn't look like I'm going to make it out today, hopefully tomorrow. I sure hope this works!

Gear