"Extreme" boolit lube, The Quest...

[Hamish]

dun, dunnn, DUUUUUHHHHHNNNNNNNN,,,,,

[Eutectic]

How about POE (polyolester) synthetic oil as a main ingredient or a blending agent?

Eutectic

I feel like I threw a two week old stinky fish into this thread a couple weeks ago with my quoted statement above!

The only comment back seemed to be "catching up with the thread".... Humm? I only remember POE being briefly mentioned way back several pages and a search confirmed this. Maybe an acronym 'base' is needed for some? All acronyms should be spelled out at times (often) in a complex thread such as this to keep those interested following. POE and PAO are two totally different birds! This forum is bad about lack of details at times. Take Alox...... Alox is almost always mentioned as just Alox.... There is vast differences in "ALOX". It would be like saying "Lithium" in this thread.... Are you talking about batteries? Maybe a mood improving drug? Or a type of lithium soap used in grease.??
Most think Alox means a type of Alox 606 or better known as Lee Tumble Lube. It makes a lousy component in a lubrisizer type lube. I have experimented a lot with it thinking its coating ability may make a great high velocity lube. Does too, for a few shots! Alox 350 takes a bad rap because of Alox 606 at times. Some Alox 350 can actually enhance a lube. Huh? It pays to look at the uses of the various lube components being considered. (other than boolit lube) Seems Alox 350 is an 'ester' of an oxidized petroleum fraction. Looks like a #4 or #5 block grease. Lubrizol says one of its main uses is a lubrication enhancer for cutting (machining) fluids. I think what they really mean is a "wetting" improver?? Any old machinist knows if you squirt cutting oil on a 'hot cut' going on the lathe it smokes but stays right where the cut is going on. Try it with a lubricating oil and watch the oil leave the heat! S O O O ..... maybe Alox 350 in a bullet lube isn't so bad after all?? Do we want our lube where the heat is? Will a lithium soap grease do it? Probably not.... Castor oil might??

So what about POE? What caught my eye was the ester based racing 2 stroke oils. The pre-mix types. High performance 2 strokes have a power valve in their design. They gunk up, gum up, carbon up, stick.... and affect the high HP these engines can make. I looked at power valve components in pictures and saw how clean and carbon free they were. Motul ads speak of POE cleaning and holding dirt/carbon in solution through exhaust.... Humm??? Could they hold some (or all) of our lubricant's residual ingredients (carbon, powder fouling) and 'exhaust' them out our barrel as well.?? Hence my interest in POE.....


I have worked with POE (that's polyolester) some to good advantage so far. I thought I would report what I'm seeing for general thread info.

I made a simple binary mix of 23% Motul 800 to 77% beeswax. It is a little less viscous than NRA 50/50. I always try to work thin lube in the heat first rather than fight hard lubes in the cold.

It takes V E R Y ... L I T T L E of this lube to work! Even my slow 1800-1900 fps tests with only one lube groove displayed a spot or two of purged lube on the target at 70 yards.... Accuracy was excellent as were cold starts. 38F to 80F

I work with an accurate .22 Hornet now with both a 56gr gascheck and a 47 gr gascheck hollow point. At 85 yards BOTH loads have stayed minute of angle and better. This gun with the 2600 fps 47gr load has wanted to be cleaned after 20 rounds to keep the minute of angle in the past with different lubes tried. I am at 27 rounds now and will go until I see a change. Good news.....

A close look under high magnification of the last 1" of barrel shows a VERY GOOD SIGN !! The barely visible machine marks of the lands and grooves are open! It other words no deposit filling! This is a good sign!!! Lube star is minimal and black like Lyman Moly lube was being used. Like R5R, I believe the black goo is from carrying out gunk.

I like what I see so far.... My gut still tells me my binary mix can be improved with other additions.... What? ... I'm still thinking on it! I think I'll put the gun and shells in the freezer first.............

Eutectic

[geargnasher]

Well excuse me for not running right out and buying a bottle of ester oil and making another bunch of concoctions based on it. Do you have any idea how many lubes I've made, and how many I've actually tested in the past two months? I have 18, that's right 18, blends of PAG-based lubes alone (NO, I'm NOT going to spell 'polyalkyleneglycol' ever freakin' time for you, either, anyone following this thread should have picked that up by now), and haven't hit the right combo yet with four different oils, three different waxes, and five different metal-soap bases. I've shot it some, and it's CLEAN. I'm calling the PAG series of lubes the Zombie lubes because I started out with a dyed AC oil. The low CoF and inherent solvent nature of the PAGs has me very much intrigued, because a clean bore is a consistent bore, and no wax buildup should make the lube much less temperature-sensitive for first shots. PAG oils would make things easier to clean and and could also be used as a preconditioner for the bores before a hunting trip. The problem is they don't mix with wax well, making it crumbly. Difficult to get it to stay in the grooves on the boolits.

I'm glad you finally tested the POE oil yourself, that helps everyone. POEs are good for making various oils/waxes actually mix together without separating. PAGs don't want to mix with anything, expecially waxes. I may eventually try this out because I really dig the concept of a self-cleaning lube, and this stuff might help if blended with PAG oil or even conventional oils. But, if you sit around waiting for me to to try something for you, it might be a while!

Like today, supposed to go to the range, but have to spend the afternoon going to a store three towns over to get tile because our local dropped the ball on or special order. Sighhhh.

Gear

[Eutectic]

Gear.....

I certainly wasn't expecting you to rush out and test POE! I was only looking for opinion actually and I am sorry to hurt your feelings. I was pleased you spelled out PAG however! Acronyms are not my problem and I may follow things here better than you think.... I was thinking of getting other readers to become talkers actually.
During my career I've had the solution come from the most unlikely source at times!

I read somewhere on the internet that POE oils can also help blend PAO type synthetics with components they may not like to blend with alone.... Another tidbit we can put under our bonnet for future use.

Eutectic

[Marlin Junky]

Instead of making boolit lube using a wax base, can this process be approached as making soap? In other words, saponification of NaOH with excess fat/oil?

Or, Lithium Hydroxide Anhydrous Powder Reagent 500 g for 88 bucks with excess fatty-acid/oil?

MJ

[Dumasron]

Viscosity improvers are substances with a long chain molecule which, when cold, curls up into a ball providing low temp lubrication. When heated, the ball unwinds resulting in a molcule which acts like a fiber and makes the fluid more viscous and therefor a worse lubricant.
Examples would be Wynn's oil, Motor Honey, and the original STP.

I hope this stimulates some of the little grey cells to make the perfect lube. Lettuce know.

[runfiverun]

that was the reason behind the hto binder used in the E-series of lubes.^^^
the mineral oil used also in the E and L-purple lubes was for the waxes as much as the blending affect.

the soap lube brad [and ian] made i think follows a process like you ask about m.j.


simple poe's have been used in some of the lubes tried i was going to attempt a list of ingredients i have tried but just gave up and threw away 4 pages of lube recipes [on a legal pad] plus two pages of lined note pad paper with lubes i have tried.
and condensed everything down to just a few recipes [some finished and some not made yet]

i have widened my accuracy window.
but still would have to modify the lubes for extreme heat [and i haven't seen much below 30 with them yet]
poa's have the slippery and poe's have the temp stability balancing them and controlling the oil as well as the waxes is the ticket.
i still haven't forgotten about the wood flour [it might help my hot weather issue]
there is still a balance issue to work out here.

[bruce381]

""I read somewhere on the internet that POE oils can also help blend PAO type synthetics with components they may not like to blend with alone"'

correcto mundo as will other esters

[btroj]

MJ, I used a pure form of Na stearate rather than Ivory soap. I decided it was enter for 2 reasons. I had I on hand already and it was not in a mix with other stuff of varying amounts.
I think you could use LiOH to "saponify" a fatter acid to make a "soap" for lube use. My on
Y problems would be getting a pure fatty acid so you can repeat what you have and making sure you use exactly the right amount of base to react with the amount of acid used. This is critical for the same reason, repeatabliity. I also wouldn't want excess base potentially screwing with the pH of the lube or interacting with other ingredients.

I think the key to some of this lube making is using ingredients that are repeatable. I want to make a lube that others can make easily and get repeatable results over the years.

Gear, I can't imagine how much time and energy you have poorer into this project. Not to mention money!

[bruce381]

hey run and gear in the lab today i found a bag of "crumb" VI Improver polymer I Think is OCP (olephin co polymer) anyway used to bump Vi in base oil from the normal 100 range to 180 -200. Is a plastic crumb that is melted into base oils would add improved high temp viscosity control.

Email if you want some I will find the data sheet for it.
bruce

[geargnasher]

I know that "ester oil" was used in automotive air conditioning systems that were converted from R-12 to R-134a by "do-it-yourselfers" and shops that didn't want to take the time to properly flush the entire system and change the compressor. The principle reason for the ester oil was to blend the remaining mineral oil in a way that would make it soluble in the new refrigeran. R-134a is not soluble in mineral oils, but is in PAG and POE. R-12 is soluble in mineral oil and POE, so it was used as a common denominator. I don't know why I didn't think to add that to my PAG-based Zombie lube before, in fact Bruce told me some time back that POEs were used as something of a homogenizing agent when making synthetic "blends". I will definitely have to try this after I get through wringing out this new Calcium Sulfonate (or sulphonate, depending on who you ask) grease.

MJ, what you're talking about is how soap and grease is made commercially. The grease cooks don't melt pre-made stearates into oil, they actually make the grease from scratch by taking base oil, heating it to about 200F or so, and adding a metal hydroxide (sodium, lithium, magnesium, calcium, aluminum, antimony, etc.) and stearic acid (a fatty acid refined from beef tallow). The metal base and the stearic acid react to form a metal stearate within the oil itself.. This requires precision measurements for complete reaction with no leftovers, but requires much less heat than melting in stearates. The water from the reaction must be boiled off, other additives put in, and the whole mess milled, but that's basically it. The "salts" or "stearates", once formed by the acid/base reaction, require much more heat to melt than the final product does. This is why you can take sodium hydroxide and stearic acid and make regular ol' lye soap on the stove at about the temperature water boils, but if you ever want to remelt it, you have to go over 450F.

Things I've discovered about using only stearates to gel oil enough for a stand alone boolit lube: Lithium stearate can be added to the point that the oil makes a plenty thick grease, but as soon as you start working it, it turns thin again. It's not suitable to run through a lube sizer, because as soon as it got injected into the grooves, it's soft and sticky again, and doesn't get all of it's firmness back when it sits. I had no idea it would do this until Bruce sent me some samples and I made about a dozen differenent tiny batches of greases in an attempt to fix this work-softening thing. It isn't the oil type causing the problem, it's inherent to the thickener. It gets no better when mixing with wax, or even when gelling with waxes at high-temperature. Also, the straight lithium stearate makes hard little "seeds" like sesame seeds throughout the lube when used beyond a certain concentration, and without a grease mill it's impractical to use it. The lithium 12-hydroxystearate is much less prone to this. Sodium stearate is hygroscopic, but it has very little tendency to work soften, and will make good grease with just about any oil same as lithium. Sodium grease is sort of coarse and fibrous, if you've ever worked with the old, old Ford wheel bearing grease you'll know what I mean. Aluminum stearate is a neat animal, but isn't compatible with many other stearates depending on type and complex. Now when you start blending stearates interesting things happen, and I've been working out some of those issues to make a wax-free lube with a very high overall VI. If the world will cooperate, I'll get a range report from the concoction I referenced a few posts ago.

Gear

[geargnasher]

Viscosity improvers are substances with a long chain molecule which, when cold, curls up into a ball providing low temp lubrication. When heated, the ball unwinds resulting in a molcule which acts like a fiber and makes the fluid more viscous and therefor a worse lubricant.
Examples would be Wynn's oil, Motor Honey, and the original STP.

I hope this stimulates some of the little grey cells to make the perfect lube. Lettuce know.

Old tech. Those polymers break down under shear forces and sludge engines if the oil isn't changed like clockwork. The group IV synthetics have high enough VIs that they don't need any voodoo slinky molecules to qualify for multigrade classifications. I don't thing that a single trip down a gunbarrel will instantly make sludge, but conventional base stocks also really suck at low temperatures, so in the interest of "extreme" lube capable of functioning consistently in a wide temperature range, I figured I'd hedge my bets by experimenting almost exclusively with the different synthetics. Plus, nobody else has really done much of this except for the the makers of Speed Green and VooDoo Lube. Synthetics have an almost universally bad reputation for accuracy problems among the folks I've heard try it here, and I've had the same issues too, I think because too much synthetic oil proportion was used. There is such thing as too slick in boolit lube, and I can show you a pile of targets that have nice, round, HUGE groups printed on them when just a tablespoon per pound too much oil was used.

So we're trying to get the oil content down and still make a firm, waxy lube that will stay in the grooves. Waxes have their own drawbacks, as we all know. Carnauba gets funky in the cold, or at least the coating it leaves behind in the barrel does. Microwaxes have their own issues, needing to be tuned and balanced in amount and type to the particular temp range and velocity/pressure. This is what Lamar re-discovered for probably the hundredth time in Nevada last weekend, and one of the things he and I are most aggravated by with lube formulations.
Beeswax probably does better than any other single wax I've tried as far as multi-temp use, by itself it really doesn't ever build up a bad coating, but it does still change the way a rifle shoots a bit with temperature fluctuations.

I may end up eating my words from a few pages back where I told MJ that sodium soaps are no good. I maintain that by itself, it's not good because a lube made with it emulsifies with water so easily and I worry about brass turning green and seasoned barrels rusting when it's used, but I think I've found a way around this with some blending. If it works, it's going to be "bye-bye waxes" for me unless the Zombie series can be made to work with a high melt-point microwax and just PAG and Ester oils and maybe a touch of MiG nozzle dip for plasticity. Again, the PAG oils make very "non-stick" stuff when mixed with waxes, and I think that this attribute will enable them to make a very good lube with no ill effect of wax residue in the bore provided we can figure out a way to make them cohesive enough to stay on the boolit during handling and launch.

Gear

[runfiverun]

the addition of some atf or some airconditioning oil [poe's] might have thier place.
i know the modified [with the neatsfoot,sulpher ester, and lard fat] E -yellow will work well on the low end to about 75*.
i gotta figure out the top end a bit better.
the wife and little girl took first and second in all the women's event's [group and score] in nevada using the unmodified E-yellow and the moly complex unmodified.
the score was won on x count [tie] and the group was won by .011 inch [308 v.s. 223]

if ian's recipe works for him in the heat we are gonna have to do a serious in depth note compare.
and see what [base] ingredients we truly are using that are the same.
and what is giving us the outside temperature edges and see if they are compatible.

[geargnasher]

FINALLY got some range time this afternoon!

I'm going to call this wax-free stuff a success. I got some impressive groups at 100 yards, but it takes about 10 shots from a clean barrel for the groups to shrink down from about 3" to MOA. After that, everything went just fine. I shot a 20-round string pretty fast just so see how the lube held up, and it did great 17 into an inch with a jerked flyer and two off a bit to the left when the wind picked up. I was watching the thistle down fly across the range at about 75 yards, so I held on the bull to see what the wind would do, it pushed them about 3/4" off. Stupid me burned my hand again on the barrel, it was HOT. Temps were about 95 at the range, and the bench, gun, and ammo were in the sun.

I got just a slight antimony haze in the middle of the grooves after the very first shot, and it stayed the same for the entire box of 50. I wish it wasn't doing that, but it shoots well enough that I'm not too worried about it.

The .270 was a different story. I was working up a new load with air-cooled 50/50 at 9 BHN, pushing it to a little over 1600 fps with Reloder 7. I tried my blend of half and half Centaur grease and 180-degree microwax which with the soft alloy gave me a really neat, shiny lead plating from the muzzle back a few inches. After a little field de-lead, I tried again with the wax-free lube, and while it still leaded, it was much more even. By the time I was through 20 rounds the muzzle had a lead star, not good. Anyone who can shoot soft stuff through a small-bore rifle at anything over about 1000 fps knows something I sure don't. Groups were in the 3-4" range at 100, not bad considering the terrible leading going on.

So I think this stuff might do the trick. I'm going to do a lot more work with it in the future see about tweaking it a bit more, maybe even adding a few percent wax or some other things, and I'm still planning to do some work with the Zombie lube too. It's going to be a busy summer.

Gear

[btroj]

GEar, you must have the worlds most understanding wife!

I just need to find a time to get to the range. My days off seem to keep getting rainy. I don't like mud.

[runfiverun]

if you want to throw soft lead at high v you gotta have a twist rate.
i tried swaging my 4/6 alloy to a flat point [ bumping the nose diameter bigger]. and had to drop well over 300 fps to come close to gaining back my accuracy [with a better throat fit]
once i got the grey puff to go away, groups come right back again.
a slower powder really helped, otherwise i had to drop all the way from 2700 to about 2,000.
i was able to climb back up to almost 2400 with the slower powder.

so locking up more of the oil kept your lube from going too wet, like mine did, when the heat come up.


Bruce: give me a couple of day's to think about the co-polymer.
a mineral oil base wax
some co-polymer thickened pao/poe sounds intriguing.

i need to go back through some notes as i have another lube in the works, i just need to try a couple of things first [work on a base]

[Longwood]

GEar, you must have the worlds most understanding wife!

I just need to find a time to get to the range. My days off seem to keep getting rainy. I don't like mud.

Not quite.
I do!
She is so understanding,, she moved to Virginia.

[MBTcustom]

She is so understanding that she moved to Virginia.

The pain! Beer up the nose! My burning sinuses!

[Longwood]

GEar, you must have the worlds most understanding wife!

I just need to find a time to get to the range. My days off seem to keep getting rainy. I don't like mud.

I can send you some dry dirt.

[geargnasher]

My range has been dusty for months, maybe we can trade?

Per Lamar's request, here are a couple of pics. The blackish goop on the front side of the wrench is the wax-free lube. It almost won't stick to my fingers, it leaves a little bit of grey residue behind when I knead it, but not much. The stuff on the far side of the wrench is 2:1 beeswax and Mobil Centaur. It's a bit more stiff, more like I like lube to be. It's about like BAC.



This is three of examples of the Zombie lubes, two versions of my Neon Zombie and a sample of White Zombie lube (made with UCON PAG 32 and lithium 12-hydroxy). All this stuff is crumbly at room temp and starts to stick together at 90-100 degrees. It all sorely needs a metal soap for high-temp stability and something to keep it from being so crumbly at colder temps.



Gear