"Extreme" boolit lube, The Quest...

[runfiverun]

i haven't cleaned my rifles barell since i started using the E-purple in it.
or the barell on the savage either with the E-yellow.
so about 3 months now.
they both look like i have been shooting carnuba with a piece of powder here and there in them.

the wet i spoke of in the earlier post was in my ruger-308 was with the e-yellow that was modified with neatsfoot oil and the loads were stepped up [and extra lube was added at random]just to see if i could push the lube in the 100* heat.

the tar stuff sounds like alox i have seen that leave a goo behind, especially if there is high humidity.

the E- lubes are just lithi bee's [the yellow is lubriplate and the purple is a mix of red [wheel bearing],brown #2 and white [lubriplate] lith] thickened with aluminum stearate.
[much like the lube gear was talking about on the last page]
and a mix of wax bases.

just about any ol atf will do, i am using dexron-111.
it's the mercon that gives the glide,and ford type-f would be my choice if i had some here.

[Marlin Junky]

Thanks Lamar... I'm not buying any more BAC.

I need to check a couple other guns that may have some BAC in the barrels.

MJ

[runfiverun]

the problem with the bac and alox 50-50 stuff is the alox content is waay too high.
one of the first things i made after trying some storeboughts was b.a.c but i kept the alox content in the 30% area and the carnuba down in the 2% area.
i ended up adding some white lith @10% airc to make up the softness.
it turned out to be a pretty good 30-60* temp lube.

forgot i also added some micro-parrafin wax to this recipe [something like 20%]

[bruce381]

marlin junkie lith soaps on the way
bruce

[geargnasher]

MJ, welcome to the joys of ALOX! Now you savvy why me and Lamar are trying to get away from that nasty stuff.

I'll bet I know what happened. Remember what Felix said about aluminum stearate causing Alox to drop out of a lube (precipitate)? It doesn't take much. Maybe a trace of the Al Stearate in the bore pulled the gunk out of the BAC.

Did I mention I hate Alox?

Gear

[Eutectic]

the problem with the bac and alox 50-50 stuff is the alox content is waay too high.
one of the first things i made after trying some storeboughts was b.a.c but i kept the alox content in the 30% area and the carnuba down in the 2% area.
it turned out to be a pretty good 30-60* temp lube.

You're getting warmer.......

[runfiverun]

MJ, welcome to the joys of ALOX! Now you savvy why me and Lamar are trying to get away from that nasty stuff.

I'll bet I know what happened. Remember what Felix said about aluminum stearate causing Alox to drop out of a lube (precipitate)? It doesn't take much. Maybe a trace of the Al Stearate in the bore pulled the gunk out of the BAC.

Did I mention I hate Alox?

Gear

i'd say it don't take much if that was it.
i used 5% al stearate,and 1% cab-o-sil in the base grease then almost doubled that wih the b-wax.
so the total would have been about 2-2.5%

[Marlin Junky]

Maybe a trace of the Al Stearate in the bore pulled the gunk out of the BAC.
Gear

Yeah well something scary happened. I shoved my dry bronze brush from the breach out the muzzle about a half dozen times ejecting a puff of dust each time. Before I wiped the barrel with CR-10 I couldn't even see the rifling.

Last Wednesday, the time before last at the range, I took one tight fitting patch and ran it from the breach out the muzzle thinking that action and 6 foulers with BAC was enough of a process to remove the E-Purple shot during the previous 11-shot string (I was testing BAC vs. E-Purple). I vividly recall the condition of the patch but didn't think a whole lot about it at the time. The patch was very back and greasy but only on the areas that contacted the groove/land interfaces; i.e., black, greasy stripes on an otherwise virtually clean patch. During my test, the E-purple was shot first and I assumed 7 foulers with E-Purple was enough to clear the BAC that has been buiding up from months of use before shooting five rounds for the record.

I need to clean my barrel till it squeaks, make a viscosity change to E-Purple (per Lamar) and test it again.

I guess the moral of the story is, don't mix BAC with E-Purple.

BTW Gear, have you had a chance to read the questions I wrote on the last page about MgOH?

MJ

[geargnasher]

I did read them. Like I said, I'm not messing with hydroxides when I can get the stearates pre-made. Brad and I discussed this a while back and he can get all the stuff no problem, but at the time we were working on getting Lithium stearate through Bruce and I wanted to try that first. The tri-stearate concept will make a good wax-free lube I believe, I just don't know how it will do with barrel fouling. The sodium stearate/calcium sulfonate base works very well, but is a heavy fouler. The good news is that it's really consistent once it reaches a certain point.

My next project is to take a detour and play with the Zombie lube some more, I've got some stuff cooked up that is the right consistency, all it needs is a good testing to see if it works like I hope it will with keeping the barrel clean.

Gear

[Marlin Junky]

I did read them. Like I said, I'm not messing with hydroxides when I can get the stearates pre-made. Brad and I discussed this a while back and he can get all the stuff no problem, but at the time we were working on getting Lithium stearate through Bruce and I wanted to try that first. The tri-stearate concept will make a good wax-free lube I believe, I just don't know how it will do with barrel fouling. The sodium stearate/calcium sulfonate base works very well, but is a heavy fouler. The good news is that it's really consistent once it reaches a certain point.

My next project is to take a detour and play with the Zombie lube some more, I've got some stuff cooked up that is the right consistency, all it needs is a good testing to see if it works like I hope it will with keeping the barrel clean.

Gear

Roger on the above.

What's the story on Mg though? I see talk about Ca, Na and Li, but no Mg.

I'll keep my eye's open for talk on Zombie lube and I'm willing to incorporate it into my testing schedule.

MJ

[geargnasher]

Yeah, I don't know. Google doesn't turn up much on magnesium grease. Or antimony, either. Did you know that Mystik JT6 amber chassis grease is thickened with Antimony Stearate?

After working a lot with synthetic oils (PAOs) and microwax, it seems that grease thickener is a necessity to prevent leading and maintain accuracy even if the leading is minimal. I think this is due to the wax not being able to "control" the oil dispersion as well as the soap thickener can. Speed Green is the exception, but I made it with microwax instead of beeswax and it shot some of the worst groups I tested, bar none. It works ok if made with beeswax, I'm thinking that the wax and oil chemically bond somehow in ways that the petro waxes don't, thus making it more like a grease.

If I can get this PAG lube to work, I might send you some to try, but I half expect it to shoot wild groups because it's so freakin' slick! We'll see....

Gear

[Marlin Junky]

Google doesn't turn up much on magnesium grease. Or antimony, either. Did you know that Mystik JT6 amber chassis grease is thickened with Antimony Stearate?

Interesting; however, I don't know why one would add Sb to their boolit lube while they're trying to limit it in their boolit alloy. Sb is way out of the ball park with respect to the other metals under consideration for the "Ultimate Lube" ingredient, while Mg sits right between Na and Al in the periodic table. Don't have any clue about it's tendency to be hydroscopic; however, MgOH has very low solubility in water. MgOH is used as a fire retardant because of it's high thermal decomposition (over 600F). I also doubt it would be harmful to barrel steel because of its antacid nature.

MJ

[geargnasher]

I don't know how Magnesium hydroxide would work in a lube, my impression is that not being a stearate (soap) it wouldn't be much of a gellant, you need the stearate (reacted with stearic acid) to make grease. I'm also a little leery of the pH.

Gear

[btroj]

I don't know that adding a free base to put lube is the way to go. I don't know how it would affect brass over the long run, or barrel steel for that matter. Either extreme on the pH scale can be a bit scary.
As for being between Na and Al on the periodic table, that means little. The periodic tale is set up so elements in a column tend to have more similar properties. Mg would therefore be more likely to behave like Ca than any of the other metals. We all know what Ca can be like.

I need to mix a bit more Na Stearate powder into my test batch with Lucas red n tacky. Is is an idea I got from Gears was free lube idea. The Na stearate mixed in quite easily with a bit of heat, I just need to firm it up more.

I really like how fast the pure Na stearate mixes into any lube. It is much faster than even grated Ivory. The fine nature of the stuff helps it mix in easier, only bad thing is that it is light and fluffy so it can blow around easily.

[geargnasher]

Brad, make sure you get the Na Stearate actually melted in, not just mixed. I know what you mean about the fine powdered stearates, Li and Al are the same way, just like the little bit of Na I got ahold of recently. That stuff will 'go in' even with cold grease, but you have to get it pretty hot to actually gel the stuff, and it takes a surpising amount of powder to make a difference. When adding by weight, even 10% of Al stearate powder is about the same volume as the oil/grease/wax that you're adding it to.

Gear

[btroj]

I need to use more heat I bet. And yes, it is a huge volume of the powder. It is amazing how fluffy that stuff is.

[runfiverun]

even with the aluminum stearate it done a whole lot better getting it over the 225-f on the third [and final] mix.
i'm pretty sure all the stearates need some heat for them to do their job.

[Marlin Junky]

I don't know how Magnesium hydroxide would work in a lube, my impression is that not being a stearate (soap) it wouldn't be much of a gellant, you need the stearate (reacted with stearic acid) to make grease. I'm also a little leery of the pH.

Gear

Actually, what I'm driving at is making a soap from MgOH.

MJ

[btroj]

I wonder how good a soap th MgOH would make. Li and Na form strong bases, the MgOH would be a weaker base. Does it have the ability to fully saponify the stearin acid?
Industry has chemists and chemical engineers who have the ability to us rest ad these reactions AR better than I do. They also can control the reactions in a very precise manner.
I am not saying it can't be done, I just don't know how well it would work or how worthwhile it would be.
If you can do it for under 20 bucks it it be worth a shot, I wouldn't spend much more than that.

[geargnasher]

Actually, what I'm driving at is making a soap from MgOH.

MJ

I don't get it. You can buy magnesium stearate. Why make it? Another question, aside from making a work-stable Li/Na/Mg grease to any thickness you want, I'm curious why mess with magnesium soap grease at all? I wonder if it has some properties we've overlooked with the other thickeners.

So far we know this: Lithum grease is pretty clean stuff and makes good boolit lube. It's "thixotropic" in a loose sense of the word when mixed with petroleum waxes, not so bad with beeswax.

Sodium grease can leave a residue in the barrel, and loves to mix with water. It's very work-stable, though, and blends with about anything, including a few other thickeners.

Aluminum grease is very sticky and makes an outstanding binding agent in lube.

Calcium grease is waterproof and fairly work-stable, but *can* leave a residue in the grooves that bakes on hard and builds up.

Calcium sulfonate grease looks promising, but I'd like to try it in a lube that doesn't have moly in it too so I can see if the fouling it makes is moly fouling, gellant fouling, or powder/primer/boolit residue accumulating.

I haven't tried magnesium, antimony, lead, or any other soap greases yet.

Lithium soap grease and beeswax is tough to beat because it doesn't work-soften too much, the grease raises the melt point of the lube considerably, it's fairly clean-burning if you use the right grease, it's very water-resistant and storage-stable, and easy to make it the consistency you want. I hate to come all this way, 14 pages and a couple thousand rounds later only to find 'Lithi-Bee' made with synthetic oil is the ultimate "Extreme Lube", but it just might turn out that way.

I'm not giving up on the Wax-free lube yet though!

Gear