"Extreme" boolit lube, The Quest...

[Eutectic]

Who's two cycle oil are you using?

MJ

I'm using Motul 800 2T Off Road which is dyed red. They also have a Motul 800 2T Racing which is dyed orange. I chose the Off Road as the viscosity was thinner which I though better for our use.

Eutectic

[btroj]

I am thinking that some 2 stroke oil and some ATF may each get mixed wi some of the soap lube I made.

[geargnasher]

Just keep in mind that lithi-bee and Speed Green both work well, it's hard to go wrong here if we can get the coefficient of friction in the barrel to stay the same under all conditions, and tune that CoF to give us consistent accuracy in the process. Unless something radically different comes up, I believe this is the best path to pursue. I need to do some more work with sodium stearate, too.

Gear

[btroj]

Eutectic sure has peaked my interest, that is for sure.

[runfiverun]

i might persue the vaseline thing i don't know when i'll have time to shoot it if i do make some though.
or even what i'll shoot it in.
i'm allready keeping track of the 0-6/308/8mm/and the 223-22/250-220 swift with the moly and the polymer coated jaxketed.

[Hamish]

I find it a little funny that things are swinging full circle back to beeswax, toilet rings, and mop snot. I'm a monkey see, monkey do guy, but intuition has been telling me for a while that a well rounded, all around use lube is going to end up being 4-6 ingredients, including a small percentage of beeswax and mop snot. Just a feeling. I understand the concepts and the uses, but I sorely lack any educational grounding. You gentlemen are doing a great thing, thank heaven for the internet. Peanut gallery signing off.

"One of these days there will be discovered a polymer that can be used as an accurate lube in all seasons with any bore size we would be interested in. The "lube" probably already exists, but finding it on purpose would a major undertaking. By accident, OK, tell the shooting world. We need folks interested in purchasing stuff off of various shelves whenever something "new" appears. One thing to keep in mind, the lube must be able to be cut with normal solvents we normally use, and that feature is the most important one without doubt. Some of these lubes will get hard when fired and then turn into something impossible to clean out."
Felix 03-14-2007

[Marlin Junky]

Just because I was curious, I wanted to see how much synthetic 2-cycle oil could be absorbed by a given amount of Carnauba wax. At a volumetric one to one ratio (4-Tbs each) I created a little block of wax with an oily, slippery exterior that is still very brittle at room temp (approx. 80F). When the wax fractures, the interior looks dry but when rubbed with the fingers it becomes slick and oily too. It only took 40 seconds on high in my microwave to start melting. This stuff is so oily it sticks to nothing and if I could make it more pliable and increase the melt temp, I'd try it on my boolits. When it's worked between the fingers it gets kind of tacky and crumby at the same time.

MJ

[geargnasher]

Just because I was curious, I wanted to see how much synthetic 2-cycle oil could be absorbed by a given amount of Carnauba wax. At a volumetric one to one ratio (4-Tbs each) I created a little block of wax with an oily, slippery exterior that is still very brittle at room temp (approx. 80F). When the wax fractures, the interior looks dry but when rubbed with the fingers it becomes slick and oily too. It only took 40 seconds on high in my microwave to start melting. This stuff is so oily it sticks to nothing and if I could make it more pliable and increase the melt temp, I'd try it on my boolits. When it's worked between the fingers it gets kind of tacky and crumby at the same time.

MJ

OMG!!! I just got through making a concotion in your name about 30 minutes ago, it was the last of a long series of experiments tonight. I say I did it in your name because I wanted to see if the super-solventy effects of the ester a/c oil I'd been playing with would de-brittle Carnauba. I tried 2:1, 1:2, and settled on 50/50. Yeah, it's hard at room temp, but it takes a thumbprint, and though a bit crumbly, I think it can be made to work. The idea was to prove once and for all if Carnauba wax is bad or good, probably your idea as well. By the way, this stuff is firm enough to stick on boolits by the time it cools to 160F, which is better than most of our beeswax-based lubes that don't use a large percentage of metal soap grease. The stuff smells really good, too.

There's something else I found interesting about the carnauba/ester mix, I actually did some wear testing with a hot spindle and hot boolit, heated with a propane torch until they melted the "lube" to the touch: The CoF is about the same when it's molten or when it's solid, it seems that the carnauba makes a better lubricating oil when melted than the other waxes (petroleum or beeswax).

This molten lubricity has me thinking that the whole reason Speed Green works isn't because of it's "solid" viscosity, but because it's lube is designed to lubricate at very low concentrations in an otherwise non-lubricating liquid solution (gasoline). No other common oil is designed to work like that. Remember the conversations about the "liquid film" of lube and the ice-skating and ski analogy of the micro-film of liquid water due to heat and pressure of the skate or ski? I think that even if lube stays in the grooves, the heat and pressure of the boolit and lube whizzing through the barrel still makes a liquid film, and the better the lube lubricates as a liquid the better it will be. If you go adding a bunch of other, sluggish, "dry" waxes to the mix the better the lube oil we add must be to do it's job. Part of what leads me to this conclusion is that without fail the lubes I've made with microwax as the base start to lead toward the muzzle, even the one I made with Bullplate, which shot the all-time worst consecutive ten-shot groups of any lube I tested, even the ones that leaded the barrel up terribly. Makes me wonder if the other six waxes in Carnauba Red are responsible for the poor cold barrel performance, and not the carnauba itself. The Lanolin might be the culprit with cold-barrel, cold weather flyers in Felix lube, although removing the carnauba I put in it for hot weather seems to take care of them. Adding ATF or vaseline helps a bunch in the cold, too, more food for thought.

I fooled around with ester oil all evening, making a 15% lithium stearate grease out of it and settling on a 2/3 wax 1/3 grease mix for a good final consistency, did the same thing with Ivory soap as the gellant, and also made some Felix lube in the same proportions as the recipe except I subbed the ester oil for the castor and mineral oil. It turned out slightly mushier than Felix lube, but a very good consistency. I also messed with aluminum stearate/ester grease, again at the 2/3 beeswax and 1/3 grease proportions. All the esterbee formulations worked out about the same with the different thickeners, except the sodium version didn't turn to mush when worked like the aluminum and especially lithium does. The turning to mush thing when mixed with wax is an annoying constant with the lithium based greases when mixed with any wax I've tried, and with any oil type I've tried, it's undoubtably a product of the lithium and wax. The sodium is universally a better and more stable consistency, for what it's worth.

Another thing I fooled with, trying to raise the melt point of grease-free lube, was ester oil and the microwax 180 I got from Blendedwaxes. I also added some HTO and sulfur ester for good measure, and treated the wax at a 1 Tbs/oz ratio to come up with a lube that's still quite firm. This wax is what I call "dry", it has virtually zero lubricating properties when melted, but the ester makes up for a lot of that on the wear tester. It has a melt point of 160, and doesn't fully go liquid until 175, and not fully solid until 150, so the "sudden" melt point of the wax is improved. I'm still wary of it because of all the previous bad results I've gotten with this microwax.

I got to thinking that lube oil manufacturers using petroleum base stocks to to very great lengths to remove as much wax as they can from the oil. Why is this? It's because wax sucks as a lube. I don't recall us talking much about that, only that wax is a sort of necessary evil as a carrier. Beeswax "wets" and flows like crazy when you put the heat to it, which is why I think it works so well as a lube carrier and is in almost all the better lubes as a base. MUCH better than any petroleum wax I've seen. Petroleum waxes, especially paraffin, are terrible boolit lube ingredients.

Soooooooo, what the heck to do? How about Lotak made with Redline or Motul polyolester-based two-cycle lubes? I think we can keep the melt point at 150 or so if we use enough carnauba, and only use enough beeswax to make it pliable. I'm still looking for the "magic bullet" here, I think the ester oils are the best thing out there for lube, it's just a matter of figuring out a carrier. Back to square one with a lot more "useless" knowledge filling my head......

Gear

[runfiverun]

okay that set me to thinking a little about why parrafin waxes are used on ski's and such untill i remembered it was the snow/ice that melts and forms a slight barrier of water between the ski/skate and the rest of the world.
airc the different formulations of ski wax are for more grip on the different conditions not for more lubrication.
and they have different melt points to hold up to the friction. [that's part of the tune-up]

[Eutectic]

A cold Rocky Mountain rain fell along the Bitterroots last night and it was a nice cool morning in the 40's.
The 38-40 cold started 1/2" high at 50 yards. This is maybe stretching it some as the group was under one inch and the cold start hole was at the top. These were with my soft (8.5 bhn) boolits and the EBN lube. The bore condition had less Carnuaba shine as it fouls. It looked oily. Please don't put too much strength on 'oily'. I speak with a trained eye and I am talking minuscule. The lube star also has a 'feel' to it. It wipes off easily with one's finger and rubbing the dark gray dust together feels slick. It feels like your fingers do after having ester oil on them and thoroughly wiped off with a rag actually! I am going to consider it good until the gun/load tells me different.
I factored in the Marlin .25-20 as well. It is a sensitive cuss for cold starts and I wanted that for the now EBN lubed boolits. The bore although smooth shows those machine marks I have mentioned which will play a part in this test.
The bore was cleaned and I loaded six rounds. Four had reject boolits and I levered them through plinking and fouling the bore. The last two shots touched at 70 yards! Probably a fluke, but maybe a good sign.... Felt good to look at them....
You might notice everything I do and use has a reason and an observation involved in several aspects from a series of shots. I have inventions under my belt and some 'hint' is always there if you look hard to find it! There are deep thinkers here on this thread! They ALL are needed! Someone will figure this out!

R5R you are an abstract thinker.... I mean this in the most complimentary of terms. YOU MAY EVEN BE THE ONE TO FIND THAT LITTLE NUGGET THAT LEADS TO THE VEIN! Please find time to test your thoughts for us! (Easy to say for a retired guy)
More are experimenting here and that is good!

When I mixed my very first lube I had decades of machinery lubrication experience under my belt. Several of us do here. Let me keep it on "I" to make a point. What I thought a boolit lube needed at first sure isn't how I think now! Briefly how is a lubricant 'engineered' for a particular application? Many of the same ways we work at the moment. When "I" started thinking back to the very basic way MOST machinery lubricates a light bulb came on! Almost without exception bearings rely on an oil film. There is clearance in the bearings for it. The bearings now are most very hard against very hard (ball or rollers) Even if Babbitt or softer sleeve materials are used a few thousands of lube film can be had. Now look at our boolit. It basically makes its journey down the bore metal to metal extremely fast! It is a relative hard surface against a butter soft one. There is only room for molecular levels of protection. A couple thousandths of clearance here and accuracy is out the window and leading has showed up! This is why I think more and more that 'wetting' ability in our lube is so important right down to the molecular level of protection and uniformity of residuals.

Gear, COF plays a major role in our quest... But I think it is part of our target.

I think I know the target now. It is the core of all that has been done here. Preventing lead, accuracy, cold starts, hot and cold capabilities, COF, and many more we have explored in this thread.

I think we need to try and see things as our boolit encounters them. Lubrication rules are not enough, especially rules for machinery! I used to think EP was good for lube. Is it good for our boolit to climb on top of the lube that can't be pushed out of the way? AND is it good for our boolit to climb on top of the residuals in our bore?????? Our boolit HAS TO PUSH OUT anything in front of it shot to shot (even over static time periods) or the lube has failed us.

So we need to focus on the core as our target ...... Let's call it CORE then; CORE as our boolit sees it. "Consistency of residuals encountered"

Eutectic

[btroj]

I think the residual lube from previous shots is a big factor. I still say the carnuba rich residue from CR is part of why it gives cold barrel flyers at lower temps.

I think the wetting ability is important and the ability to lay down a very thin film may be why some lubes are better than others. Look at Felox lube with castor oil, good film strength and wetting. A synthetic 2 stroke oil is engineered to do all that, and even better!

I am now looking to see if I can find a local source for such a 2 stroke oil.

Eutectic, you may have changed the entire direction of things. Where have you been all these years?

[popper]

Echo ashless 2 stroke oil or canola oil. Canola (rapeseed oil) has molecular bond capability with metals. High smoke point, low viscosity, small viscosity change with temp. Low coefficient of friction, high shear resistance (resistance to metal-to-metal contact). Cheap, Eco-freindly and works. I haven't been able to tell the difference between C-O, C-O/JPW and PB, accuracy and leading wise. I think it needs a carrier to keep it from being blown out for undersized CBs. Used in 40SW, 30-30 and AR-308. I use Echo for sprue plate pivot and NO build up.

remove as much wax as they can from the oil

that is paraffin based wax.

[Eutectic]

I still say the carnuba rich residue from CR is part of why it gives cold barrel flyers at lower temps.

I believe you are right btroj. Another detrimental sign I have seen pointing to a lube failure is 'blobs'. Blobs that hit the target almost like a piece of number 8 shot and still have all the color and likeness of the original lube used! This is usually a winter thing that happens and how I wish it was here to test more completely. Some lube strikes, especially small ones are not necessarily bad..... Especially if they are sooty or even wet enough to create a small oil stain around the little piece. Again the lube has 'worked' and wasn't just along for the ride! I think 'wetting'. I'm also getting convinced Carnuaba may be different after meeting "Ester"...

Eutectic

[leftiye]

Just because I was curious, I wanted to see how much synthetic 2-cycle oil could be absorbed by a given amount of Carnauba wax. At a volumetric one to one ratio (4-Tbs each) I created a little block of wax with an oily, slippery exterior that is still very brittle at room temp (approx. 80F). When the wax fractures, the interior looks dry but when rubbed with the fingers it becomes slick and oily too. It only took 40 seconds on high in my microwave to start melting. This stuff is so oily it sticks to nothing and if I could make it more pliable and increase the melt temp, I'd try it on my boolits. When it's worked between the fingers it gets kind of tacky and crumby at the same time. MJ

Maybe a little lanolin for sticky? I really like the idea of modifying carnauba with a solvent to make it not make thick or hard deposits. Maybe use Amsoil Saber Professional 2 stroke oil for that? Also, maybe some beezwax to make it less brittle?

[AnthonyB]

My head hurts. Someone tell me what to use when you guys figure all this out.
Tony

[Marlin Junky]

Here's the other two components I'd like to try with the Carnauba:

http://www.redlineoil.com/product.aspx?pid=23&pcid=16

And:

http://www.shopblendedwaxes.com/165F...ine-white.html

which is the "soft and tacky" selection.

What I need to do the next time I have a few minutes is to scour the internet for the best prices on quality Carnauba, because the prices are all over the map... some ridiculous.

MJ

[Marlin Junky]

Maybe use Amsoil Saber Professional 2 stroke oil for that?

I'm familiar with Amsoil Saber Professional but not aware of a version with a 2 designation. I prefer to to try the Redline oil (click link above) because I understand it is ester based whereas the Amsoil was "downgraded" to a PAO based oil when the price of POEs' (esters) increased during the 1990's. I wouldn't bet the farm on it, but the Saber Professional was re-packaged as Bullplate Sprue Lube and makes a fantastic sprue lubricant (best I've tried so far) mostly because it is concentrated for pre-mix applications as lean as 100:1.

MJ

[Marlin Junky]

Soooooooo, what the heck to do? How about Lotak made with Redline or Motul polyolester-based two-cycle lubes? I think we can keep the melt point at 150 or so if we use enough carnauba, and only use enough beeswax to make it pliable.Gear

Gear,
Nothing wrong with good 'ol beeswax but BW-408 is claimed to be soft and tacky and melts at 165F. I'd like to try a combination of BW-408, T3 or better Carnauba (stay away from T4 because of the higher ash content) and a good POE oil. I'm not sure about the POE oil but I'm kinda leaning toward a smokless 2-stroke oil:

http://www.redlineoil.com/product.aspx?pid=23&pcid=16

MJ

[geargnasher]

MJ, the way I read it he didn't mean version "2", he used the number instead of spelling "two-stroke".

You are correct about the PAO base in the Amsoil two-stroke lineup, and I agree fully about the Redline.

Redline Racing/Kart oil, beeswax, and Carnauba might do nicely, and maybe better with a touch of HTO or even (Cough!) Alox 350. I know the ester A/C oil cuts Carnauba and beeswax almost like a shellac thinner does to shellac.

Eutectic, I thought about lubes as a stop-leak at one point, as a grease at another, as a dry lube at another (slick, hard wax), and also as an EP film lubricant, and am coming to the same conclusions you have after all of this. A wax/grease lube DOES work pretty well, but it has to have the right oil in it, and have a LOT of oil in it to make up for what happens when the beeswax melts. When the wax melts, the lube becomes a blend of beeswax and base oil controlled within the metal soap matrix, and the limiting factor has been the quality of the oil and the ability of the mess to flow, provice a lube film, and get pushed out of the barrel. Greases don't have much in the way of "wetting" qualities.

I've studied lube spatter as much or more than anyone on this board, and do "spatter tests" quite frequently to study the temperature effects on lube viscosity. Long-range accuracy can be completly destroyed by a lube that doesn't come off the boolit evenly. I've seen crecents and chunks of clean lube stuck to 100-yard targets on more than one occasion, accompanied by a mediocre group. Studying spatter is what got me to testing "winter" and "summer" lubes, and discovering the ATF/Vaseline addition to Felix lube to help cold-weather groups, as well as testing MML. You're right about needing to think about lube from the boolit's perspective, it's just difficult to tell sometimes exactly what's happening in the bore. If you have clean crescents of lube splatter on a target shot at two feet, you know the lube is "letting go", and also that at least some of it is staying in the grooves and not getting blown off the boolit and down the bore before the boolit even gets engraved. But I think some lube almost always goes down the pipe first, and the boolit must "run over" the lube or shove it out at some point. Remember the tests I've done with Bentone thickeners and other solids? Failures they were except for a fluke group I shot with a paper-fiber lube that I was never able to duplicate. If the paper doesn't all clear out of the bore, the boolit has to run over it, and when it does, it strips lead off of the boolit. Back to the wet-film lubricant. If a boolit is riding on a wet film, the soft metal can do it's own sealing, no? Most of us are shooting at pressures far above the yield strength of the alloy, in some cases even all the way to the muzzle, so the boolit ought to keep it's outward pressure on the bore the whole way due to the pressure on the base and not really need a "stop leak" quality to the lube.

Another theory of mine, along these lines, is leading toward the muzzle. Some would say that the lube is "Running out", and I have always thought that was wrong. What I used to think is that the velocity of the boolit toward the muzzle overcame the viscosity of the lube and sort of "hyroplaned" over the lube at a certain point, which caused lead abrasion, gas leaks, and leading due to the effects of that. Now I'm starting to think that the pressure drop-off behind the boolit spoils the obturation by dropping below the yield strength of the alloy, so the boolit literally relaxes and returns to it's un-flexed state, where it might not fit as well. If the lube can't act as a stop-leak at that point, the gas leaks around the boolit and it leads. Just a thought.

Here's another thing on my mind that came up when I was dinking with the carnauba and ester oil and the hot wear-tester last night: Is there a way to make a boolit lube that has the same CoF between barrel steel and boolit regardless of temperature? If we aren't relying on traditional thick, EP oil film and viscosity to give us our CoF, then can we make a lube that has the same "slickness" when frozen solid or when melted at two hundred degrees? MJ and I have both observed the carnauba feels the same in different states when treated with a thin oil, I'm wondering if we've been barking up the wrong tree trying to get a viscosity-stable lube when all we need is a lube that has the same FRICTION characteristics whether solid or melted. Can it be done?

The nearest distributor of Redline oils is about 60 miles away in a direction I don't like to go, so I might have to order some in and try it. I sure appreciate all the prodding and research, as well as some real-world testing. I haven't the time or resources to test everything myself.

Gear

[Marlin Junky]

I believe you are right btroj. Another detrimental sign I have seen pointing to a lube failure is 'blobs'. Blobs that hit the target almost like a piece of number 8 shot and still have all the color and likeness of the original lube used! Eutectic

I've experienced that with LBT Soft Blue... all the way out to 75 yards.

MJ