"Extreme" boolit lube, The Quest...

[geargnasher]

Yeah. Go EASY on that stuff, Run. I made another batch of soap lube tonight and added some of that spiderweb-in-a-jar stuff to half of it, I'll tell you a little dab 'll do ya for sure! I put a small dab, what would cling to the first 1/2" of a popsicle stick, into an ounce of lube and it did the trick, exactly what I wanted. I made that batch with straight vaseline, no Fluidmaster wax, and it's more cohesive than when using straight ring wax. It also improves the film strength of the lube considerably, I couldn't wipe it out of my glass saucepan without brake cleaner. Ed's Red didn't cut it very well. So I did what I always do when I suspect a film strength change and went to the wear tester with it. WOW! Mo'betta! That mystery is solved, thanks again, Bruce, I believe this stuff is a keeper ingredient.

Gear

[runfiverun]

yellow vaseline right?
now just need to do the fling paper test and the cold weather testing.
i'm gonna have to do a run of this lube.
i think i'll try doing it the way i showed [like felix lube] instead of reverse or forward.
i'll have some of down south's bees wax coming in shortly.
i'll try it with the old dry yellow stuff first,and then the new stuff just to see how influencing the gel is.

[bruce381]

try .5-1% wt into your vasaline blends. yeah 1% will "stickify" most oils the thicker the oil the LESS needed. For fun try 5% and you will get a TAFFY from most oils. Most bar oils use 1%, so you have the 100% active sticky stuff, side note when added to a oil batch mix tank untill it fully mixes with the oil in the tank it will "Climb" up the mixer shaft as a ball against garvity weird stuff.

[geargnasher]

So now we know how Lucas oil "climbs". I'm guessing similar stuff is used in Morey's and in the supposedly "anti-smoke" additives like Smoke-B-Gone and such.

It does take very little. I 'spearminted with just an ounce of regular white Vaseline and about a pencil eraser-sized drop of "spiderwebs", it totally changed the Vaseline and made it like a barrier film on the wear tester. This stuff adds an amazing film strength.

OK Run, what I know from another five hours and about a dozen batches of various soap lubes: The Vaseline content needs to be higher than the soap by weight (we know about equal amounts by liquid volume). The Vaseline is what really makes this stuff work, but it has to be fortified either with Bruce's spiderwebs or mixed 50/50 minimum with Fluidmaster wax. The soap really is just there as a carrier and keep the lube from melting too fast or too much, there needs to be a lot of it or the melt point of the lube goes too low. There is a critical point either way, too much soap and the stuff loses its high film strength, too low and the lube turns to goose poop. The waxes: I discovered something very important and very critical to the way this stuff is made when Joe sent me a chunk of his wax, I'm pretty sure it is NOT beeswax. We've been arguing about it for two days, but I'm convinced it is paraffin-based and has no beeswax in it at all because it can take 500F without even turning dark, it smokes and smells like paraffin, and it is very smooth and translucent, unlike beeswax which is sort of fibrous on a micro-scale. Since it can take the heat (like vaseline, paraffin, and microwax), it is possible to melt it all at the same time and melt the soap in without burning the wax if you're careful and fast with the heat. Get it all together, get the soap melted quickly, and get it cooled off like by pouring into a cool mould. Get it out of the hot container because once it all melts it's done and any more time at that temp is only going to burn off the good stuff. Now, that said, beeswax works just fine as far as final product goes, it just isn't as "polished" as it is with Joe's wax and you have to add it after you've made the grease from soap, Vaseline, and castor oil and cooled it to a sane temp (like 330 or prefereably cooler). It takes lots of blending and a reheat to get it to smooth out. I have some Yaley shaping wax that has the same melt point, stretchiness, and color as Joe's wax but is a tad harder and it works fine for the lube if you cut the proportion back about 10% to the Vaseline. Beeswax, Joe's wax, and the Yaley Shaping wax all melt around 145 F, for what it's worth.

The proportions I'm working with for ease of making are by weight: 3 parts modified Vaseline, 2 parts wax, 2 parts soap. I've tried adding a small amount of castor oil, AC ester oil, and Redline ester oil to different batches and the ester oils are not working with this stuff. The castor oil does OK, doesn't seem to matter much one way or the other, but it does account for some of the softening factor and the batches that had it worked the best outside of actually shooting it. I'm using one teaspoon for every "part" of the wax OR oil, so if you use 3 vas 2 wax 2 soap use 2 teaspoons castor oil. Any more than that and the lube gets sticky exactly like Speed Green.

I hope that made some sense, I'm just trying to get down on "paper" some of the things I've learned about this stuff. All I can say is I've never shot anything that behaves quite like Joe's lube, and it's proving to be really good. As soon as I can I gotta get to the range and try a few of my duplicates now that I have the hang of making it. I mainly want to see how much difference the beeswax vs. the Yaley wax makes, I honestly don't expect much, but only long strings will tell. There are some very good lubes based on beeswax that go about forever without cleaning, and Joe's lube has gone over 500 rounds in his AR-10 at full-snort and when he took it apart for its first cleaning, the gas system wasn't gunked up terribly. That tells me that petroleum waxes can work just fine too if the mix is right. My guns all shoot clean and consistently with no trace of lube star with his lube. I think the secret is the lube is VERY SOFT yet doesn't melt readily, doesn't lose it's lubricating properties when cold or hot, leaves a tough film, and doesn't appear to burn in the gun. I need to do a 'fling test' too to see where it goes, because it doesn't stay on the boolit, it doesn't burn, and it doesn't stay on the muzzle either. There is zero smoke at the muzzle with a load that doesn't make visible powder smoke. If you can make it so it does all these things, you will have duplicated the essential attributes of the lube.

Good luck!

Gear

[Eutectic]

I am getting a good, good laugh as we delve into the sticky/stringy attributes of polybutene! Not in a bad way mind you, as I think it well worth testing with and I have thought of it several times myself.... Sadly my polybutene sample was about as dated as I am! No.... my laughing is in a reminiscent way....

It was 50 years ago and I worked for Standard Oil Co. at their Richmond refinery. We made polybutene and very well could have been the cutting edge manufacturer of it. We sold a bunch of it to the Studebaker Corp. who made STP oil treatment back then. (a better one than now I might add). It was used for adhesives as well... Humm?
It was pumped HOT to thin it enough for transfer. One night a mechanical seal went out on a transfer pump. The millwright walked into the pump to pull the element for repair. He put on tight rubber overshoes to traverse about 8 feet of the now cooler polybutene on the concrete.
The next morning I saw the rubber overshoes firmly 'glued' in the polybutene sans any millwright attached. I saw the worker a couple weeks later and he said when he tried to move he lost his rubber overshoes in the sticky goo. He finished the job in his work boots that were then ruined in the process!

Standard Oil Co. became Chevron years later. They make a red grease which had some polybutene in it called "Ultra Duty". Sounds like the Lucas stuff only it's probably better.....

Yep.... If sticky and film strength and a thin residual coating is our answer than indeed polybutene is our Huckleberry! I await these results in utter anticipation!!!

Eutectic

[Bullshop]

It may turn out to be too good in that it wont clean out of a barrel.

[Eutectic]

It may turn out to be too good in that it wont clean out of a barrel.

Hi Bullshop!! Welcome back!

You could be correct.... It could be like the old nursery rhyme about that little girl with a curl right in the middle of her forehead..... "When she was good, she was very, very, good.... And when she was bad she was horrid!"

I know one thing..... It will give Vaseline some "sharp teeth".... To me this is VERY,VERY, INTERESTING!!!

Eutectic

[runfiverun]

it's not really a glue,it's what gives chainsaw,bar oil it's tacky.
long chain oil like.

[Eutectic]

it's not really a glue,it's what gives chainsaw,bar oil it's tacky.
long chain oil like.

Back during my story period Run (early '60's) some of the very viscous grades of polybutene was then used for Scotch or Duct type tape adhesive per the plant operations engineers. Not glue in the sense of getting hard like epoxy but bigtime STICKY! Not sure if it is used for adhesives anymore or not. ??? I speak a half century in the past! I would have thought Vistac would have progressed... But Maybe it's hard to beat??

Eutectic

[felix]

Yeah, when we're done with the new lube design, then we can keep busy doing the same research in developing a good swimming pool paint. Easy? Nope, but SHOULD be easier than developing a boolit loob for all seasons and guns. A swimming pool paint must not scar and disappear with both stationary and moving chemicals, consisting mainly of chlorine, bromine, calcium, magnesium, sodium, chlorides, sulphates, nitrates, carbonates, bicarbonates, borates. Of course, the most antagonistic substance to any paint is water magnified sunlight. ... felix

[geargnasher]

Dan, have you tried chainsaw bar oil in boolit lube?

Gear

[Eutectic]

Well ain't it a small world!


http://www.yamaha-motor.co.jp/global...5/pdf/0008.pdf

Eutectic

[Bullshop]

No I have not tried that.

[runfiverun]

good read eutetic.
looks like a mineral oil or sulpher ester-low polybutene blend would be best in that situation.
or a poly with a low [below 1000] molecular count.

[Bigslug]

The following was inspired by and originally posted by me on Popper's peanut butter thread. Might have some applications here

My wife is a pretty serious amateur food scientist, so I've picked up a lot of pretty bizarre knowledge secondhand. One of her favorite "toy" ingredients to play with over the last couple years has been. . .

MALTODEXTRIN. . .

. . .which is a starch known for latching onto oils and is often used as a thickener. Added in sufficient quantity, you can turn things like olive oil into a powder.

I still need to run down all of the properties of the stuff with the Missus' assistance, but it seems like it might potentially be a good ingredient for getting that "Goldilocks" balance between solid and liquid states.

After discussing this with her for all of ten minutes, what she and I currently curious about is if/how maltodextrin thickens a petroleum oil or synthetic (i.e. Mobil 1)

Lecithin is another ingredient in the wife's food arsenal. That one's used as a preservative for various foods. Might be a useful additive to natural lubes for black powder operations.

At any rate, I'm thinking that the "stuff" in your peanut butter is acting as a pasty carrier for peanut oil, which is what's doing the work. Since salt and sugar are NOT wanted for this application, I'm thinking maltodextrin might be a way to use just the essential bits.

I think we're going to play with peanut oil and maltodextrin tonight to see what results. Might try a couple kinds of motor oil as well. If anybody thinks I'm totally off base, please sound off.

[geargnasher]

We've discussed and tried some of those things earlier in this thread. The food starches are no good with petroleum oils. The only reason the "solids" in grease work is because the metal salts are lubricants themselves, unlike the carbohydrate structure of vegetable "thickeners". Some of the plant "gums" like guar and xanthan might work, but they are very water soluble as well. Might be a good thing to try with black powder, though.

Gear

[runfiverun]

guar will gel with a diesel fuel/mineral oil/or water base.
the trick is to get the ph in the right place [6-8] this will relax the fibers letting them uncurl and straighten out.
you can then form a crosslink which creates the gelling affect.
makes perfect napalm b.t.w. [cause it is]
by raising the ph or introducing a high iron content.
if you add an extra high ph buffering agent and an acid to crash the ph the ph raiser will keep trying to raise the ph.
no matter what the mix will keep on making crosslinked gel then crashing and re-gelling with agitation untill the chemicals balance out to a final ph.
usually just high enough to hold the crosslink.

[Eutectic]

A temporary fix?

Some 300 rounds or so have been fired since my last report. It has been difficult for sure as we have been entombed in smoke from the 'Mustang' fire for two months now. Still, I test in spurts. This is OK as now my biggest effort is 'taming' the infamous 'cold start'!

I have rung out Ivory Ester in 5 different gun/boolit combinations with at least 5 different formula modifications. Accuracy wise bottom-line? It's not as good as the no soap ester tests or even my BAC.

I also brought back in my BAC for direct competition against newer formulations. I made up some new BAC at 48% Beeswax, 48% Alox 350, and 4% Carnauba flakes all by weight. Slightly less viscosity than my standard mix. My thoughts went back on a very smoky day when I first acquired some Alox 350. I mixed it 'NRA' at 50-50 and it did OK. Thin maybe for some, but thin is one of the 'secrets'. I added 2% Carnauba and it seemed even better. Later I went to 4% Carnauba and it became a good lube! The 4% Carnauba helped the 'Alox' fouling and 50 rounds were possible in most guns. It shot well in ALL my cast boolit use: a big plus.

I have looked at a lot of base oils over the years. In general terms mineral base oils are usually classified as naphthenic or paraffinic base. (We referred to naphthenic base as 'asphaltic' base years ago.)
To my eye Alox 606 (LLA alox) appears as a naphthenic base. The older Alox 2138F (disregarding the micro wax) appeared the same. The Lubrizol Alox 350 strikes me more as paraffinic base. Of course the oxidation process could trick me. I just know the current Alox 350 doesn't foul as bad as the older stuff. I say this over thousands of rounds so experience backs my play.

My EsterBee 350 was a pretty good lube. The best in hot/fast Hornet loads in fact.
It was 63% beeswax, 17.5% Alox 350, 17.5% Motul 800 2T ester, and 2% Carnauba. I focused on the 2% Carnauba one smoky day. "Could 4% Carnauba help here as it did in my BAC?" I said out loud.

SO I made a batch at 58% Beeswax, 15% Alox 350, 23% Motul 800 2T ester, and 4% Carnauba. It has a 'nice' viscosity and perfect 'tack'. I would like it maybe even thinner (less viscosity) but I don't want to increase any percentages of the components now used.

This mix shoots! I am down to 2 guns at the moment, both scoped, to see through the smoke! Actually 3 guns.... The rough barrel in the '92 .38-40 didn't like the EsterBee 350 before. I thought the lube shot too clean for the rougher bore. The 4% Carnauba in my newest formulation has the .38-40 touching its shots at 50 yards again! I know this sounds like exaggerated performance..... I look at groups still not believing the old gun can do it!

The short outings make 'cold starts' frequent. I am convinced 'cold starts' see increased barrel friction. I keep the fired brass separate and carefully measure the web area down to ten thousandths of an inch accuracy. I also chronograph them. They are faster! The pressure is more by careful web measurement!

So yesterday as I tested a hunting load in a Savage Model 23-C .32-20 I purposely loaded a round 70 feet per second slower............

I am using the 'Ranch Dog' boolit with the tumble grooves hollow pointed to 111grs. It is lubed with the above lube. Chronographs 1800fps. It has been grouping 1/2" to 3/4" at 70 yards.... so it is performing! So shooting the cold start with a load purposely load to 1730 fps went a 1/4" LOW. I will play with this some more! The .25-20 Marlin this morning (the most sensitive for cold starts at a uniform 1 1/2" high) also shot slightly low with a similar velocity lowering. What coyote would know the difference? 50fps less may be just right.

This cold bore friction is our allusive target. The polybutene engine oil test I attached didn't strike me as bad news for boolit lube. We need to get the bore friction equal whether it is slicker first or less slick later.....

Eutectic

[geargnasher]

Another good writeup, Eutectic, we sure appreciate your work with this, it has revealed a lot, especially about the effect of carnauba wax.

I gave the IvoryEster a pretty good wringing out, and it looked very promising at first but plays hoc with bore condition as barrel temperatures change, moving POI all over the place (predictably) at 100 yards. I didn't like that at all, and haven't found a solution yet to that particular formula without adding Alox 350 and Carnauba wax.

The soap lubes I've been playing with look pretty promising as well, I'll keep posting as I get more range time, but I'm not sure when that will be, been too dang busy with other projects the last couple of weeks and it's not letting up.

Gear

[Eutectic]

[B]Modifying 'Felix' To Like Bitter Cold?[/B]

I have tested my last EsterBee formula with 4% Carnauba in five different guns and it is a pretty good lube. I'm not sure it will make 'extreme' though. Two guns didn't cold start out of their main group with it; at least down to 50F... more on this later. Cold starts go high with this lube and I experimented with 5% reduction in powder charge to drop the cold start into the main group with pretty good success and NO VELOCITY LOSS! Still, this formula doesn't give me the duration without cleaning like I want and seems just a little fussy in some barrels and maybe a little too slick....

Thinking like a Lube Engineer can get you in trouble and has me several times working towards 'extreme' ends. Ester oil is an excellent lubricant! Not only that the 2 cycle Ester oils burn clean and reduce carbon deposits not only in hot 2 stroke engines but in boolit lubes in our barrel as well! What could be better? Hummm? I am maybe coming to the conclusion Ester oil may be too good.... Too slick... Maybe even too clean..

I take you back to that Yamaha report I attached in an earlier post for a moment. Those two Yamaha lube engineers had Ester 2 stroke oils testing the best in their connecting rod 'heat/lube' graph in comparison to the polybutene oil they were testing for the article. One of their polybutene conclusions was that 'new' lube couldn't displace the 'sticky' left by the polybutene as a deposit. I filed that in my gray matter for future use. Polybutene has lit a light bulb in my brain and it stayed burning......

I really like castor oil! I even like its odd smell. It is an 'extreme' lubricant as well. Note there is no 'boolit' in what I said. Castor oil is NOT multi-viscosity. I stated before if we could get a VI improver that worked with Castor oil we would be on the way to 'extreme'! I have thought continually about 'Felix' boolit lube as well. I don't care much for the lanolin in it especially when I think cold....

I walked to the far side of my garage the other day and I saw a gallon jug of Stihl chain bar oil. That light bulb I mentioned before went to 100 watt! I remembered getting 4 gallons of this oil several years back about this time of year. It was the summer viscosity grade they made then and was on sale cheap! Some research found it naphthenic base mineral oil with the Vistac (polybutene) additive. Now an old oil engineer (before synthetics) might sneer at naphthenic base as a less premium (or as good) as paraffinic base stock but it is better for cold service. The Stihl chain bar oil has an Iso 220 vis (like SAE 50) and still has a pour point of 30 below zero!

So I see how it reacts with Castor Oil. 40 minutes of continual stirring at just under 'smoke' temp seemed polylermorized well. Very dry grated Ivory was stirred in and at 50-55 minutes duration it was done to my satisfaction. Beeswax was melted in and I let it cool and settle overnight. Following Felix's lead on the oils/Ivory I used 2- 1/2 teaspoons of Stihl, 1- 1/2 teaspoon of Castor Oil, and 1- 1/2 teaspoon of Ivory. Beeswax was about 1/2 of the Felix formula amount. I figured to leave it thin and add beeswax as needed. NO LANOLIN. This is a 1/6th sized batch. Weight percentages are: 85grs Stihl oil - 20.2%, 52grs Castor Oil - 12.4%, 16grs (very dry) Ivory - 3.8%, 267grs Beeswax - 63.6%.

The next morning the lube was pretty soft. It was tacky as well. I had a strong urge to add 4% Carnauba to it.... I'm glad I didn't; not yet anyway... I have lubed so many boolits from small batches with my fingers lately I tried it on some .25-20 boolits. It went on well and didn't slack away from the grooves at all as thin stuff will and the tack was perfect! It tried to stick to your fingers some but the bullet adhesion won out. Though thin, you didn't have to fight it on application. The cohesion of its components seem excellent. The Marlin shot them as well as my best lubes. I noticed the lands to crown junction was absolutely sharp and perfect under high magnification... Don't know if it means anything, but boolit exit looked flawless.

The reader may have noticed this formula has NO ALOX 350 or CARNAUBA in it..... two of my standbys. So I went to my .38-40 next as it doesn't like thin and clean from its lube. It must like Castor Oil though because it also shot as well as any lube I've used. It didn't cold start out of the group at 70F either. Two days ago when a little cool front came through I tried it again at 24F. The cold start was 1" high from the group and 5 more all touched each other at 50 yards!

At 70F my Savage .32-20 shot the cold start and the next shot touching. The group total was 3/4" at 70 yards. Six hours later it was an instant replay. Cold start and second shot touched again! A third shot opened it up to 1/2"! During the 24F morning the .32-20 cold started 1" high and 3/8" left. The next two shots touched again! Two more kept four in 5/8" at 70 yards.

Yesterday morning was 19F. I kept the loaded rounds in the freezer overnight and set the guns outside at the crack of dawn to 'normalize' for two hours. Guns were 19F when tested and ammo maybe a little colder yet. I have a Savage Model 340 .30-30 that was my Dad's that I included with the .32-20 (which I intend to hunt with this winter) The .30-30 liked the Lyman #311291 and I pushed then 1850fps. This test may indeed be harsh enough for Southern exposure, especially with all the pieces cold all the way through. But I'm going a lot colder yet fellas........ The .30-30 had a 4% powder charge reduction in the first shot. It hit 3/8" high and 3/4" left at 70 yards... The 19F gun was uncomfortable to hold.... 3 more shots were dead on and in 3/4". The .32-20 printed the first shot with 5% powder reduction 3/4" high and 1/2" left. The next two were dead on and made a touching 'figure eight'! Another shot didn't quite touch and a 1/2" 3 shot group developed. I like the old .32-20 having the rather common trait of putting two shots together touching.... I work to increase the number!

Conclusions? This lube formula thinks nothing of 19F exposure and will go much colder I'm speculating. The first cold start shot changes impact as temps drop; I'll have to figure out that pattern that develops. Reducing powder charge in cold weather strikes one almost as being opposite but seems to be working.... I hope the 'drifting left' doesn't increase as I head for 'minus' temps. I also plan to test when 'cold start' re-develops timewise as it could be just minutes in below zero exposure..... (maybe?)

I stuck my little batch of modified 'Felix' in my chest freezer at -8F. The viscosity at that temp compared very close to the viscosity of some White Label BAC that was at 65F down in my basement. Yep.... this formula is saying "Let's go colder!"

I'll post results as the mercury drops.....

Eutectic