I need some pan lube tricks

[rhouser]

My first big pan lubing process is done and the bullets are sized and ready for loading. It was not horrible, but, I have some lessons learned and some issues/problems that I believe that you veterans out there know the easy solution.

Lessons learned:
1. Getting 75 bullets to stand up in a 9" cake pan can best be done by trimming 3 plastic 50 round commercial bullet flats to fit in the pan, place the boxes on a piece of 1/4 inch plywood, fill them with bullets (base up), put your pan on top then "flip" the whole thing over keeping the sandwich held together (like filling the primer tray for a priming tool). KEEP THE LID ON till the pan is sitting on the hot plate burner, then, remove your bullet flats leaving the bullets standing on their bases in perfect array.

2. Level your hotplate BEFORE adding the melted lube to the pan. This will prevent some lubed to the crimp groove and some lubed to the 2nd lube ring.

3. Don't leave you melting lube (on the second burner of my hot plate) uncovered and unattended if it is windy. I fished out a leaf and a small beetle of some sort out of the melting lube.

4. Don't bump the table while the bullets are warming and before the lube is in place. You have to wait for them to cool down before you can start and restack them into the pan. (They fall like dominos).

Issues/questions:
1. How hot should the bullets be for a preheat. Mine were too hot to pick up (when I knocked them all down by bumping the table). Can this heat soften the bullets?

2. My cake cutter worked perfectly, but, the outside picked up large chunks of wax from around each bullet. The wad stuck to the ouside of the cutter gets bigger by the bullet and then falls off onto the noses of the remaining bullets. My finished lube pan does NOT look like I can just put new bullets into the old holes. It looks like a pan of gravel made out of wax.

Question: Should I spray my cutter with PAM or something? Should I chill the pan in the refrigerator before I use my cutter? Some of you veterans post pictures of a perfect pan of lube with little holes remaining? Mine is like a plowed field.

I want to buy a couple of Hard Lubes to understand what HARD is when dealing with Lubes. I was thinking of ordering a small amount of Carnuba Red and a small amount LBT commercial. I believe that these can be considered to be at the Hard end of the spectrum? Since I intend to pan lube only, is there any reason why harder wouldn't be better?

Ok thats enough. First Pan Lube went ok. Thanks for any input so that I can make the next session better.

rc

[Dan Cash]

You may have to change the lube formula you use but the use of a cake cutter is not necessary nor is preheating your bullets.. Try using 9 inch square flat bottom cake pans. Use a 50 cartridge loading block to orient the bullets. Two blocks side by side fit the 9 inch pans. Your procedure is not bad but you are going to extra work. A hard lube probably won't work for pan lube as it is brittle. It might if you catch the melt at the right temp. and press the bullets out A beeswax and vegetable/neatsfoot oil lube with lanolin will stick to the bullets with out pre heating, will shrink from the pan when cool and will stand velocity to 2200fps. Will also work equally for black powder and smokeless.

[mdi]

I always heat the bullets and lube together. I use a toaster oven in my shop @ 175 degrees or so. When they are heated to the same temperature, the lube adheres to the bullet better. Some of my favorite recipes for lube don't allow for "punching out" the bullets from the cake so I use a cutter (stainless steel tubing honed/reamed to about .004" to .006" over bullet diameter). My Speed Green sticks to the outside of the cutter, but I twist the cutter as I insert it and withdraw it and the amount that sticks isn't a problem, I just wipe it off every 10 or 12 bullets.

For me, hard or soft don't have a definative defination, so I bought some lube. I have some Caranuba Red which seems firm but sticky to me that doesn't fit as "soft", and some Speed Green from randyrat and that may be "hard" but not as hard as lube on commercial cast bullets I bought years ago. My home made lubes fall somewhere between C.R. and Speed Grn....

[tcbnick]

I may not be a veteran, I'm on the newbe end of the pan lube scale, but what I have learned is that I think mine turn out better when I heat my boolets just to the point to were they are almost to hot to handle but you still can without discomfort. The problem with your lube sticking to your cutter, mine did to intill I let my lube cool a little more. I try cutting one and if that sticks, then wait a few min and try again, you will find the right time and temp. If it gets to hard to cut just warm the whole thing up again and try again. As far as how hard is hard, I bought some CR and BAC from LARS ( they sell a sample pack) one bag of each, tried both for ease of panning and shooting quality, then I ended up using 1/2 CR and 1/2 BAC melted together and have not had any problems with pan lubing or in my barrels.
Hope this helps

[Suo Gan]

You asked some questions and it seems you are perfecting your system. I have adopted Ranch Dogs system and it works very well for 99% of my shooting and has kept me from needing a Star.

The system I use is:

1) Put a gas check on them if needed.
2) Spray them with WD-40
3) Run them through a Lee sizing die
4) Have the LEE Liquid Alox in your little crock pot that is cut with mineral spirits and thinned so that bullets can be dipped and coated in one pass.
5) Grab a bullet with a small pair of channel locks and dip it in the crock pot filled with LLA.
6) place them upright on a tray to dry.
7) Use the Wax Meister tool or another kake cutter, or run them through the Lee sizer again to remove the excess wax. The Wax Meister works beautifully for this.
8) Put the bullets from the Wax Meister right into your bullet storage container.

LLA works very well for me (I use White Label), its only downfall is that it stinks. I have not gone above 2500fps though, and for what I shoot I pretty much am around 2000fps. Leading has not been an issue for me.

I have not shot competitively but I do plan to in the future, we will see how far this system takes me.

I do not fool around with the pan lube and use this modified form of the kake kutter method. This system allows me to cycle a large volume of bullets quite rapidly. The Star would be faster but there are trade offs with them too.

Good luck.

[Bullet Caster]

Sounds like me at my first attempt to pan lube. Keep trying, you'll eventually get it right. Practice makes, well, sorta "perfect". Lol. BC

[john hayslip]

The way I do it is to stand the bullets up in the tray and pour melted wax in to the level I want. I am afraid of the potential of a fire if heating bullet lube directly over the fire. I always heat mine in a double boiler until it's liquid. Then I just get the whole cake out of the pan after it has solidified and push the bullets out base first ( a pusher of some sort can save sore thumbs).
I think the lube I use is attributed to Barry Darr and is about 55% paraffin and 45% vaseline with a tablespoon or two of the old honey like RCBS case lube. Enough paraffin to keep the lube hard on a hot day
No need to preheat the bullets or cooling of the pan.
The resulting cake with holes can be easily broken up for remelting.

[Arnie]

Use some bullet trays like the foam ones for 45 caliber .Shave them down so the holes are open all the way through.Place them in your lube tray and then set the bullets in each hole .Lift the foam trays off gently and then heat and pour in your lube .Now after the lube is set ,remove the lube cake and set it on more trays of the same kind only with closed bottoms and push on each bullet and they will pop loose and fall into the trays . Leave the lube block as is and set more bullets into it and reheat again and it will make life simpler . Arnie

[gundownunder]

I'm new to pan lubing but I stand my bullets up in a pan and add melted lube to the right level then use a cookie cutter when the lube has set pretty hard. I tried to push the bullets out but the lube pulled out of the grooves on most of them so I guess my lube isn't suitable for that method. once I have a pan with lube and bullet holes I just reinsert new bullets into the holes and then heat the whole thing up with an electric blow torch, and keep repeating that and adding a little extra lube when needed to maintain the correct level. I haven't really checked but I think with one pan I can probably lube about 100 an hour, 2 pans would be quicker or I just do other stuff while lube is drying.

[shovel80]

I shoot my .45 Caliber , Lyman Postell Boolets As Cast, I stand them up in a pan at what ever temp they are, pour in the lube, SPG, just too the top of the upper lube groove, and wait for the lube to cool. When the lube is fairly cool, but not completely hardened yet, I slightly wiggle the boolits and pull them straight up out of the lube. So far, this has worked well for me, with the grooves being completely full.

Terry

[loiner1965]

i now upgraded to a star but had great success pan lubing.....i used to use an old fired case with the head cut off to remove bullets from tray... just place over bullet twist and pull up at an angle and move on to the next one....excess bullets exit from the top lol

[oldfart1956]

I use a very simple pan lube. 50/50 beeswax&olive oil so this might not work for other lubes. Anyway, tried the cookie cutter idea and what a p.i.t.a. that was. I'd rather rip my eyeballs out with pliers. Somebody here tipped me off to just let the lube cool till it's just above room temp and using a pair of pliers grab ahold of the nose and pop it out. Literally. When it's just right you'll hear a popping/sucking sound when it releases. Don't wiggle it...the lube peels off sometimes. Just grab ahold and pull straight up. POP! No need to pre-heat the boolits just stick more back in the now open holes and re-melt. I sit the pan (9 in. rd. cake pan) on top of a 2qt. sauce pan with water simmering. The lube melts quick, cools quick. The hard part is finding a cake pan that's actually flat! Audie...the Oldfart..