simple lube.

[Screwbolts]

Is there a special recipe for the Carnuba based lube to be used with dryer lint and dog hair. What if there 2 types of dogs supplying the hair? Any special treatment needed for short hair verses long.

[SlippShodd]

Holy thread hijack! Sorry, Run. I was just asking because of the known contaminants in my shop that I observed when I was remelting some to pour back in the stick mold after pan lubing some boolits. Folks what don't find gunpowder, wood dust or dog hair agreeable don't do well at my house.

I don't have anything really to report back on the lube. I fired 10 test rounds out of my AR today with it, mostly to see if they flew downrange (they did) and when I ran a tight, dry patch down the bore, all I got was a kind of greasy powder fouling on the patch and 3 or 4 teeny, tiny, dust-like particles of lead. There was no observable lead in the barrel prior to the patch. To be fair, it's a very new barrel -- these rounds made a total of 145 that have been down it, 15 of which were cast. It ain't even broke in yet.
More later.

mike

[runfiverun]

heck i think i'm the king of thread drift...
they wander and come back, if we can't have some fun doing this why bother. [hand up gesture]

i think as long as the dog hair reaches the powder and the boolits base with a little compression you'll be fine no matter the dog.
if you really want a goos carnuba recipe you'll have to look at the one eutetic is working with in the quest thread it has some delicios candy sounding name.
or you could make it yourself from b-wax with 30% alox,and 10% white lith assembly grease added.
then mix that 2 sticks to 1 of lars's carnuba red [not just for the carnuba wax b.t.w.] and add 5% lanolin.
that is one of the best lubes i have ever used, but it takes a little heat to flow.
the dog hair cotton dryer-lint keeps everything fairly dry and the carnuba keeps everything shiney.

[rhbrink]

I tried the Simple lube again but like before I just can't get a decent day to do any shooting. If it warms up enough to be in the low 40's range the wind blows 25mph+. I really wanted to do some shooting at 200 yards as this is the make it or break it for me as far as accuracy goes but I couldn't keep my targets stapled to the backer so moved back to 100 and had the same results as before. I shot 50 rounds, no lead, easy clean up, no dry spots down the barrel and it shot as well as any of the preminum lubes under the same conditions. I'll try again one of these days.

RB

[taco650]

a few people have asked me about a simple easy to make lube.
and here is an easy to make no fuss lube.
the ingredients are easy to find.

i call it simple green.

4 oz's beeswax [by weight solid]
4 teaspoons of white petrolatum [vaseline]
2 teaspoons of two stroke oil [i use cd-2]
2 teaspoons of atf [i use dexron]
you can add 1/8th teaspoon of lanolin if you wish.

here is the cooking instructions.
melt the beeswax dump everything in and stir.
pour out to cool..

works in a lubrisizer with room temp,and should make a decent pan lube too.
[i don't pan lube so haven't tried it.]
you can add a third tsp of 2 stroke oil if you want it a little softer [or for quite cold weather].
it's pretty tacky but stays in the lube grooves when rattled around with other boolits.

What would you add (or subtract) to make it better suited to warmer climates? I'm in GA and it gets hot here in the summer.

[runfiverun]

nothing to begin with.
if you are gonna be out shooting in over 100-f then 3-5% carnuba is gonna help you.
this lube is a bit dry to begin with and will handle heat pretty well as is.
the vasoline is your big modifyer it softens the lube, you use a titch more for below 40-f [which is where i'd stop using the carnuba] and if under 15-20 you add a little more atf.

[cga]

For the 2 cycle oil, would it be ok to use the type that comes in the small bottles and not the quart size? The small 6.4 oz. bottle is sold by Stihl, and is what I have on hand. Makes 2 1/2 gals. of chain saw gas.

[taco650]

nothing to begin with.
if you are gonna be out shooting in over 100-f then 3-5% carnuba is gonna help you.
this lube is a bit dry to begin with and will handle heat pretty well as is.
the vasoline is your big modifyer it softens the lube, you use a titch more for below 40-f [which is where i'd stop using the carnuba] and if under 15-20 you add a little more atf.

OK thanks for the info.

[Kirk Miller]

Not being the brightest light in the harbor, I made several batches of simple lube adding or subtracting various ingredients. Eventually I remembered that I had been using red line 2-st. synthetic oil. Just could not stop the occasional purge flier. When the bulb in my brain lit up, the reason became obvious. The red line oil is too slick for use in the original recipe.

What I wound up with is this. Two tsp. red line 2-st. and 2.5 tsp. ATF. and 4 oz. b/w. It takes about five days to fully unify, but when it does, the result is a fairly soft with good smear ability. So far I've shot it in 20, 25, 35, and 40-3 degrees. Groups have held together and groups are some of the most consistent that I've shot. Now this is only in one rifle ( 222 rem mag) and may very well fall apart in warmer weather or a different rifle.

This version of modified simple lube I'm sure, is no better than the original but at least for me, is a viable alternative when using a full synthetic 2-st oil instead of just the standard 2-st.

At first I was concerned at the apparent dryness; I mean this stuff almost feels as dry as paper. The oils must release upon friction with the barrel steel because the bore appears almost wet with no leading or dry spots. The lube star is almost non-existent and dry. However, and there is always a however, I get the feeling that this lube won't hold up in the heat. If that happens, I think that a .5 tsp. reduction of ATF with the addition of one or two tsp. of vaseline might work?

Again a thanks to Gear and R5R for the motivation to play mad scientist and extend the enjoyment of my hobby.
Kirk

[runfiverun]

i use the regular stuff, just because it's cheap and easy to get.
that was the origional intent of doing this...
the synth acts a little differently, but like kirk's post above points out, you can see it's just another tweak to balance things again.

this is a good lube,and easy to play with, it takes substitutions and additions pretty easily, it will allow you to fine tune it into a rifle,and is a good pan or sizer lube.

it's just simple lube,otherwise there would be cooking directions and temperature requirements.

[geargnasher]

I've made, shot, modified, and shot some more at least four versions of lube containing Redline Racing 2-stroke as the slick ingredient, and it works great except I battled purge flyers from the get-go. Had to cut the percentage WAY back in the stuff I was using in order to reduce the flyers from every third or fourth to one or two out of the last ten in a twenty-shot string. You're not kidding it's slick stuff.

I'd suggest using a PAO instead of a POE or even a conventional or semi-synthetic two-cycle lube in the Simple Lube recipe. You can get away with more slick if you control it with metal soaps, but that is often un-necessary and defeats the whole purpose of the Simple Lube concept.

Gear

[rhbrink]

I used outboard motor 2 cycle oil, Johnson Outboard oil in the metal pop top cans some old stuff probably from back in the 60's because that's what I had. It worked so guess that it's all right I've only got 6 pints left should make a lot of lube. Might be the secret ingrediant anybody want some better get it while you can.

RB

[SlippShodd]

I used a semi-synth 2-stoke just because it was blue and made the lube turn out green. I wanted green. It's kind of a cross between OD and Zombiemax. The first five cast rounds I shot in the barrel I used Felix lube and had a big flyer. The last ten with a stiffer load and the green Simple lube all grouped together in the 2 fives I shot. The only variant in them was SR and Mag SR primers. The mags (Wolf) shot a tighter group, but I had a hangfire which made me a little pi$$y. I was still rock-solid on the bull through the click-bang and the round stayed in the cluster. I have another batch of Simple lube with conventional 2-cycle that is Desert Tan that I haven't tried yet. I'm gonna up the load and try a few with both lubes. I'm really baby-stepping my intro to cast in .223.
I'm coming down with a cold and have some odd drainage going on in my right ear. Any room for earwax in this lube?

mike

[Screwbolts]

Not sure on the earwax, but, IMHO, some ball powders don't always like wolf primers. I know with all my lots of WC844 wolf will give me a hang fire occasionally. The wolf work well with TAC, and all extruded powders I have tried them with.

[runfiverun]

throw it in
if you got 4 oz's of it i could work sumthin up to make it shoot.
i don't wanna be there when you melt it down though [shudder]

[Screwbolts]

I'm really baby-stepping my intro to cast in .223.


mike

IMHO there is no need to baby step for the 223, both the NOE 225-55 FN and the Mihec Nato boolitz have been and still are a lot of fun out of ARs.

The Simple Lube is working great!

[taco650]

I used a semi-synth 2-stoke just because it was blue and made the lube turn out green. I wanted green. It's kind of a cross between OD and Zombiemax. The first five cast rounds I shot in the barrel I used Felix lube and had a big flyer. The last ten with a stiffer load and the green Simple lube all grouped together in the 2 fives I shot. The only variant in them was SR and Mag SR primers. The mags (Wolf) shot a tighter group, but I had a hangfire which made me a little pi$$y. I was still rock-solid on the bull through the click-bang and the round stayed in the cluster. I have another batch of Simple lube with conventional 2-cycle that is Desert Tan that I haven't tried yet. I'm gonna up the load and try a few with both lubes. I'm really baby-stepping my intro to cast in .223.
I'm coming down with a cold and have some odd drainage going on in my right ear. Any room for earwax in this lube?

mike

What color does the "original recipe" come out? Got pics?

[SlippShodd]

Original Recipe on the left, Extra Crispy... er, Semi-Synthetic on the right. Both minor dog hair and sawdust, zero earwax content. No dryer lint filler used with NOE 225-55.
BTW, RunFiveRun's original formula was green with a non-synthetic 2-stroke.

mike

[runfiverun]

mine come out a titch lighter green than the one on the right.
color don't matter.
i really should have just called it simple lube like we do now.
but i had purple,yellow,brown,black,OD-green,and O-D brown lubes all going at the time.
and some of them had other designations like A or Li or E- or [M]
designating a stearate, or whether it was modified.
color and letter code is easy for me to keep straight.

[taco650]

So the 2-stroke oil gives it the color? Guess I could add a crayon if I wanted to really change the color but that would probably make it a little harder/waxier.