This lube, that lube, what lube?

[btroj]

Ummm, you have sodium silicate. That is vastly different from sodium stearate.

[C. Latch]

I mixed roughly equal parts lithium grease (blue, from the automotive section at walmart, sold as marine grease) and beeswax and have been satisfied with it at pistol speeds up to 1250' (fastest I've went thus far) and ~1800ish in my micro-grooved 30-30.

No leading thus far. I chose this because I had beeswax, could get grease at WM, and it was easy to mix (warm it up, stir, cool, repeat), and I wanted something that would work for hand-lubing. It works fine for hand-lubing; I'll start with a glob of it that's a bit cool and by the time I handle it a bit it's softened up enough to be easy to work with, and the excess cleans off easily.

[geargnasher]

Ummm, you have sodium silicate. That is vastly different from sodium stearate.

I couldn't make out for sure if he got sodium stearate from Amazon and water glass from another place, or what. I give up.

Gear

[Sekatoa]

Sorry about. I'm still pretty new at the homemade lube addiction.

Yep, you are right btroj. That'll teach me to post before I verify what I have. I had actually purchased the product from Amazon as water glass for another purpose. When I read the ingredients for Felix lube, I remembered it wrong I guess, and thought what I had was correct. I'm usually very careful about verifying ingredients, but this once slipped by. Explains why the first batch didn't turn out well.

However, the second batch seemed good, using the sodium silicate in place of the sodium stearate accidently. I have not shot any loads with it yet, but who knows, maybe I'm onto something. Lube masters, correct me if I'm wrong (and you will), but I believe the stearate is a binder for the other ingredients. The sodium silicate, when dried, broken into chips, and stirred in slowly over low heat until completely dissolved, seems to have achieved this in the end product. We will see at the range when I can get there next.

Well, I don't want to derail this thread any further. But here is what I got from Amazon just for clarification....



Dave

[runfiverun]

sodium stearate is kind of a binder it is also a lube but more importantly it's a gellant for the mineral oil.
the mineral oil is used to polymerize the castor oil. [it takes the heat well]
the castor oil is the real lubricant.
however the stearate holds the castor oil in place in the wax being used, the same as it works to hold oils into a grease.
the high heat used to make felix and several other lubes is to alloy the stearate to break down and re-form with the oil on a molecular level.

[Petrol & Powder]

I'm an old reloader and a newer' caster. I'll add my endorsement to White Label Lube. Their products (50-50 and BAC) worked far better for me than the mass market commercial stuff.

[AndyC]

White Label Lube for me, too - nice folks, great products, great prices.

I first used their BAC lube in my .45acp, but while it worked great and needed no heat, it was too tacky/sticky for my tastes. Moved over to their Carnauba Red which is a bit harder (and therefore needs a little heat) - so I added an aluminum plate under my lube-sizer, sat a cheap steam-iron on the plate at low temp - voila! Instant heaven

[Elkins45]

Heh.

If I had to lubesize every single boolit I cast for handguns, it's virtually guaranteed that I would stop casting. I've gone back and forth over the years from lubeiszing to tumble-lubing back to lubesizing and for the past few years, if it gets fired in a handgun (exception being 9mm, which I just about don't cast for anymore anyhow), it gets tumble-lubed with 45/45/10.

All .358 boolits and all .452 boolits get tumble-lubed. Using a stick lube on .45ACP is simply a waste of lube and the time it takes to apply it. I've been pushing some seriously hot .357 Magnums for several years now with 45/45/10--no leading, consistent and steady accuracy. When I'm feeling particularly masochistic, I cast up some .356 102RN boolits for the .380ACP. Lubesizing them would drive me crazy.

Rifle boolits? They all go through the lubesizer.

I do not pain-lube. I'd rather come out of retirement and go to work for the BLM being a taser dummy than go through the madness of pain-lubing, which for the new members is what I refer pan-lubing as.

For Cowboy Action shooting loads and ammo? Tumble-lube it, load it, shoot it and be done with it. Concentrate your lube and sizing efforts on your long gun stuff.

My sentiments exactly. The only thing I would add is that I run full-bore 44 magnum boolets that have lube groves through the sizer, since they might be asked to travel down the bore of a 20" rifle someday instead of a 5" pistol. Still, my most used 44 boolet is the Lee 240 tumble lube tossed in LLA or Recluse lube.

I mixed roughly equal parts lithium grease (blue, from the automotive section at walmart, sold as marine grease) and beeswax and have been satisfied with it at pistol speeds up to 1250' (fastest I've went thus far) and ~1800ish in my micro-grooved 30-30.

No leading thus far. I chose this because I had beeswax, could get grease at WM, and it was easy to mix (warm it up, stir, cool, repeat), and I wanted something that would work for hand-lubing. It works fine for hand-lubing; I'll start with a glob of it that's a bit cool and by the time I handle it a bit it's softened up enough to be easy to work with, and the excess cleans off easily.

You made lithibee, a well-respected and versatile lube that will handle just about any pistol use and most normal rifle shooting as well. You could do much worse.

[AggiePharmD]

Shew. Now my head is spinning and it ain't from the communal wine at the church house. I'm gonna have to read most of this again but I think I get the idea of it all. Mostly I've got way more to learn and too much to read. Keep the info coming and thanks again.