Homemade Lube, Geargnasher's SL68 recipe

[geargnasher]

I'm getting low. Might get together on this? Anyone else?

Gear

[Eutectic]

I'm getting low. Might get together on this? Anyone else?

Gear

Put me please.... for 5 lbs. Ian.

Eutectic

[Grump]

IF it works, I happen to like "Odysseus Lube". Or something similar indicating this thing is like the Golden Fleece* or something.

Things like Journey, Quest and Extreme don't quite do it for me.

There, it's taken care of just in case no one thinks to ask me. And that's all the input I dare attempt.



* Cleaning out my Dad's pickup truck, I found that the work light, flares, and first aid kit and a few other odds and ends were in a very old thin wood box--similar wood to old fruit crates. It was from Morris P. Kirk & Son Inc. with locations in LA, SLC Oakland, Portland, Phoenix and another place, and was labeled as containing 50 pounds of lead wool. Huh? Steel wool I know, but lead??? Wonder if he ordered that for MZ balls and Minie balls, the bulk of his stash consisting of USGI rifle bullet cores he melted out when he had a LOT more time than money--think that stuff's 3% antimony... Lead wool I surmise just might be super-easy to melt/smelt for working up alloys. Anyone ever heard of that stuff?? Lead fleece???

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Lead wool was used to seal pipe joints (in cast Iron Pipe), much like Oakum.

[btroj]

I have never seen a lead sheep......

Guys, 10 pounds seems like a bunch but after you make some different lubes it goes pretty fast really.

Gear, we need to open a business selling lube experiments. I have lots of stuff available of anyone is interested. Some never even got used.

[geargnasher]

Samples sent to Eutectic and Bruce381 yesterday.

I would like to do a little more wax investigation before jumping off in another massive MW180 order, perhaps the yellow high-temp microwax or one of the special blends. I've used the 160 microwax a bit and I think it would work fine, it just basically has more oils in it than the 180 does. I don't have time to do the research again right now, too many other projects. What we have right now with the 180 is plenty good to keep us busy all winter testing SL-68 and the .1,.2., and .3 variants.

Gear

[5Shot]

What are the vairations (.1, .2, .3)?

[geargnasher]

Just messing around trying to get a little better feel to the lube and make one ingredient replace three in SL-68. Jury is still out on whether the lube shoots as well with these changes.

Gear

[leftiye]

Glad youse guys are back discussing lubes. You've spoiled me on lubes. I'm almost sure nothing on the market will compare with these. Except FWFL, and 666, and maybe a couple others.

[Bjornb]

Gear,
I know you're not a big fan of Alox, but do you know if anybody has tried a 50/50 mix of straight, gooey 2138F and MW 180? I'm trying to buy a couple of gallons of the stuff from a member here (if we can figure out how to ship it without committing a federal offense), and as you know I just got in 10 lbs. of wax from Blended. I'm thinking about a possible improvement on the NRA formula of 50/50 Alox/Beeswax by using a more heat resistant wax, and nothing else in the mix.

[geargnasher]

I thought about trying that, too, long ago. It might be worth a try, the old NRA-50-50 formula has done a lot of people well for a lot of years. My issues with it involve barrel fouling accumulation at higher velocities, requiring frequent cleanings (as often as every ten rounds) to maintain accuracy. I never really had a problem with high temperature or long-term storage with the NRA stuff.

My understanding of the 2138F is that it contains something like seven percent microwax, and that the exact amount used was determined through many, lengthy tests done by the NRA where the proportions were worked around quite a bit and that ONE was found best, mixed 50/50 with yellow beeswax. Subbing more microwax for the beeswax may or may not help, I'd be inclined to say not so much, but who knows.

Gear

[Eutectic]

I guess in the land of lube making I have two addictions...

One is castor oil and the other is Alox 350.

Alox 350 is what you will get these days Bjornb; unless someone has made it into Alox 2138F by the microwax addition that Gear mentioned. Much of the NRA 50/50 lube you buy today is maybe 60/40 instead with more beeswax % with the now available Alox 350 to get comparable firmness..

Why can't I kick Alox 350? I guess because in the real world it is used a lot as a wetting agent for cutting fluids and such.
It has the ability to 'stay' where the heat and action are. Still sounds like a boolit lube additive to me! I only use 15% these days (and that only sometimes) and then usually with a little polyolester to tame its fouling abilities. That seems to control fouling.... but like 50/50 it gives periodic purge fliers. Gear is right..... at high % it will build up in the bore. Something to think about with 10 shot groups and all.

Alox 350 is nothing like Alox 606. Alox 606 thinned with solvent is Lee Liquid Alox. I've always thought it a tenacious additive for make a tough lube groove lube. It is tough even at 5% but you might see the accuracy failing during your first 10 shot group.!!

Not sure if that 2500 lube has Alox 350 in it or not. It would be lower % if it does I'd think.

I used to like Dexron III in lube too. BUT it too flings those dreaded off and on purge flyers. Thin oils? Hummph! Gear is closer with that 140 wgt.

So Bjornb, making a superb boolit lube is simple! You just have to tame and get C.O.R.E. ALWAYS under control!! That should be easy, huh?

Unlike Gear, I'm just a greenhorn at lube cookin'. Why I don't think I have over 50 or 60 pounds of test lubes in 4oz batches of samples I've tried!

AND C.O.R.E. continues to elude us!!!!!!!!!!

Eutectic

[btroj]

Eutectic, you just love to rub that Alox in Gear's face, don't you?

What the differences in approach tells you is that there is more than one way to make things work. These two guys also tend to shoot in polar opposite temps windows, Gear is in the heat of Hades and Eutectic shoots at temps where my gun requests to stay home, and I oblige!

I need to get back to lube testing except it interferes with accuracy testing and playing with the lathe. Anyone got a recipe for more time?

[Bjornb]

I guess in the land of lube making I have two addictions...

One is castor oil and the other is Alox 350.

Alox 350 is what you will get these days Bjornb; unless someone has made it into Alox 2138F by the microwax addition that Gear mentioned. Much of the NRA 50/50 lube you buy today is maybe 60/40 instead with more beeswax % with the now available Alox 350 to get comparable firmness..

Why can't I kick Alox 350? I guess because in the real world it is used a lot as a wetting agent for cutting fluids and such.
It has the ability to 'stay' where the heat and action are. Still sounds like a boolit lube additive to me! I only use 15% these days (and that only sometimes) and then usually with a little polyolester to tame its fouling abilities. That seems to control fouling.... but like 50/50 it gives periodic purge fliers. Gear is right..... at high % it will build up in the bore. Something to think about with 10 shot groups and all.

Alox 350 is nothing like Alox 606. Alox 606 thinned with solvent is Lee Liquid Alox. I've always thought it a tenacious additive for make a tough lube groove lube. It is tough even at 5% but you might see the accuracy failing during your first 10 shot group.!!

Not sure if that 2500 lube has Alox 350 in it or not. It would be lower % if it does I'd think.

I used to like Dexron III in lube too. BUT it too flings those dreaded off and on purge flyers. Thin oils? Hummph! Gear is closer with that 140 wgt.

So Bjornb, making a superb boolit lube is simple! You just have to tame and get C.O.R.E. ALWAYS under control!! That should be easy, huh?

Unlike Gear, I'm just a greenhorn at lube cookin'. Why I don't think I have over 50 or 60 pounds of test lubes in 4oz batches of samples I've tried!

AND C.O.R.E. continues to elude us!!!!!!!!!!

Eutectic

Thanks for your dissertation! I knew that entering the dark underworld of lube making would be fraught with danger, but what the heck.
A member here is selling a partial 5-gallon pail of what's marked Alox 2138F, and I'm trying to get it shipped down here. That's why I asked the question of Gear; I'm pretty much clueless as to the various lube properties and have been content using Lars Lubes for all my shooting. It would be an experiment, and I figured I'd ask before doing something that had been tried and possibly failed.

[Grump]

Besides having that tendency to cake up the bore in longer sessions and ?unpredictably? produce purge flyers, aren't all the variations of Alox the stuff that makes mostly traditional lubes stink so much in the raw?

That was the worst part of pointing the blow dryer at all the nooks and crannies of the 450--all that smell being force-circulated around the room. At least that's how I remember it.

[bruce381]

not much help but shot 100 round or so of the #68 at steel shoot and No leading, smells bad, accuracy good as LARS BAC only shot pistol at 25 yards. used 90F heat in lyman sizer.

[geargnasher]

Oh, yeah, it does stink a bit, sorry. Maybe I should add some potpourri oil? How did the smoke level compare for you to BAC?

Gear

[stephen m weiss]

Pardon my ignorance. I get so confused by all the qualitative descriptions of physical/chemical behaviors. What are the proposed root cause(s) of a lube causing a flyer? Have these been verified? What property of the proposed solution lube is supposed to fix this failure mode?

I am interested in the topic, I just dont understand the issues.

I took a few shots at making my own lube, but I only got one that worked well for case sizing. Using melted milk jug for bullet lube was a disaster, lol smelly, unworkable, and burned the crud outta my toe. (Now I wear boots). It seems those carbon chains are just too long to melt before burning.

Thx again!

[btroj]

One common cause of flyers is lube purging. Shoot a lube that leaves a real wet bore in summer heat. Group is fine for 4 or 5 shots then one goes high. Next 4 or 5 go back to the group then another one goes high. Pattern repeats, usually it is predictable within a shot or two after a while. Theory is that the lube film builds up for a few rounds then gets pushed out by the shot that goes high, hence the term purging. Often you can see a difference in the dark ring around the bullet holes in the target, the purging shot is often darker around the hole from lube on the nose from the purging.

Has it been verified? Oh yes, many times. Lubes that leave a wet bore are notorious for this. This is a large part of the reason for the "Extreme lube quest", to find a lube that handles cold and summer heat without first shot flyers in cold or lube purging in summer heat.

[geargnasher]

I've actually made a functional grease by melting flakes of HDPE (water jug) into Delo 15W-40 diesel oil. I gave up on plastic grease thickeners because they leave a haze of plastic in the bore.

"Purge flyers" have been verified numerous times, and generally are caused by a lube that's too "wet", or slippery, or doesn't clear out of the bore the same way every shot. They can be identified and eliminated by pushing a dry patch through the bore after each shot, and corrected by using a lube with less of the slippery constituent or substituting a less slippery one. Most synthetic (PAO oils in particular) oils are simply too slippery and cause everything from cyclic flyers every three-five shots to just larger group dispersions compared to a different lube with the same load.

Read at least the first page of the Extreme Lube sticky where all this is laid out. Also, check the sticky "some tips that may help" in the main Castboolits sub-forum for some good discussions about some problems that have been identified with many common lubes in certain climates and types of guns which some of us are still trying, after several years, to fix.

Gear