Homemade Lube, Geargnasher's SL68 recipe

[geargnasher]

.........

Gear

[btroj]

No faith, eh?

[geargnasher]

Not that. Unguators, soap, and hot wax in the back room, eh? All-female tech staff? All you're missing is a midget in a clown suit.....

Gear

[willie_pete]

I have a neat little device at work I might need to try. Ever heard of an Unguator? Lots of shear force applied by a spinning blade in there. Might let me mix the beeswax and sodium grease better without burning the wax.

I will need to give it a shot.

Sounds like some some sort of homogenizer; generally used to make oil-in-water or water-in -oil emulsions.

wP

[btroj]

Nah, no melted wax. I hope. It will mix some reasonably thick stuff. Maybe make a grease, add it to some melted wax and let it get a bit thick, but not too much. Put it in a jar, add a blade, and mix away.

should be smooth and creamy after a few minutes.

And Gear, those female techs are xperts with this stuff. They do the compounding, not me.

[runfiverun]

I wonder if it's the sugars burning, if so the water suggestion would or could pick those out of the wax.
we might have to look at modifying the wax ourself.
baking soda is pretty ph neutral stuff and is an alkaline too it might be of some use here.

[runfiverun]

Ohh when I was making the gel and adding it back into the wax I just melted the wax and blended in the gel and it mixed pretty well
i then just worked the cooled mix by hand folding it over on itself, then a re-melt brought everything together.

[btroj]

Would repeated melt and cool cycles help get it all mixed? What about a prolonged heat cycle at a lower temp with stirring from time to time? Sort of the way Ben makes his lube. Low heat, longer time.

[btroj]

I wonder if it's the sugars burning, if so the water suggestion would or could pick those out of the wax.
we might have to look at modifying the wax ourself.
baking soda is pretty ph neutral stuff and is an alkaline too it might be of some use here.

If the wax was "rendered" using a hot water bath how much sugar would be left?

[willie_pete]

Making organic UV dyes in 4000 gallon reactors, we generally washed 2-3 times with continuous stirring to remove impurities. Each successive wash would remove by a factor of ten or so. If there was a lot of Hexa-methyl bad stuff in the beeswax one wash wouldn't get a lot of it out.

wP

[Grump]

Not that. Unguators, soap, and hot wax in the back room, eh? All-female tech staff? All you're missing is a midget in a clown suit.....
Gear

You mean Btroj isn't a midget?

I never knew...shouldn't draw conclusions from what he wears, eh?

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

So if I were to make SL68 with part beeswax/part Microwax, it sounds prudent to keep the 'other' ingrediants on the burner as they enter the clear stage, near 460º, add the melted beeswax, expect gel stage from the beeswax cooling the mix, stir quick and continue to heat til blended well, then remove from the heat and have a quick ice cooling crash setup ready... and expect some scorching, which will be nice to have some color, but hopefully not damage the components in beeswax that we need (whatever they are ?)

also, I have three different high melt temp microwax samples, from different sources...none of which, I may be able to get more of...So I'm thinking of blending equal portions of each into the recipe, making a possibly more desireable complex wax base, and prolonging my stash...and then if I were to runout of the one wax I use, I wouldn't have the fear of change to the formula due to that. Make sense ?

Maybe I'm putting the cart before the horse, but that is what I tend to do.

Well, I did just this a few days ago.

Wax content:
1/4 --175º MW
1/4 --185º MW
1/4 --190º MW
1/4 --Beeswax

I'm calling this SL68B.

I feel I had success ! and premelting the Beeswax IS the secret to limiting the time the beeswax is exposed to high temps that scorch it. As well as cold crashing the mix after it's poured into a baking sheet. My expectations in the first quote is exactly what happened.

a couple photos...everyone loves photos...

Hot Gel state, right before this pan was put in a snow bank.


Completely cooled, then pealed off the wax paper and brought back to room temp.


I filled a lubesizer with a .311 die installed and began lubesizing some NOE 310 165Gr. FN (XCB). The room was about 50º and no heat was needed for this lube to flow. Honestly I think that is pretty incredible. It does have a light 'greasy' feel, but it's not tacky like many other soft lubes. Next up will be some test loads in 30-06.


=========================
edited 7-27-2015 "added recipe details below.

This is a slightly modified recipe of Ian's SL68. With Ian's guidance, I choose to use the three different microwaxes I had and Beeswax in place of the 2 oz of 180ºMW he used. The reason for 0.7 oz of BW is, that is the amount I measured out for pre-melting and guesstimated that 0.2 oz would cling to that pot when I poured the BW into the mix, per the recipe.

SL68B

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons 90-wt GL-1 gear oil
2 tablespoons generic white petrolatum
1 tablespoon heavy mineral oil (laxative grade from pharmacy)
1/2 tablespoon castor bean oil (also from pharmacy)
2 ounces fresh Ivory soap (soft, damp).

Waxes:
0.5 ounces 175º MW
0.5 ounces 185º MW
0.5 ounces 190º MW
0.7 ounces BW

Instructions:
>Melt everything except the soap and BW.
>Then add the soap (which should have been previously sliced into slivers with a paring knife) and allow to foam off all the water.
>Gently heat, stirring occasionally, until the mix becomes a light clear amber liquid with no gel or clumps of soap remaining.
>It should be around 460F, I choose not to use a thermometer, it just complicates things.
>Then add the BW (Beeswax), it should be pre-melted, The mix will Gel-up, because the Beeswax will cool the mix back into the Gel state.
>Continue to heat 'carefully', but as quick as possible, til it's fully clear amber liquid again whiling stirring.
>Then Immediately pour into chilled molds/baking sheet covered with wax paper or such and allow to "set" until cool.

[geargnasher]

Jon, you're due for a Soap Lube merit badge! Methinks it will do well. Part of the object with this lube is to have a very high melt-point end product that still flows well at colder temperatures. Being "soft" is one of the attributes that makes it more of a "one size fits all" lube that functions at extremely mild velocities as well as top end and will also work in large, deep, square lube grooves as well as very small or multiple groove bullet designs.

My first and only batch of SL-68 was a bit firmer than I like, but it goes liquid under pressure quickly when fired, so in function being a little firmer than I like doesn't matter much....but I haven't run it through a sizer yet, either. One of the objects of 68.1 and subsequent versions was to make it a tick softer so for sure no heater would be required to apply it. I'm glad the beeswax and multi-microwax blend turned out a little softer for you.

Gear

[runfiverun]

that's just it I'm not sure on the sugar removal.
I do make some better lubes with an older more refined harder yellow wax than I do with some newer darker softer stuff I have.
I don't know enough about stripping molecules to make a guess as to whether you'd need to use an alcohol a water or some type of alkaline process.
I have seen all of them used for different things like stripping caffeine from coffee beans, and extracting cocoa powder from cocoa beans.

[willie_pete]

If it is just sugars a water wash or two should be sufficient. Heat with water, stir with good water and wax agitation, cool and drain off water.

WP

[runfiverun]

it might be worth a try to help the wax take a tick more heat.
thanks Willie.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Range report today.
25º F and overcast and calm.
30-06 Winchester Model 70 pre-64, I bought it used a couple years ago, it looks to have been fired very little and I've never shot it til today. I installed a scope on it yesterday and bore sighted that.

I loaded 25 rounds, with the NOE 310 165 FN XCB that were cast with "fan cooled" COWW(more on that later) with no extra tin added and were lubed with SL68B in a Lyman 45 with a .311 die and the boolits were .3105 x .3115 before sizing. The load was 34.3 H335 which I calculated to be around 2100 FPS.

Last night I thoroughly cleaned the bore with Hoppes Copper bore cleaning solvent til the patches came out fairly clean. Then a couple patches with Ed's Red. The Rifle and Ammo spent the night in the truck, to give them a Chill.

All shots today were from the 100 yd bench.

The First four shoots were in a 1.5" group shoot, about 20" above the point of aim. I didn't have my camera along to take a photo of that group in the plywood backer.

I adjusted the Scope for the following shooting, but I ran out of adjustment about 2" shy...So I was at the edge of adjustment...I not sure if that effects anything or not ? but I'll have to fix that with some offset insert for the burris rings I'm using.

Now that the scope was kinda sighted in, I set up the chrono...I have a love-hate relationship with this Pact 1 chrono, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It did work most of the time today.

I fired 10 shoots, The target paper is 8.5" x 11" and the 10 targets are 2" in diameter. Average speed was about 2000fps, but some were going as slow as 1925 and a couple as fast as 2100. And yeah not the greatest group, especially after the first 4 fouler shots were so nice.



Below are the next and last 10 shots). After the third shot in this group, that'd be the two low fliers and one was off the paper(high), I was discouraged, but I started thinking that this load didn't get anywhere near filling the case, so the last 7 shoots, I tipped the rifle back for each shot, to shift the powder charge against the primer. The chrono said those 7 shots were going about 2100fps, I didn't clear the memory, so I didn't get the SD and such for just those 7 shots, but I'd say they were within a ± 15fps and those 7 shots were in just a bit more than a 2" group. That tells me a lot.





Another thing I noticed, I had a few (4 of the 25 rounds) fired cases with a sliver if lead hanging off the edge of the case mouth, like the one second from the top on the far left.



Lastly, and surely one of the highlights of todays range visit, was that the local police were setup (but hadn't arrived yet) for the second day of their multi-day winter shooting training. So I got to scratch, out of the ice and snow, a couple hundred rounds of 1x R+P 45acp and about a hundred rounds of 1x Winchester 223


So, the conclusion of this "initial" SL68B Lube test:
Those first four shots from a cold clean barrel that had a slight residue of Ed's Red is sure promising ...and hopefully not a coinkydink.

[geargnasher]

Something's out of whack, sounds like maybe the fore-end is putting a lot of upward pressure on the barrel, take a look at that.

Metal slivers, got those myself with soft alloy. That discussion would go a lot better between two telephones.

Gear

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I haven't pulled the stock off of this gun before, sounds like I need to and check it out...the trigger could stand to be adjusted a bit as well.
Jon

[Bjornb]

What Gear said. In my limited experience it looks like your lube is the least of your worries. Your rifle should be checked and tested to make sure that it will shoot reliably until hot with ANY kind of load, cast or jacketed.

Also consider this: You are getting close to velocities in a 10-twist 30-06 where every little detail becomes a potential obstacle to accuracy. Your amount of H335 in the case could possibly use a tuft of dacron, evenly sized bullets, weight sorted bullets, squarely crimped on gas checks. Ask me how I figured out all these things.