Need a good, non-melting hot weather lube

[Blackwater]

I live in S.E. Georgia, where it gets hot as a 2 dollar pistol in summer. I sometimes keep a gun in my glove box where it's at least out of sight and thus, a lesser temptation to someone who might break the glass and make off with it. No sense in tempting the impressionable. I usually carry a little .380 in my pocket, but a .45 in the glove box, and it's the .45 (or other) that I worry about in summer. Don't want the lube melting and killing the powder or primer!

What can I add to stiffen the lube and keep it from melting in summer here? JPW? Gulf wax? It can get to 150 degrees inside a car allowed to sit for very long, and that's a mighty high temp for a lube to be put through, so if anyone has any suggestions, I'd appreciate hearing them, and thanks in advance for your input.

[mattw]

I would suggest LBT Commercial Blue, very solid yet I do not get any leading with it.

[runfiverun]

150 is about the melt point for bees-wax and is the scorch point for lanolin.

carnuba wax's melt point is 180-f.
I would take a cue from eutetics cold weather lube and modify some carnuba wax with an alcohol ester based oil. [2 stroke non synthetic] just enough to flow through your lube sizer.

[Dale53]

I have been using Lars White Label Carnauba Red for several years and tens of thousands of bullets. It does require heat for the lube/sizer to flow properly but I have had no problems with it creating a problem in a hot car. I've seen it well over 100 degrees here (in spite of the fact I live in Southern Ohio) and Lord only knows how hot it gets in the car but definitely HOT!

Lars has excellent prices and great products:

http://lsstuff.com/

His add is on the bottom of this page...

Dale53

[dragon813gt]

Another vote for White Label Carnauba Red. I prefer 2500+ but it doesn't handle the heat as well. I haven't had it run all over. But it does get tacky in the attic of my garage. It's gotten to 135 in there.

[Beagle333]

Give RandyRat's TAC-X a try. His regular TAC1 melts at 145-150°, and TAC-X is meant for a high heat summer lube, so it should be fine at 150°. Send him a pm!

[runfiverun]

I thought for sure you'd mention powder coating
it or Hi-Tek coating would for sure not melt.

[geargnasher]

There is a difference between the melt point of a lube, and the point at which the oils start to leach out of it and contaminate powder. Being that I live where I am plagued with a similar problem, it's been my mission and that of several others to solve this for several years now, enter the Extreme Lube Quest.

We are nearing the end of that, I believe. The only lubes that really take hot-car storage without weeping oils are heavy-duty sodium grease-based lubes, and only certain ones of those depending on the oils in them. My test is the "dashboard test", where a bullion-cube sized chunk of lube and several lubed bullets are placed on a paper plate on the dash of an enclosed car in the Texas summer sun, where temps routinely reach 165F, and allowed to sit there all day. Sometimes I smear a pea-sized blob of lube thinly on the plate and see how much oil soaks in. Very effective test, and most lubes fail miserably.

Stay tuned, I will probably post the recipe for one of the soap lubes soon, though it is not yet perfected.

In the meantime, you can always use jacketed ammo for your SD gun or powder coat your cast bullets.

Gear

[geargnasher]

I thought for sure you'd mention powder coating
it or Hi-Tek coating would for sure not melt.

Ya beat me to it while I was typing. PC is weatherproof for sure.

Gear

[Beagle333]

I thought for sure you'd mention powder coating
it or Hi-Tek coating would for sure not melt.

The powder would work great, but the majority of the folks don't want colored boolits and still see it as a fad, so I don't push it often. It is there if anybody wants to try it, they can come to that section and we'll help them all we can.
But I have much respect for lubes and still use them. I still have 7 lubesizers in use. ('hate changing dies!)

[geargnasher]

As Steve Garbe put it, smokeless powder is also a passing fad. I tend to believe that jacketed bullets are also a passing fad, like PC, but we'll see, won't we?

Gear

[Blackwater]

Gearnasher, I'm awaiting your report with great anticipation. Ought to be a pretty definitive report. And to you who mentioned PC, I hadn't really thought of that, but the reports I've gotten are very positive, and as you note, it'd surely eliminate weeping lube. I guess I'll have to try some. I already have them for coating jigs for fishing. Thanks one and all. I guess the best thing is to do some of my own testing. I've taken to carrying j-bullets in summer, at least, due to the fear that weeping lube might kill a primer, and thus put me in a VERY bad position at just the wrong time, as per Mr. Murphy's Law. I prefer shooting lead, though. Like gravity, it's always on duty and performs very consistently, which isn't always true of HP jacketed. I just feel like I can trust it a bit more reliably than j-bullets.

Again, thanks to all for your input. This is all theory right now, but you never know when it could make a REAL difference, and that's a spectre I don't want to have to handle if it's avoidable, and I think it is.

[Grump]

I'm still not sure we have enough reliable reports of powder coated (or epoxy painted or that other variation) boolits holding the same accuracy standards in handguns that lead with a GOOD lube has done for close to a century now--hold a 3-inch 10-ring at 50 yards for 10 consecutive shots.

I see plenty of reports of PC type coated boolits doing that at 25 yards. I also don't relish the though of handling the boolits so many times and placing them carefully in an oven and all that jazz. Just run 'em through the sizer and be done. I don't store sized & lubed boolits any more, either, just size 'em and load 'em right away.

TAC#1 works fine for me, and this past summer I was out shooting in 105 F and had verifiable trunk storage temps of 135 F., which is about what ammo gets to if left out in the sun on the firing line on a 100+ day. I try to keep it all shaded but this old Earth keeps rotating under the sun...

[randyrat]

Your lube is on the lube grooves which in encased by brass with pressure. If you use a med to hard lube I don't believe you have anything to worry about. Then again, what do I know I'm fighting the dang cold weather most of the time. I'll send you some FREE TAC X to try, put through a torture test.
Load 6 rounds leave them in your car for a month of HOT Georgia weather, shoot em and let us know how it works.

[osteodoc08]

Take Randy up on his TacX lube. I'm also in GA and tested his lube out this past summer. It is AWESOME! As soon as I use up my Tac2, I'm gonna change over. I guess I'll be using the tac2 as an expensive reductant....

[chsparkman]

Check out Ben's Red. Ben created it for use in Alabama, similar weather to Georgia.

[35remington]

The lube requirements for a 45 are not that great, so allow me to point out the very obvious......XLOX or LLA. These will stand up to levels of heat that threaten the metallurgy of the gun. Few lubes can say that. And before we get in a whizzing match about it.....it's quite good enough to show very usable accuracy in 45 loads.

[Blackwater]

Randy, thanks a bunch for your generous offer. I'll do it. Will PM you with my snail mail addy, and will remunerate you appropriately. Again, thnks a bunch.

[Elkins45]

Randy send me a couple of sticks of the TAC-X to try earlier this year. I think you will really like the handling qualities, and it burns very clean as well.

I have a homemade lube I created that handles and stores as well, but the TAC-X doesn't gum up the chamber like my stuff does.

[randyrat]

Just saying, I want to be up front about this.
The TAC X is, as I've been finding out, is a hot weather lube. There has failures at higher velocities in colder weather.
The last one was in 38 Deg F, 30 cal, +/-2200 ft/ sec.
If your shooting it above 80 Degs F it is a whole different ball game.
Your mileage may very.
I am in a refrigerator (WI) right now again so testing hot weather lubes is out for me.

If you have temps above 80 deg F and your willing to test, I will provide the lube
Randy