Just the facts: Lube recipes

[donerightsigns]

OK here's my recipie. I think this is the way you spell recipie. I could look it up in my handy dandy blue 500,000 word spelling book, but that would take to long to find the word, so I'll just stick with this- RECIPIE. Doesn't look right. Oh the hell with it.
1 lbs petroleum jelly
2 1/2 pounds parafin wax
2 table spoons STP gas treatment
5 black crayola crayons for color
Heat and melt in small electric crock pot.
Using as a pan lube, let bullets set in lube for 12 hours before poping bullets out of wax. This seems to work best because the wax stays in the bullet grooves. Poping out any soon tends to make wax come out of grooves. What wax is on the outside of bullet acts as a lube in your resizeing die. Just push them through the die and wax is compressed into grooves.
Now i am no chemical expert, but someone said that lube is lube nomatter what you use. You could spend a life time looking for that magic concocktion.
And if you do spend your time looking for Just The Right Lube, I swear to god and 3 other white men, I will be out shooting my *** off while your still wasteing your time. I'm Just Saying?

[geargnasher]

GAS treatment? I don't think so.

You're also the only one so far on this thread who's managed to misspell "recipe"

Gear

[edwin41]

my recipe is a simple one , i just mix beeswax and petroleumjelly in even parts, by volume .
i use this lube for my .38 spec , .357 magnum and as a patchlube when i paperpatched my 6.5x55 mm.
this lube runs good through my lyman lubesizer without the need of preheating.
must say that my loads are on the sissy side though ...

[ncbearman]

Emmert's Lube for all my needs. BP, smokeless. Good up to 1800 fps.

50- Bee's Wax
40- Crisco
10- Canola

oh, and my favorite color is blue so;
5 blue crayons

Where can I get more info about Buck Emmert?

[Ben]

Why do people continue to put gas treatment in their bullet lubes ? ?

Beats me !

Ben

[Boneguru]

Ok I read thru this and found some great recipes (Thanks By The Way!!!)
Now my question is color, what are people using with success to add color?
I would like to color by caliber, may not seem necessary but I dont like the look of the wax that was created.
I was curious about crayons but thought that would require a whole new work-up to get the same hardness.
Any thoughts?
Thanks again
Ray

[357maximum]

I use Yaley solid block candle dye, availble from any HobbyLobby or Michael's type craft store. They will have an area devoted to soap/candle making...it will be in that area.

[Boneguru]

Simple and effective... does it change the viscosity as you have noticed?
that really opens up the color spectrum I assume, I simply need to obtain more pans to have one for each color, but then I can do a different color for every caliber
Thanks

[357maximum]

The total amount of dye in any lube recipe is so miniscule it does not seem to matter any at all and I am quite heavy handed with dye when I actually use it. If it matters I am not observant enough to tell it anyway.


Just remember that if you are coloring beeswax based lubes that you will have to correct for the color of the wax. In low amounts red will become orange and blue can make green, etc.....sometimes. I prefer red colored lubes...they make the boolit go faster.

[bfuller14]

357 Maximum,
I love to read your posts...
Red makes anything go fast.

[357maximum]

357 Maximum,
I love to read your posts...
Red makes anything go fast.

Thank You.......I guess I now have a fan club of one.

BTW. I tried Fuscia colored lube once but it made my boolits go high and left.

[bfuller14]

I like the florescent orange they glow at night...

[jjfitch]

What is the color sequence when loading magazines? White, Black, Blue, Orange, Green, Brown, Slate?

Cheers,

John

[357maximum]

I like the florescent orange they glow at night...

Actually FLOURESCENT dyes settle out and make a layer at the bottom of the cake........trust me on this one eh......Babore will back me up on it too.

[CanoeRoller]

I have been reading over this thread and found myself overwhelmed by the number of lubes listed. So I decided I would need to take what I was seeing and organize it a bit, and list each different lube's ratios as best I could, total the list and see what sort of patterns I could find. I limited myself to just bpcr lubes, because that is my thing, and so that I could compare like with like.


There are 27 different black powder formulas that I could find. Any lube that was listing the same ingredients and ratios as another posting, I did not count, as I was more interested in seeing what people felt worked for them, not what they got from someone else. I did not include the amounts of each item in the count, only that the item was listed in the formula.

My thinking is that looking at a list this way, it would be possible to see what is used most often, and create a good starting point to develop my own own lube. If something is in nearly all lubes, it is probably effective, if it is used in very few lubes, it probably brings a bit less to the party.

So......

Bees wax 81%
Tallow 44%
Crisco 19%
Vegetable Oil 30%
Lanolin 26%
Soy Wax 11%
jojoba 7%
Lard 7%
Citronella wax 4%
Graphite 11%
Bayberry Wax 22%
Whale oil or other highly refined oils 22%
Dish Soap 4%
Neatsfoot Oil 4%
Murphy's Oil Soap 4%




(yes, I know I need a life)

[357maximum]

Most "homebrew" lubes are way more complicated than they need to be. Alot of potential lube ALCHEMISTS add things to a lube all willy nilly because they read it somewhere or it just seems "right". Very few loob cooks actually think about "WHY" an ingredient is there and fewer yet think about whether it is actually needed or not, and fewer yet actually SERIOUSLY TEST their assumptions and consult with . DR GUN often enough. If you want to truly understand "LUBE" taking the minimalist aproach to lube making is a great place to start.

I try to keep my lubes to the "THE RULE OF 4THS" as in less than 4 ingredients. I know for a fact I can make pretty damn decent smokeless rifle/pistol lube with only two things (cheap lithium grease/beeswax)...it can be made better modified to your requirements with things like microwax/paraffin and perhaps a SMALL AMOUNT of soap, but IF I HAD TO....I could shoot all that I have "smokeless" with cheap ol lithi-bee made using beeswax and cheap caramel colored lithium grease. Blackpowder lube can be made with as little as one thing (many 1 things btw), deer tallow being the best I have found for 1ingredient BP lubes. Again modifying the tallow lube with microwax and perhaps small amounts of soap are normally beneficial depending on your needs.

When I see a lube recipe with 6,8, or 10+ ingredients I have grown to instincly and almost instantly discount that lube recipe as someone just throwing shi....errr....stuff into a pot or trying out their hands at being a keyboard commando. When I see lubes that list only a few ingredients they are normally being tested and may actually work right nice.

Lube is a good place to apply the K.I.S.S philosophy IMHO. Lube does not need sound KEWL to work and the more I play with lubes both smokeless and BP the more I find that less is normally more. There are some that may jump down my throat and declare me to be a KOOK over what I just wrote....all I got to say to them is keep typing...maybe you can baffle someone with your BS, but it ain't gonna be me.

[CanoeRoller]

I agree 357, simple is better. Most of the old formulas that I could find were two or three ingredients. A sticky and hard fat of some sort, either beeswax and something to soften it or tallow with something to firm it up. I can see very real patterns in my little chart in what seems to be effective versus just throwing stuff together.

[Chilmonty]

Has anyone tried food coloring for added color? Curious if heat would effect it.

[357maximum]

Has anyone tried food coloring for added color? Curious if heat would effect it.

Food coloring = waterbased....not gonna work here. Dyes made specifically for coloring candles and oil based dyes such as those used to color diesel fuel are all that need apply. Crayons settle out of the mix and I do not like them, plus they may contain clay type substances......I am not risking pushing clay down my bores with 30,40,50,to 60 thousand psi....are you? I normally use Yaley brand solid candle dye but the local crafty store has been a bit lax about carrying them lately.

[ncbearman]

I am not risking pushing clay down my bores with 30,40,50,to 60 thousand psi....are you?

Yep and have for years. In fact I think they shoot better with crayon seasoned blue Emmert's lube recipe instead of the old flesh color.