LBT Lube... worth $3.50 a stick?

[Haywire Haywood]

Is it as good as the salesman would have you think? wadda yoo tink?

Ian

[Buckshot]

............Haywire, I'm sure it's a good lube. I'm not very experimental when it comes to lubes. I've used Javalina for 95% of lube duties since forever, with a few sticks of Tamarack which is still the 50/50 mix. Other then that it's been beeswax/Vaseline and Lee LA. A member here did send me some un-named green waxy heat lube and it has done very, very well. Since I don't know what it is I just call it BGHL for Booger green heat lube. At higher velocities it sure was better then Javalina!

................BUckshot

[David R]

There is a guy on here that makes up his own, and you could buy 2 sticks for the price of one LBT and get change.

He makes 50/50 and the one that I use which has some carnuba wax in it. Great stuff. I bought 15 sticks.

Its LAR45

David Root

[Bass Ackward]

Is it as good as the salesman would have you think? wadda yoo tink?

Ian

Ian,

Like everything else with cast, it all depends. The LBT blue series is made for high pressure applications. At this it does very well as you can see by the number of benchresters that use it to compete. But all their shooting is hot. By that I mean hot barrels. When you go to lighter pressure loads and cooler temps, it becomes more prone to throw fliers. Especially on commercial designs that tend to hold more lube.

And the two biggest fears of cast shooters that often cause the biggest accuracy problems is that they use too hard of bullets and too much lube for what they are trying to do.

I have been experimenting with different types and formulas for lubes for the past three years in hopes of finding better cold weather performance. Some lubes clearly are superior under differing conditions as long as you understand what those conditions are. From this I have learned, and I am not ashamed to admit this, I HATE making lubes. And when you add up all the expense of stuff setting on the shelf that may never be used again, it becomes expensive too.

For general cast bullet shooting the Alox derivitives work until they fail. From that point on up, the LBT Blue is hard to beat. My highest velocity and accuracy results have been with this lube along with a molly based Lithi-bee derivitive. And unless you can buy lube ingredients at substancial discount, the $3.50 per stick seems cheap to me.

[Haywire Haywood]

Thanks... If it really shines with high pressure apps then I probably won't benefit from it as I'd only using it for 357Maxi and 45-70. I'll keep on using the FWFL I have from the last mega batch.
I bought a heater for my luber and decided that I wanted a stiffer lube so I could stop having to use mica on the finished product so I took about a third of the FWFL I had onhand and added --gulp-- candle wax to it till I deemed it hard enough. I learned after the fact that my idea probably wasn't the best and I should have used beeswax instead. I've been using it to flux my pot lately. Sooo.. in anticipation of running out of FWFL sometime in the next year I've been trying to decide what commercial lube to go to.

Ian

[RANGER RICK]

HAYWIRE

I have been a constant user of the 50/50 for a very long time . I recently used some of Lar's wax which has the carnuba wax in it . I was presently surprised at it's results . Very good stuff and it needs only a little heat to get it moving through the sizer . I have bought a total of 45 sticks from him . It will not cost you no where near the $3.00 plus for a stick .
Have a good one and keep making smoke .

RR

[Haywire Haywood]

I assume you are talking about LAR45.. didn't know he made lube. How was shipping costs coming in from out of country?

I don't suppose there's a chance of another FWFL mega-batch is there? I seem to remember that Felix swore he'd never do another after the last time... hehe

Ian

[RANGER RICK]

Yep lar45 is the one .

RR

[felix]

Yep, probably won't be done again, unless LAR45 does not want to do it. I can send him the ingredients left over from the last batch. No more beeswax around here, and I think he has plenty of it to make umpteen batches. ... felix (and Sundog)

[felix]

When making lube, the idea is not to burn the ingredients. Double boiler works fine. But, for large batches, this method is far too slow. Best to smelt lead in a large pot, take out a great majority of it, and let the residual heat of the remaining lead provide for the heat needed to melt the lube. How much lead remaining is very dependent on the amount of lube going to be made, and how cold it is, and how windy it is. When pot of lead is down to about 250 degrees, add the beeswax in small chunks, and when melted, then start adding other ingredients, the first of which would be the stearate if being used, and lanolin last if being used. At no time permit the temp to fall below 125 degrees. The major problem is knowing when to fire up the pot with a shot of heat, and knowing when to cut it off. The problem is due to the latency of the wax already mixed in the pot. NEVER let the mix smoke at any time whenever possible, and that is why doing beeswax up front. If it smokes, not much harm is done, nor is some minor smoking bad when adding the stearate. ... felix

[sundog]

Yea, what Felix said. No mas. Gonna do a big WW melt this week, I think, using the MOAS (that's how we did the BIG BATCH FWFL), so that'll do me in for awhile! That's one freakin' big pot! sundog

[omgb]

I just shot over 150 rounds through my Browning 32-20 using LBT blue and the bore is clean, shiny and lead free. I was using a Lyman 311316 and a Hornady 32 cal Gas Check. Everthing was run through a Star 312 sizer die nose first. I have found the LBT soft to be the best lube for CF rifles I've ever used. For most pistol applications however, I use plain old RCBS or Lyman soft lube.

R J TAlley

[Junior1942]

Ian, whay not make some of my 411 lube? I use it to 1850 fps in 30-30, 357 mag rifle, and 7mm TCU with zero leading. It's 4 parts beeswax, 1 part Dexron ATF fluid, and 1 part lithium auto grease. The lithium grease is hard to blend so use a whisk or squeeze it against the side of the melting pot with a spatula. The same amount of 411 as a regular $3.50 tube of lube costs maybe 15 cents.

[lar45]

Ian, email me your address and I"ll send you a free sample of my stuff to try if you want. idahobronco at aol dot com. The same goes to anybody else that wants to try some.
My base price for lube is $1.25 a stick in tubes, then I take $.05 off for 20 sticks and another $.05 after 40 sticks. I also sell it in zip lock bags for $1.00 and take the discount for larger orders also.

My 50-50 lube. I bought a 55 gal drum of Alox 350 from Lubrizol and have quite abit of beeswax left from the 2000 lbs I bought, but expect to have to start ordering it again in the spring.

This is my High Speed lube. It's 100% non-toxic. When cooled on the bullets seems to behave itsself and not migrate.
I can fit 20 sticks in zip lock bags into the USPS flat rate envelope for $3.85 or I can fit 16 sticks in Tubes. The Flat rate envelopes have new wording printed on them for "Documents only" I've still been useing them, but the gal at the post office said they may return them. The post office also has a Gobal Flat Rate Priority envelope that runs about $9 to most countries.
I use alot of the Flat Rate boxes for $7.70.
You can check out my web page at www.lsstuff.com/lube

[Haywire Haywood]

For some reason, dunno where I got the idea, I thought Lar was in Finland... I've obviously been reading too much lately and it's all flowing together like so much hot lube. I'll take you up on your generous sample offer. I'll email this evening.

Thanks,
Ian