But too much of a good thing and you'll notice that the boolits are seating deeper and deeper, and it just kinda sneaks up on you.
But too much of a good thing and you'll notice that the boolits are seating deeper and deeper, and it just kinda sneaks up on you.
Tom
μολὼν λαβέ
Did I ever mention that I hate to trim brass?
What is the benefit of dipping boolits into melted Alox, over tumbling them in Alox?
Here's the way I see it, after dipping rifle boolits a few times.
Pro :
Get more lube on the boolit in one step.
Keep lube off the nose, and out of your seating punch.
Can be faster than tumbling; one drying cycle.
Con :
Get more lube on the boolit. This can be either good or bad.
Drop the boolit in the sauce, ya get stuff everywhere.
Standing the boolits in rows can be tricky.
Interesting thread. To solve the build-up problem in the seating die, I simply tumble my tumble-lubed boollits in Motor Mica. Easy-Peezy, no more build-up and the boollits aren't sticky to handle anymore either!
Tumble lubing - As stated in a couple of posts, if you can see the lube on the boollit after one coat, YOU USED TOO MUCH! It's almost unbelievable how little lube it takes to do the job! I use 2 coats on a 158 grain plain base RNFP in my .357 mag carbine @ 1500 fps! No leading and fine accuracy! I can't push it any faster without switching to a gas-check design, but that's OK, it does what I need it to do!
"We take a thousand moments for granted thinking there will be a thousand more to come. Each day, each breath, each beat of your heart is a gift. Live with love & joy, tomorrow is not promised to anyone......"
unknown
Thank you for sharing the different ideas. I have a couple hundred 40cal boolits with no lube, a bottle of Lee Alex, and empty 10mm brass. Looks like I’ll be busy next weekend!
I tumble my boolits in Lee Alox, let them dry, then size and gas check and tumble again. I’ve never had a leading problem nor build up on the seating die. I do let them dry for a few days to over a week. I use this method for my 6.5 x 55se, because of their size. All others that are bigger, I powder coat. I love PC.
I’ve been using some form of tumble lube for about 30 years now. What I’ve decided is that best results are obtained when you use a lot of solvent and apply a larger volume of really thin lube over a smaller volume of thick lube. It actually ends up being the same amount of lube on the bullets but adding a lot of solvent gives you more liquid volume and allows it to flow easier and coat all the bullets more evenly. I keep a bottle of mineral spirits beside my liquid lube bottles so I can get a really thin mix.
I think this is one of the reasons Bens Liquid Lube performs so well.
NRA Endowment Member
Armed people don't march into gas chambers.
For me it is mainly for handling and looks. First, my bullets don't jump from bag to cases by them selves, I have to handle them. I usually don't mind sticky fingers, but the alox often gets transferred from bullet to my fingers to my tools/press. While I don't care what anyone else thinks about my handloads, and I don't need to impress anyone with my "good looking" ammo, I just don't like the looks of brown stuff on the noses of my "perfectly cast" bullets in my finished ammo, and no I don't use "too much". Dip lubed bullets are just cleaner; cleaner handling, cleaner looking, and cleaner loading. I now use 45-45-10 for most of my dip lubing.
I am in no hurry for any of my casting, reloading activities and if I only lube 100-125 bullets a session, that's fine with me...
My Anchor is holding fast!
similar to pan lubing
I started out doing that now all I do is PC
Hit em'hard
hit em'often
I have been using what I call hot tumble lubing. I use an old cast iron frying pan and melt a small amount of home made lube then dump 20 or so boolits in and roll them around until they warm up and the lube is very thin then lift them out with pliers like tumble lubing and stand them up on foil. The results are much like properly applied tumble lube ~ very thin and little on the base. So far it works well for me and is quite fast. Plus no waiting for tumble lube to dry. These set up as soon as the boolits are cool which is a few minutes. My home made lube is similar to Ben's Red but I use paraffin, Lucas Red N Tacky grease, Ivory soap and with a bit of Bardahl oil treatment in it for tack.
Longbow
Last edited by longbow; 08-16-2019 at 12:32 AM. Reason: Spelling
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |