Tumble Lubing--Made Easy & Mess-Free

[SciFiJim]

boots, look to see if you have an empty or near empty dish washing liquid bottle. It's easy to open and close one handed and won't break if dropped. Course if you have a quart of stuff, you may need to keep the extra in a jar somewhere where it can't get knocked off of a shelf.

My bottle.

[troy_mclure]

maybe that's where i messed mine up, i measured by weight.
"raw" jpw, and lla same weight.

im on batch attempt 2 now.

[Recluse]

Ok, I had much better luck with direct heat on the JPW. Smoked like nobody's business and isn't the most pleasant smell in the house, so if you're co-habitating with a female who's wrath you'd rather not incur, I'd do that outside. Lesson learned.

Ditto. That's why my wife loves my shop--I can make all sorts of manly, foul smells out there and it's far enough away from the house to not bother her.

Keeps our marriage blissful and happy.

the solidified mixture, and its the exact color and texture of chocolate pudding.

Perfect.

[zuke]

I finally had a chance to boil it down and after sitting for awhile I ehded up with a solid,spongy mass in the melting can.
I re-heated it and added1 1/2 ozs. of mineral spirit's.
It's now thinner then Lee lube but a LOT thicker then it was after the first attempt.
I've lubed some bullet's up and I'll try them out when I get a chance to.

My problem is I'm using it to lube a LEE tumble lube 230grn turncated cone bullet being fired out of an M1 Carbine that has been converted to 45 Win Mag.

It has a 18 3/4 inch barrel so the lube HAS to work over of the whole length of the barrel at those velocity's.
I'm using 14-16 grain's of Accurate #7

[castalott]

I made some lube today...And shot it in a 45 auto with Lee 200 gr boolits.
It took some of the leading already there out at low velocity but the load wasn't fast enough to work the action. At near max 231 loads, I got a little leading at the end of the chamber but excellent accuracy. More later...

[res45]

I got my JPW at Lowe's $5 plus tax for the big yellow can. Used about 1/2 can of the JPW cooked down to the 4 oz. bottle of Alox didn't need the MS there was enough solvent left in the wax and it's plenty thin when it's in it's liquid state for tumbling or ranch dipping bullets.

I've double coated and dipped several hundred bullets with my first batch of Alox/JPW and hardly made a dent in it. I TL all my bullets the first time around,after they dry the TL bullets without gas checks get another coat are dried and there done. The GC designs have the gas check applied with a Lee push through sizer and TL once again for those designs and there done.

On the traditional grease groove bullets I like to dip mine on the second run and then run them through the sizer one more time to give them a nice clean look and squeeze the lube into the grooves which the Lee sizer does well. It's not all that time consuming and I work in groups of 50 or 100 bullets depending on my schedule,after a couple week I have enough bullets lubed and ready to load to last me quiet awhile.

Lee 170 gr. .310 Alox/JPW Ranch dip and sized.

Alox/JPW mix

[troy_mclure]

i cant get mine to solid up like that, after a few hours it will reliquify into chocolate syrup consistancy.

[Cadman1979]

i cant get mine to solid up like that, after a few hours it will reliquify into chocolate syrup consistancy.

Just recently joined the cast boolits group after reading several different threads these past few weeks. Recluse has it figured out regarding the lla,jpw and ms. Although I am having some difficulty also in getting the consistency of my boolit lube to thicken. I think with my first batch I cooked over the weekend I had too much solvency left over from the jpw. I went ahead and tumble lubed in the cool whip container and after drying overnight the boolits were dry to touch. Will be getting out to the range soon and will post my results.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

If we all start buying and hording JPW, I can't imagine why Johnson's would ever discontinue the product 5 or 10 years down the road.
Jon

[WallyM3]

I have read this entire thread, but I may have missed it.

Is there a time or some indication that the solvents have been driven out of the JPW to the right extent?

[Recluse]

I have read this entire thread, but I may have missed it.

Is there a time or some indication that the solvents have been driven out of the JPW to the right extent?

Not really.

I need to call SC Johnson and ask them if they've (recently) changed anything in their JPW. The last four cans I bought, the wax is more of a grayish tint. Previously, the wax was more of a tan/light beige tint. Not sure what is up with that.

Just to make sure all was still well, I cooked up a small batch of (tumble) lube, poured it into a bottle and let it sit overnight. Lubed, loaded and shot some boolits. Could not tell a bit of difference.

I tried discerning several different ways as to when enough solvents had been cooked out and finally gave it up. I just cook the JPW in a Dollar Store pot for a minimum of fifteen minutes, stirring constantly. Once that fifteen minutes is up, I reduce the heat and then add the alox, again, stirring constantly. Takes maybe two/three minutes for the alox to completely mix in with the JPW.

[WallyM3]

The can on the left could be as old as 10 years. The two on the right were gotten this weekend from the same store (local hardware). All UPC and other bar code information are identical (except the price; the old can is marked $3.89).

I'm guessing that whatever changed won't bother us.

At 15 minutes of "reduction", I think I can replicate your results pretty closely.

Anyway, I'm going to try tomorrow.

Many thanks.

[Recluse]

Yep, that can in the middle is of the same hue of the stuff I've been using for years.

The can on the right is of the hue of the stuff I've been getting recently in the last four/five months.

[WallyM3]

Since I lack the experience to provide a decent basis for comparison, I'm going to reduce some of the middle can wax today.

[bootsnthejeep]

My can looked like the right one as well.

I added some of the mineral spirits to mine this past weekend, mixed it up well and set it back in the fridge. Once it set up I set it back on the stove to let it come up to room temperature. Thought I'd screwed up, because it was still pretty stiff. But the more I stirred it, the thinner it got. Now, its been close to 80 here the last couple days, and since my trailer is a hot box from Hell, its come to a rather nice consistency at "room temperature". Think I've got it figured out.

Still trying to use up this bottle of dish soap so I can have an appropriate container!!

[Fly-guy]

Recluse- just wondering why you tumble lube the boolits twice??

Fly-guy

[Fly-guy]

Do you have a web site for Starline? I'd appreciate it if you do.

f-g

[Bkid]

Fly guy he re tumbles after sizing. You nee to have alox on the bullet before you size , and then re-tumble to lube bullet.
You can google Starline.

[Fly-guy]

bkid- thanks!

www.starlinebrass.com for any other old, fat & ugly shooters out there like me.

[Recluse]

Recluse- just wondering why you tumble lube the boolits twice??

Fly-guy

One of the problems I was having with straight LLA was that it seemed like it never completely dried. So, I tried thinning it with mineral spirits, which helped, but then I kept wondering if I had enough (lube) on the boolits. Hence, a second coat--which then seemed to never completely dry.

So I kept dickering around with blending the JPW and LLA together until I found a mix I liked. Still being a bit paranoid about tacky/sticky boolits, I found that by doing a light tumble-lubing, let dry, size, then a second-light tumble-lubing, the end result was a batch of boolits properly sized, properly lubed, and not sticky/tacky.