Is Lube Really Necessary?

[cajun shooter]

Back in the early 70's when I first started all of this casting and shooting I came across a lube article. We were casting the 38 148 gr WC and lubing all the lube grooves which were 4. I can't remember who at that time wrote the article but he said that too much lube was bad.He did some test using the same bullet we used for PPC practice. If only two grooves received lube then the accuracy was much better than if all four were filled. So I guess at will still be what is too much or not enough? 44 Man when it comes to engines that you used for comparision on lubes. The lube in the cylinder does in fact help hold back gases that are in the crankcase as they try to go by the piston rings with oil on them.

[MT Gianni]

Cajun, Col Harrison wrote this and several others about overlubing. I get my best accuracy with a single lube groove filled on a 38 wadcutter.

[243winxb]

I Never use lube and get great accuracy. 13" - 10 shot group @ 50 yards. [IMG][/IMG]

[35remington]

I'm not worried about being discredited, just about my point being taken in the proper context.

Gear, I shot bare, unlubed pellets all the time, being an ordinary boy who did not keep them in the tin, but rather dropped them in his jeans pockets or denim jacket pocket a few at a time, then retrieved them after removing the lint and fluff that accumulates and soaks up oil better than a sponge after walking around on the farm trying to shoot all manner of unsuspecting critters.

A lot of these pellets got put through the washing machine, too, then shot anyway. My mom sure got irritated picking pellets out of the bottom of the wash barrel! Never did I have a barrel clogged with lead, or even lightly leaded.

No leading showed its ugly head.....ever. Not with diabolo pellets. I shot a whole lot of "jeans pocket" and "wash machine" pellets. For longer bearing length pellets, I don't know, as I didn't shoot those. I shot Benjamin "HC" and the Crosman flatnose "Pells" that came in the long columnar black packs with the red cap in Daisy, Crosman, Benjamins and Sheridans. Later, when my budget got bigger, I shot other types more expensive still in my junior high school years. Including Silver Jets, the first Beeman hollowpoints, H&N match (rarely) etc.

I was also one of those who got into the more sophisticated air rifles very early, reading of Robert's Law's Air Rifle Headquarters way back in the '70's and also after buying a Webley Vulcan. Then RWS and other brands.

It's the short bearing length, almost nonexistent, that kept leading from occurring, not whether they held any kind of lube or not. For that matter, the tiny bearing length has almost no capacity to hold an adequate amount of lube to lube the entire barrel. We worry that the lube will "run out" in rifle length barrels with conventional bullets if there's not enough, and a tiny bearing surface pellet that has no lube grooves that carry lube doesn't carry any lubricant of note. Carrying around in the pockets would remove what was there if of the liquid variety. I don't think pocket carry or the wash machine would do dry lubed pellets any good either.

A dry lube wouldn't last the length of the barrel in reducing leading with a diabolo pellet. It would get removed almost immediately if any was there to begin with. I have yet to see a diabolo pellet with filled lube grooves.

I don't mean to get off topic here, but a pellet with a tiny bearing surface can shoot without leading with no lube whatsoever and I did it all the time. I wouldn't expect a bullet to do the same because it's not similar.

I thought a little more explanation would make my point a little more clearly. A nine to sixteen year old goes through a lot of pellets at that time of his life. I shot wash machine pellets a little later in life too.

An oxidized pellet? There lies your problem with leading, maybe. I never shot any that were heavily oxidized. They just had no lube on them. I would think oxidation a step beyond a no lube state, as the oxide would seem to promote galling.

Maybe that's what you found. My pellets did not oxidize, nor do my air cooled bullets after casting. I can show you any number of not so recently cast bullets, even of pure lead, that show no oxidation.

Here's a picture of a couple I did a year and a half ago. I showed the sprue side to show it's cleanly cut, as a pure lead bullet will do.



Perhaps it's the climate? I dunno.