Duplicating Magma Engineering's Hard Wax Lube

[Ricochet]

Plain old Ivory is supposed to be pure ordinary soap. Their advertising guys came up with "99 and 44/100% pure."

[45r]

your right ricochet.I meant and add Ivory and add lanolin.Sodium sterate is in Ivory and helps keep the mix blended well in summer and over time.I am still trying to find the perfect lube.I read a survey showing Felix lube being the most popular.It is going to be hard to do any better I amagine but I like the increase in velocity and flow properties of adding moly and graphite.These additives work well in all sliding applications.The moly-graph grease is a cheap way to add this to the mix.I have had good results with accuracy in about any lube but would like to find one that isnt sticky and never leaves a little leading in the forcing cone area when I try to push a plain base bullet too hard in my 357.Rcbs 158 swc shoots good and fast with 17.0 lilgun but leaves a little lead in the cone area.Have had to use GC bullets in that caliber because that revolver likes fast loads. soft lubes do work better than hard but is sure a pain wiping off the excess lube. I love that old pinned and recessed gun because it reminds me of the days when revolvers looked as good as they shot.I should just stick with the 358156 lyman and forget about it but a saeco 180GC flat point keeps making me wonder if that would be the perfect bullet for that old 27.I guess Im looking for an excuse to get another mold and blame it on the perfect lube hasnt been found yet.

[lar45]

Hi all, nice heated debate here.
As always, if anyone would like to try my Carnauba Red(semi-hard) lube, just send your address and I'll drop a sample in the mail. When cooled to room temp, it is slightly tacky, but stays on the bullet and doesn't make a mess.
I haven't shot Magma's lube, so I have no direct comparison.

I get some of my supplies from http://www.thesage.com/index.html They have Sodium Stearate and list it as a hardener. I ordered a bottle, but haven't found the time to test it.
Adding more Carnauba wax flakes does stiffen a lube. this is not the red stuff on a cheese wheel.
I personally haven't found any good use for Parrafin, other than candles for the wife. So I don't use it in any of my lubes.

www.lsstuff.com/lube

[Ricochet]

Whenever I read "Sodium Stearate," I just think "Soap." Stearic acid is just the most common fatty acid in beef fat. Soap's made from a variety of fats, animal and vegetable, but for our purposes I think plain old white soap will work as well as sodium stearate.

[felix]

If they used sodium hydroxide to covert the fat (make the soap) it would make no difference what the source fat is. Use the soap in question, and if it does NOT dry your skin, the soap has a "moisturizer" which can be most anything, including a fat not attacked throughly by the hydroxide. That would be OK to some extent, but not if the "fat" had extra glycerin thrown in than would be normally present after a normal hydro job. This is one reason to use a soap that does not produce bubbles during melting. Bubbles mean some moisture remains, and that could be the glycerin which retains water. Best NOT to use home made soaps for this reason. We want the glycerin for actual soap, but not for lube purposes. There we want ALL the glycerin to be extracted out by the Ivory folks. Sometimes they do a good job, and mostly they don't get it all. So, like everything else, the soap we buy is lot dependent. Always look for soap that produces very little or no bubblies, and then go buy the rest of that lot. ... felix

[Lloyd Smale]

reminds me of the first batch of felix i made. It was a dismal failure. I couldnt find anhydrous lanolin and figured what the hell and just used regular lanolin. The lube looked pretty good and i thought I really had something. About a month later all the bullets i lubed had the lube falling out of the groves. The lube dried up and shrank and fell right out. Now being a dummy like i am i do everything whole hog and had two 3 lb coffee cans of that stuff. I still use it to flux lead!

[Willbird]

Actually when a person finds a recipe that works with rthe hard crayon lubes, it might be worth a try leaving the lube off totally. Or using a rooster jacket type of floor wax lube. It could be that everything is nearly perfect and only a slight anti-solder is needed to make the bullet work.

I have some of the carnuba lube to try that is made by a board member, all I need is time .

I would like something a bit stiffer than LBT blue because sometimes it falls out of the bullets on me.

I have some LBT blue solid sticks I would trade even up if somebody wants to try it, PM me .

Bill

[Bass Ackward]

Actually when a person finds a recipe that works with rthe hard crayon lubes, it might be worth a try leaving the lube off totally. Or using a rooster jacket type of floor wax lube. It could be that everything is nearly perfect and only a slight anti-solder is needed to make the bullet work.

I would like something a bit stiffer than LBT blue because sometimes it falls out of the bullets on me.

Bill

Bill,

You hit it. Lube has a percentage of components that are added to allow it to lubricate and make it perform in the way you are .... or are wanting to use it. To date, anything that is added to harden a lube, simply reduces the "percentage" of lubricant available in the end product. Why is that so hard to understand?

If your bore is smooth enough and bullet hard enough, why you can make LLA work. We have guys that demonstrate that all the time. If it works for ya, God bless ya. But lube can and will limit you if you do not understand it. OR worse, .... it can force you into a pattern. As long as that pattern is working, great. But disappointment under this senario will leave you disillusioned and frustrated. Been there, done that.

When I read some one say that this mix or hardness is needed for this velocity, the trailor should always follow "WITH THIS LUBE .... UNDER THIS SET OF CONDITIONS".

Change lube or lube quantity and the whole dynamics changes. Where that mix or hardness used to fail can change dramatically. Possibly allowing more or less velocity / accuracy with softer metals or higher velocites all together. This fosters "formulas" for this pressure with this hardness and then you know the cast limits are firmly in place. Cause if just one guy out there can run a softer mix passed that formula, then the formula is not worth the paper it is written on. It simply becaomes a guide which becomes a limit or ceiling to the uninformed.

[hunter64]

Lar45: I tried some of your Carnauba Red(semi-hard) lube and it is excellent. I bought some Lee TL molds for .357/.45acp/.44mag. I slugged the barrels and went one tho over as stated in the Lyman book. I did the tumble lube thing, sized them and then re lubed after sizing. Accuracy was OK at first then dropped off after about 50 rounds because all my pistols were leaded up. I also found with the TL that some would get on the nose of the bullet and leave a deposit in the seating die and I would have to remove and clean it out every 50 rounds or so. So I tried some of your Red stuff and problems solved, no having to take the die out for cleaning and absolutely no leading in the pistols/revolvers that I shoot. I tried a 30/30 loading at 2100fps and no leading and accuracy was good. Just thought I would give a positive plug to a fellow board member. I would like to try and make my own just for the fun of it and to use all that blasted Lee TL stuff up also at the same time.

[Willbird]

Hunter you experienced why I HATE lee TL . I even wrote them a letter about it returning a TL mold that was way oversize, they made all kinds of excuses why it was ok to seat every round deeper, and to use .455 bullets in a 45 acp, and replaced the mold with a normal grease groove 45 mold


Bill

[Ricochet]

I learned in Organic Chemistry 34 years ago that soap is not made directly from fats and lye by the big commercial makers. The fat is first hydrolyzed by high pressure steam with a catalyst, and the valuable glycerin is extracted. The free fatty acids then are reacted with sodium hydroxide to make the soap. Soaps that have glycerin in them have had it added back, except for homemade or boutique soaps. If you get a bar of plain Ivory, it won't have anything but soap in it, and air. It floats because they whipped in air. Makes the bar look bigger than it is. That's what bubbles when you heat it.

The free fatty acids can be fractionally distilled to produce fairly pure single fatty acids, and this is done commercially to make stuff like stearates and oleates.

[felix]

Very good, Ricochet! Thanks. ... felix

[Willbird]

Hey guys, I'm about traded out of lube

Bill

[45r]

got out some real hard feeling lube I bought on Ebay and heated it at low temp on electric stove and put in a big spoonfull of moly-graph greese and it softened it and made it pliable and slippery looking but wife was unhappy about smell.should have done it outside with wind at my back but is cold out today.have to admit that grease smell is bad.never will do it indoors again. The lube was green and now looks a little darker like rcbs pistol.Im begining to think making the slippery stuff is too much hassle. Going to try lars carnuba and or bac,for 20 bucks you have enough for a long time.Rather spend time shooting instead of making lube anyway.got a bunch of bullets ready for some of that red lube,never tried that color and they look better than blue, green,brown or black and it will give me something new to try out.If its as good as I read here I think I will sell off the hard green and the blue lube I have.I am not sure what the blue is.It looks like thompsons and that is why I got it but who knows.It might be LBT or Magma.Got it on Ebay also.Wonder if there is a way to tell the difference.The hard green looks like Saeco solid but was said to be from a custom bullet maker.Never gave this stuff much thought untill all this reading about lubes.

[lar45]

I did a shipping drop test for a bullet company on my red lube. I sized and lubed a bunch of the LEE 476-400 RFs, packed in a box, then kicked, rolled, threw down on the garage floor until the box broke open, then taped up and did some more.

Before

After
Some of the bullets were damaged beyond use, but most all of the lube stayed in place. I think with it being a semi-hard lube that is still tacky and pliable helps.

[Ken O]

I've used lots of Lar's red lube and am real happy with it.

[Sundogg1911]

this is my first time on this Forum. I'm an avid poster on other forums, and i've found it amusing to follow this thread as my first. It's also funny to see another Sundog out there. Sundog....I think I get questions and comment meant for you on another Casting forum. Keeps the posts coming. i'm never to old to learn something. (The Pittsburgh Sundogg)

[LAH]

then taped up and did some more

You should work for the Postal Service.

[David R]

Magma lube.....

I use LAR45's lube almost all the time. I have a S&W 38 that leads a lot. I tried a bunch of things. I fire lapped it, then shot a bunch (600) of J boolits, and opened up the throats. It still leads. I shot 10 Seaco (Saco?) #50 boolits from Fecmech, the guy that posted praise of Magma lube and had NO leading for the first time. One nice little one hole group at 50 feet too.

I am using the same boolit he is from a different mold. His are sized .3575, mine are sized .358. This could be the difference. Mine lead with all 3 grooves lubed with 50/50. Now I have to size my lubed boolits in his sizer to see if its the size or the lube.

On the LEE liquid mule snot. I have 3 uses for it. My 1891 7.65 mauser has a .314 groove. I lube fatter 30 with this stuff, push then through a .314 sizer, then lube them again. They shoot GREAT and I have no lead problems. Probably around 1400 fps. with gas checks.

My Savage model 24 has a 222 barrel. I miked a fired case inside the neck was .231. I have a mold that drops a lovern type 45 grain boolit at .228. I put the gas check on with a Lyman 450, then lube unsized with LLA (LMS? ). They shoot 1.5" at 50 yards which is great fo that gun. Nothing else gets me close to that.

Last use, LEE TL 150 out of a 6 banger out of my 38. good but not great accuracy, no leading.

All my other rifle and peestol boolits get lubed and sized in the Star or Lyman 450.

David

[lar45]

then taped up and did some more

You should work for the Postal Service.

I ship mostly in the USPS flat rate envelope. I started getting many packages lost or torn open and only some of the stuff getting delivered. I then started getting tracking #'s on all packages and have only lost 1 in the past 4 months.
Shortly after starting tracking #'s on everything, I started double packing also. I use the Tyvek envelopes(very strong) and pack the lube in flat and tape up with a shipping label on it, then put into the flat rate envelope. That way if the flat rate envelope gets torn off, it still has a shipping label on it.
Part of the bad thing is that the Post office will only let you put one piece of tape across the flap and it's not supposed to wrap around to the back side.
I'm sure the biggest help was the tracking 3's. Then you could tell where it got lost, so I think they take better care of the package with the tracking #.
I started useing click n ship to print postage from home. It comes with a free tracking #, but another nice thing is that I have to tape the label on so I use extra tape.

On the lube topic, I've started working on a hard lube. Now I'll have to spend more time at the range Oh darn it.