ok, so I have a question....

[Captain_Howdy]

How far do you plan to shoot this thing, anyway?? If you were loading for a rifle, perhaps. I doubt you will see a difference even at 25yds.

yea...you're prolly right

[looseprojectile]

Try it and see. Works for any boolit for me.
Picky? I can't stand to watch someone else try and fail at some task that is easy for me.

I think I gave you my history to give some credence to my method.
I was always able to make 20 mm cannons and 50 cal. Brownings run perfectly when no one else could.


Life is good

[MikeS]

When using ANY tumble lube the thing it to use very little actual lube. Most people that complain that it's messy are using WAY too much! After you've tumble lubed them, and spread them out on wax paper to dry you should just barely see a difference between them and unlubed boolits. The reason Lee says to lube them again is that LLA (and most tumble lubes) are designed to leave a very thin coating on the driving bands of the boolit. generally if I'm using a tumble lube boolit I'll go ahead and do the lube/size/lube method. If I'm sizing boolits that have lube grooves, and are going to be lubed with a conventional lube (pan lubed) I'll give the boolits a quick coating of case lube (lanolin & alcohol) before sizing (and let it dry before sizing).

[Captain_Howdy]

Try it and see. Works for any boolit for me.
Picky? I can't stand to watch someone else try and fail at some task that is easy for me.

I think I gave you my history to give some credence to my method.
I was always able to make 20 mm cannons and 50 cal. Brownings run perfectly when no one else could.


Life is good

very cool!

My cast boolits for my 45acp run great. My 9mm results haven't been so good. I loaded 50 rounds today after work and went to the range with them. Accuracy was mediocre at best. Function was fine. I was running 3.9 grains of w231 with the 124 grain bullet. I was getting a fair amount of leading and lots of smoke from the alox burning off during firing. I could actually smell the stuff. I did change my lube method by thinning it according to someones recipe here on these forums. Maybe was a bad idea. Gonna load another 50 after the game tomorrow with the lube applied as is from the bottle like I did with the 45acp stuff and see if it changes. Maybe gonna try 4 grains of powder as well. The gun feels like it is running kinda soft and slow. We shall see...I'll get it right. I have plenty of brass and lead!

Edit: Oh yea, I didn't notice any indications of destabilization or any kind of tumbling effect so I am guessing maybe I was being silly about concentricity.

[popper]

Size a case, seat a CB, no primer or powder, pull it and check size to make sure it is still the proper size. LLA smokes, Recluse smokes. Use as little as you can.

[David2011]

Possibly overthinking. The easy test is to shoot paper at your maximum realistic expected range.

Are the holes round? If yes, the boolits are stable. If not, they're keyholing and the reason should be determined. Could be eccentricity, velocity or a number of other reasons.

Are the holes close enough to each other to satisfy you for the intended use? If yes, you're good.

Every lube I've tried smokes; some more than others. Shooting action pistol games they can cause a smokescreen that obscures targets- bad for scores. Some forum participants explained to me that my only concerns should be no leading and a clean bore. That theory works well enough for single shot guns but not so much for rapid fire. Your smoke question is legit but there's no great answer, even with sizer applied lubes.

A powder that burns completely in the bore before the boolit leaves will help. I've found that the closer I get to a maximum load for a given powder the cleaner it burns. That doesn't necessarily relate to a full house load for the cartridge. For example, powder X at a maximum recommended load may yield only 930 fps while powder Y may make the same velocity 1.5 grains below the recommended max. I would expect powder X to burn more cleanly. OTOH, powder X MAY run hotter, causing the lube to smoke more. It's a vicious cycle. I've fought this for years shooting .40 S&W in IPSC and Steel Plate matches. Some lubes were terrible. The rest were only bad for how much smoke they produced. A powder and lube combination that was inconsequential for its smoke on Saturday morning with the sun behind me was intolerable on Tuesday evening where a floodlight hit the smoke just in front of the muzzle. When I went to another range and shot into the sun on Saturday morning that was almost as bad as the floodlight from above.

David