"Extreme" boolit lube, The Quest...

[geargnasher]

Either soft microwax, slack wax, real Vaseline, or cetyl esters. This next-to-last (#5) Longhorn was just too sticky, the ester two-stroke oil really breaks down the beeswax and I had a teaspoon of Paratac and three ounces of sticky slack wax in there. I ended up with too much sticky trying to add some extra glide, body, and film cushion. The Carnauba seems to have fixed it, but I think it needs a bit more beeswax now. This is starting to get really close to Felix lube......

What was wrong with calling it "Simple Lube"?

Gear

[runfiverun]

everybody confused it with simple green cleaner..
simple lube is good nuff for me.

a spoon full of paratac is a lot.
i'd bet in a gallon of lucas there isn't but a teaspoon full.
i'm also still rethinking the sulpher ester,and neats foot type oils.
two teaspoons of those really softens 4-5 oz's beeswax. [too much]
that could make a very viable option too.
they soften and make the wax more malleable plus add glide without too many side affects. [if the amounts are kept low]
and mink oil is available everywhere.
the addition would have to be quite small,because it will soften the wax which will affect it in the heat.
a half tsp [maybe a little less] would suffice for 4 oz's of wax.

[Marlin Junky]

IOW just like I like it, feathery and with a lot of glide.

Gear

Well, I'm back... been having some 40F weather in the morning and problems with hard fouling while using my favorite powder... Re7.

Gear, what do you mean by "feathery"?

I just finished a batch of Felix Lube with a couple substitutions and it's firm to the touch at 60F but doesn't take much pressure before becoming soft, tacky and very slick (lotsa mineral oil and Ivory). I substituted red lithium grease for anhydrous lanolin and left out the castor oil. I also tossed in a couple Tbs of Vaseline to help dissolve the red lithium grease. Oh yeah, there's also a heaping teaspoon of T-3 Carnauba flakes in there (a little over 8 oz. total lube, 4.25 oz. of which is beeswax).

MJ

P.S. Gonna shoot it in the morning if it's not raining.

[btroj]

Got a tube of polybutene today. Am I wrong to assume it would replace lanolin in many lubes?
I also wonder if that and a bit more Vaseline would make the soap lube I made last summer a bit more user friendly to apply. That lube seems promising, I just need to get put and shoot more of it.

[runfiverun]

it adds the tacky that lanolin adds but it doesn't add the flexability to the wax.
it also adds a stronger bond to the lube.
modern vaseline is dissapointing too, it's okay as a b-wax modifier but i don't think it brings too much else to the table.

[geargnasher]

Yup, the new Vaseline will take the "starch" out of beeswax, but that's about it. It has exactly zero film strength, boolits cut right through it on my wear tester.

Don: That doesn't sound anything like Felix lube. Mixing lithium and sodium stearates can be iffy at best, and lithium grease is no substitute for lanolin. Eliminating the castor took out the primary 'lube' ingredient.

Brad: My take on the polybutene is that it isn't a substitute for Lanolin, but sort of does the same things, only it takes a LOT less. My batch of lube ended up being 26 oz and one teaspoon of Paratac was around 3/4%, VERY noticable even at that percentage. My two-stroke lube has polybutene in it already, so I just add enough to treat the remaining ingredients. It will add tack, cohesiveness, and a very slight film strength, but not so much film strength as lanolin will, which is part of the problem, we need a soft wax/very thick oil with a super-high film strength to tie the two-stroke oil and wax together.

Ok, range report from the last four sessions with Longhorn lube leaves me shaking my head a bit. I was getting what appeared to be slight flyers out of my .30-30 pushing past 2100 fps with it, two groups in the half-inch range about 3/4" apart vertically, seemed to be a regular pattern to it, but sometimes two in a row would print in the top or bottom group which isn't typical of purge flyers but of levergun barrel harmonics or powder unhappiness. After the first ten-15, I noticed that almost always one or two shots would go off the paper out of each batch of 20 per session. I thought it was a fluke, but put up a bigger target today and the flyers (number 13 and number 18 out of 20) were six inches high! Now THAT'S a purge flyer for sure, or something else wacko. I've been shooting cast out of this rifle for nearly 20 years and it's never been known to just fling a shot wide like that, so I'm scratching my head. Seems to happen when the barrel warms up. The good news is that the first shot is EXACTLY in the middle of the ensuing group from a dirty, cold barrel, starting as cold as 25 and up to 50F. I have absolute confidence in this gun and load combo for the first five rounds, which has always been the most accurate part of a string with this gun as it can begin to creep the POI down a bit after that. Oddly, it has been holding steady in the cooler weather with this lube and not dropping much at all compared to summertime, where it can start going 3-4" low after the first five.

On to the 7mm-08, figured I'd give it one more Hail Mary before swapping the barrel. As I've mentioned before, the bore is huge and the groove tight, so my 135-grain Lee boolit's nose is way too small to ride the bore and I don't have a good bump die. Best I've gotten out of it at a shade over 2600 fps is 3", 5-shot groups at 100 yards, but it IS consistent. I'd been shooting Joe's soap lube in it before, more on that in a minute. From a cold, clean barrel the first shot with Longhorn lube went were expected, would have been in any of the previous groups shot with Joe's lube, but then the following shots strung upward drastically, over a foot. I let it cool for about ten minutes (45F ambient by that time) and shot another string of five, same exact thing happened. That left me scratching my head somewhat. Did I mention I'm glad I used big targets today? The only good news is the first shot wasn't a flyer (clean barrel, remember?) so I can kinda figure it's the lube doing it, since that was the ONLY thing I did differently other than cleaning the barrel with a couple of patches. Maybe the sixth shot went back to normal after cooling because of bore condition? At least a cool, fouled barrel is the same as a clean one, this lube is trending that way for sure in four different guns so far. Well, not the only good news, at least there was NO leading whatsoever and no antimony wash at all, the barrel shows only the bluing, some shine, and a faint powder haze inside.

So what I'm getting from all of this is that the Longhorn lube is too slippery when the barrel starts to warm, which is exactly the problem I have with formulas like Speed Green and lithium grease lube when there was too much grease in the mix or not enough thickener. I was hoping the high amount of sodium stearate would temper the ester oil, but there's just too much ester in the mix without some intermediate ingredient. This lube is very clean, low smoke, leaves no lube star, and jettisons nicely since I added the carnauba last week, but it's just not holding up to long strings, or even to short strings at warp speed.

One more note, I was filling all available grooves during this testing, so that's four on the .30-30 and three on the 7mm-08. The way I see it, if that's too much lube to keep from having flyers or hot barrel problems, then the lube formula gets an "F". I maintain that a good formula shouldn't be all that picky about how many grooves are filled because it should maintain consistent residue in the bore and jettison quickly anyway.

Oh, almost forgot, back to Joe's soap lube. I let the 7mm-08 sit up for almost a month without shooting it, left it fouled from last time and just wiped it off and leaned it in a corner of my gun room (not in the warm, dry safe). While there isn't much moisture in my gun room, it does cool off somewhat with the weather we've been having when the door is shut. I peered in the bore and saw what looked like bright pink copper on top of the lands and in some of the grooves, so I pushed a clean patch through it to see *** and guess what: RUST! Not much came out on the second patch, and no major pitting happened, but it rusted nonetheless. Same thing that happened to both of my .30-30s a while back with FWWFL (stearic acid) and WW748, and they were both left with dirty bores in the safe for about a month. This was with WW760. I'm beginning to see a pattern here.

As soon as I get more Red Line I'm going to make something more along the lines of Felix lube just using the two-stroke oil, might even try it with Lanolin and see if the ester oil keeps it from being gummy in the cold, anything is possible.

Gear

[geargnasher]

I just did the math, at 2620 FPS that 7mm boolit is going 198,500 rpm. Maybe I should be happy with 3", round groups at 100 yards and Joe's lube with a boolit that fits the rifle as poorly as this one does. Nahhh, I gotta do better than that! Anyway, Joe's lube continues to amaze me with it's accuracy in any weather I've shot it in, just gotta watch the rusty bore thing.

Gear

[btroj]

I had a bit of rust in the 375 when I used Bens Red. Blew my mind. That stuff has nothing in it that I would expect to cause rust.
I will say that after the first few range trips with it the rust issue went away. Makes me wonder if the stuff was pulling residual copper and the rust was under that? Don't know what caused it but I haven't had any since then. Nothing but ATF used to clean it.

[runfiverun]

doesn't win ball powders use a calcium as their retardant.
airc that was what was jacking up the m-16's when they first were sent to viet nam.

[geargnasher]

Gawd I hope not! I've been trying to get away from calcium in my barrels for years. I just talked to Joe on the phone and he's never had anything rust using his soap lube, even stored under damp conditions for long periods, he does keep an eye on things. He also doesn't burn much Winchester powder.

Brad might be right, this was a newly aquired barrel that I cleaned, I mean CLEANED to get all the copper out, used many cycles of degreasing and reverse-electroplating, then shot it less than a hundred times using only his soap lube which is quite dry compared to most of our oily/greasy lubes, and most of the loads were fairly warm which doesn't leave much at all in the barrel. Come to think of it, I'd been using the FO III on my Marlin after that ridiculous PB Blocker fiasco and had stripped my bore several times not too long before going back to the regular regimen of shooting with a fresh batch of FWWFL (had just gotten the ingredients from the group buy about that time), so if I remember right that all pencils. Deep degreasing/cleaning followed by shooting Winchester powder and no oiling or cleaning the bore might just do it. The FWWFL did corrode gas checks and the inside of my lube-sizer, stained the pressure nut tea-colored, and rusted the inside of my .30-30 seater die, so I KNOW what happened there. Joe's lube doesn't do any of that, and won't corrode or even discolor polished copper or brass, and I've had some tests going on since last year with soap lubes and one since about March of this year with one sample where the clean copper exposed to air is now a nice coppery brown and the half smeared with a light film of his lube is bright pink with no signs of green or red stains. Just keep in mind it's very light on lubing components so with hot loads it doesn't leave a lot of protection behind.

Gear

[runfiverun]

iv'e been thinking leaving as little behind as possible is a good thing.
and rethinking the whole oil amount.
as you have seen with the simple lube it's pretty dry.
it seems to be turning in a lot of good results as is though.
i think it being a bit dry is helping it work as the vi is the friction modifier.
i'm gonna have to do a side by side with a modified version to test the theory.

[Ray Z]

Has anyone tried synthetic grease and motor mica? I use synthetic grease on all my guns instead of oil, and I use motor mica to coat my bullets after I lube them. After lubing a couple of hundred I sprinkle a 1/4 teaspoon over them and role them around until they are coated. That takes the sticky away from them. I learned about synthetic grease from the Alaskan pipeline. It was used exclusively on the heavy machinery. It doesn't thicken with colder temperatures, and it has very good lubricating properties. Motor mica was from Midway. It neither promotes or retards burning and I don't have sticky hands from handling the bullets while loading. Just a thought.

[Eutectic]

If memory serves me, early Olin ball powders did have a calcium compound/salt in the deterent/flash surpressing coating. Maybe 40 years ago this formulation was modified due to stubborn bore fouling that was almost like a plating caused by this coating. The commercial powders lost their letter designations at that time. (i.e. 760BR became just 760) I don't believe all the calcium salts were removed and I hope someone corrects me that they were!

Spherical shaped propellants are the worst possible shape going for a progressive powder. Because of this, coatings are heavier and/or robust.

But boy do those ball powders meter well! A nice convenience! We tend to tag certain things as "advantages" when they are really conveniences..... A thread is going right now on the "advantages" of hard lube. Lots of conveniences in hard lube but "advantages" when performance is our primary concern are few....

DuPont had a chart listing a numerical coating number for their deterents used that I saw many years ago. I wish I could find it! Rifle powders seemed to be #7, #8, or #9..... The higher the number, the thicker or more robust the coating. I remember short cut powders like 4320 having a #9 coating, while 3031 and 4064 only having a #7! So those long logs of powder everyone hates so much because of 'convenience' actually had a real 'advantage' in progressive burning due to shape using less deterent coating while accomplishing it!

Surplus ball powders still have the older calcium coatings sometimes. I don't believe they (or more modern formulations) have a corrosive ability unless it is a residual salt left behind, maybe even sealed under the robust fouling with moisture present. A reaction to something in our lube could also be possible.

Eutectic

[runfiverun]

ray:
almost all of the earlier efforts were with greases and many of the synthetic ones.
they all brought something to the table.
the issue wth them is controlling the free oils.
they do very well in the low temp range but to make the span they have to be modified for the upper end.
not to say they make a bad lube in any way, they just don't quite make the complete temperature span.
if you have them modified to release their oils in the cold they release too much at high temps.
where i live they work very well as i don't hardly ever see temps over 90-f.
when i took those same lubes to nevada and the temps went over 100-f i needed to double the wax content to retain the same property's.
that was with a modified grease where i could use a 60% grease content instead of the traditional 30-35%.
the synthetic or standard lithium greases could still have a place in these lubes as the middle modifier we are looking for.
it is just a matter of controlling their oil release and then balancing them with what we are using now.

[geargnasher]

Mmmmm. Calcium compounds causing cumulative bore fouling. Imagine that! And you guys still want to dink around with Alox?

The new Superperformance powders use slightly flattened, heavily coated spheres of different sizes to achieve the progressive burn rate, but I'm liking the Hybrid 100V, a medium-length extruded progressive, and have always liked Reloder 7 since it was reformulated and the NG content boosted.

We know that jaxkets (paper, copper, Nylon, epoxy) shoot consistently because there's no liquid lube to "foul" things up and CORE is maintained. The closer we can get to that the better off we'll be I think. Joe's lube comes pretty close, the bore is dry just like after shooting copper jaxketed, but not as clean as if using a buffer or paper patch. Heck, it doesn't even gunk up the gas system of an AR 10 after 600 rounds of high velocity loads!

Longhorn lube is headed toward becoming just a slightly modified Felix lube, and may be an improvement over his formula in cold weather, but if it doesn't turn out to be any better than his or Joe's it'll just be another name in my lube notebook. Joe and I are still trying to get an ID on his wax so we can duplicate it.

Gear

[runfiverun]

back to the carriers.....
we know the poly oils are definatly the top dogs here.
the poly butene has a clingy affect on steel which can be controlled from build up with a mineral oil [wax carrier/vaseline substitute?] and by low percentages.
judging by what those japanese scientists showed.

[Marlin Junky]

Yup, the new Vaseline will take the "starch" out of beeswax, but that's about it. It has exactly zero film strength, boolits cut right through it on my wear tester.

Gear

Gear,

What precisely do you mean by "take the starch out of beeswax"?

Don: That doesn't sound anything like Felix lube. Mixing lithium and sodium stearates can be iffy at best, and lithium grease is no substitute for lanolin. Eliminating the castor took out the primary 'lube' ingredient.

Gear

Well, there's more than one way to skin a cat.

I did accomplish one goal this morning... there was no carbon fouling in my barrel after using my lithium/sodium grease concoction vs. using one of the better known 2-stroke oil/beeswax lubes.

Anyone else have any experience with carbon fouling while using a 2-stroke lube and a double base powder?

MJ

[Ray Z]

ray:
almost all of the earlier efforts were with greases and many of the synthetic ones.
they all brought something to the table.
the issue wth them is controlling the free oils.
they do very well in the low temp range but to make the span they have to be modified for the upper end.
not to say they make a bad lube in any way, they just don't quite make the complete temperature span.
if you have them modified to release their oils in the cold they release too much at high temps.
where i live they work very well as i don't hardly ever see temps over 90-f.
when i took those same lubes to nevada and the temps went over 100-f i needed to double the wax content to retain the same property's.
that was with a modified grease where i could use a 60% grease content instead of the traditional 30-35%.
the synthetic or standard lithium greases could still have a place in these lubes as the middle modifier we are looking for.
it is just a matter of controlling their oil release and then balancing them with what we are using now.

Thanks for responding. I didn't know that. I was told that synthetic grease held it's viscosity at low and high ranges. I'm going to continue to lurk in the background. NRA formula has worked for me for a long time. Only problem I've had with it is it's bad smoky. If you find something better I want it.

[geargnasher]

What, precisely, do you mean by "more than one way to skin a cat"?

Gear

[geargnasher]

Thanks for responding. I didn't know that. I was told that synthetic grease held it's viscosity at low and high ranges. I'm going to continue to lurk in the background. NRA formula has worked for me for a long time. Only problem I've had with it is it's bad smoky. If you find something better I want it.

Everything has a viscosity index, they synthetics just have better (higher) ones. In grease, the thickener is pretty much stable as a solid from below freezing to it's melt point, which can be 300-500 F with common metal soap greases.

I tried the "indestructable grease) theory with bentone thickener, so far it hasn't worked out at all for boolits, although something along those lines would sure be nice. Maybe a commercial, milled offering would work, but making it myself with scratch components was a bust, even with some premium, synthetic ingredients provided by Bruce381. I made a nice grease, but it didn't shoot.

One of the big issues we're encountering with boolit lubes is that grease alone won't cut it, by the time you add enough thickener to gel the oils sufficiently, the thickener itself becomes and issue. Also, just because the the mess is solid enough to be handled and applied to a boolit doesn't mean it won't turn to what we affectionately refer to as "goose chit" the instant heat or pressure hits it. When the oil dumps into the bore it's like ice skating to the boolit, and uncontrolled/erratic slippery bore conditions don't make for consistent powder pressure/time curves, consistent boolit exit timing, or consistent muzzle velocity, so accuracy goes to pot. We have found that with conventional lube approaches a wax is necessary to keep things under control. A good wax and gelled oil (grease) works even better a lot of the time.

Gear