Ummm, you have sodium silicate. That is vastly different from sodium stearate.
Ummm, you have sodium silicate. That is vastly different from sodium stearate.
You will learn far more at the casting, loading, and shooting bench than you ever will at a computer bench.
I mixed roughly equal parts lithium grease (blue, from the automotive section at walmart, sold as marine grease) and beeswax and have been satisfied with it at pistol speeds up to 1250' (fastest I've went thus far) and ~1800ish in my micro-grooved 30-30.
No leading thus far. I chose this because I had beeswax, could get grease at WM, and it was easy to mix (warm it up, stir, cool, repeat), and I wanted something that would work for hand-lubing. It works fine for hand-lubing; I'll start with a glob of it that's a bit cool and by the time I handle it a bit it's softened up enough to be easy to work with, and the excess cleans off easily.
Sorry about. I'm still pretty new at the homemade lube addiction.
Yep, you are right btroj. That'll teach me to post before I verify what I have. I had actually purchased the product from Amazon as water glass for another purpose. When I read the ingredients for Felix lube, I remembered it wrong I guess, and thought what I had was correct. I'm usually very careful about verifying ingredients, but this once slipped by. Explains why the first batch didn't turn out well.
However, the second batch seemed good, using the sodium silicate in place of the sodium stearate accidently. I have not shot any loads with it yet, but who knows, maybe I'm onto something. Lube masters, correct me if I'm wrong (and you will), but I believe the stearate is a binder for the other ingredients. The sodium silicate, when dried, broken into chips, and stirred in slowly over low heat until completely dissolved, seems to have achieved this in the end product. We will see at the range when I can get there next.
Well, I don't want to derail this thread any further. But here is what I got from Amazon just for clarification....
Dave
sodium stearate is kind of a binder it is also a lube but more importantly it's a gellant for the mineral oil.
the mineral oil is used to polymerize the castor oil. [it takes the heat well]
the castor oil is the real lubricant.
however the stearate holds the castor oil in place in the wax being used, the same as it works to hold oils into a grease.
the high heat used to make felix and several other lubes is to alloy the stearate to break down and re-form with the oil on a molecular level.
I'm an old reloader and a newer' caster. I'll add my endorsement to White Label Lube. Their products (50-50 and BAC) worked far better for me than the mass market commercial stuff.
White Label Lube for me, too - nice folks, great products, great prices.
I first used their BAC lube in my .45acp, but while it worked great and needed no heat, it was too tacky/sticky for my tastes. Moved over to their Carnauba Red which is a bit harder (and therefore needs a little heat) - so I added an aluminum plate under my lube-sizer, sat a cheap steam-iron on the plate at low temp - voila! Instant heaven
My sentiments exactly. The only thing I would add is that I run full-bore 44 magnum boolets that have lube groves through the sizer, since they might be asked to travel down the bore of a 20" rifle someday instead of a 5" pistol. Still, my most used 44 boolet is the Lee 240 tumble lube tossed in LLA or Recluse lube.
You made lithibee, a well-respected and versatile lube that will handle just about any pistol use and most normal rifle shooting as well. You could do much worse.
NRA Endowment Member
Armed people don't march into gas chambers.
Shew. Now my head is spinning and it ain't from the communal wine at the church house. I'm gonna have to read most of this again but I think I get the idea of it all. Mostly I've got way more to learn and too much to read. Keep the info coming and thanks again.
Last edited by AggiePharmD; 04-20-2014 at 03:58 PM. Reason: words missing
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |