I have gooey lube!

[snaketail]

My lube is a bit gooey - kinda like candy that is half eaten and dropped on the carpet.

I mixed 50/50 Gulf paraffin and petroleum jelly with a teaspoon of STP oil treatment and two crayons for color.
I'm storing and heating it in a thrift store soup warner that takes about 45 minutes to melt all the wax.

I don't really care for the gooey stuff - and it doesn't stay in the lube groves when I pan lube.

Should I start over with a different mix?

M

[Ben]

Where did you get the recipe for this ?

[jonk]

100% petroleum base. That scares the jeebies out of me.

I have had zero luck with pan lubing unless I used a cookie cutter. Same deal, lube pulled out of the grooves. A few members on here make cookie cutters, try those when the lube is still soft but no longer molten. Then it works a treat.

If your lube is gooey, add more wax. I sure wouldn't be using just parrafin though, I'd switch that out for beeswax. But for that matter, I never have been a fan of vaseline as lube. Synthetic grease, yes, that's ok, but every time I've tried petro base lubes I got a lot of tar and crappy accuracy.

[bangerjim]

And it is summer..........and temps are up. Grease lubes will be a bit thinner and stickier when at these temps. I was raised in Iowa and I know what kinds of temps you can have in MO!

That is why I have switched from grease lubes to powder coating here in the desert southwest, especially in this summer heat! And NO LEADING!

bangerjim

[skeettx]

use what you have, put the lubed bullet in the freezer,
when cool, pop out the bullets and the lube should stay in the grooves.

Please report back how this has worked for you

Mike

p.s. what bullet are you pan lubing?

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

You are real close to an excellent Lube
Get some Ivory soap and some Beeswax.
and recook your lube, add beeswax last...after the lube has cooled to about 150º

see post #5
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...=1#post2653932

[snaketail]

The Boolit is a 454-255 (out of production) two big lube rings...and I got the recipe from this web site. I'll add some beeswax and Ivory soap.
And the temp in St. Louis was all the way up to 84 last week (we're having a very cool summer - to balance the miserably cold winter we just had).
I heat the boolits with my wife's hair dryer and when they are too hot to touch I start pouring/squirting the wax in. Then in the refrigerator over night - will use the freezer next time.

Will report my next trial.

M

[fecmech]

I'm with JonB on this.

[Elkins45]

Where did you get the recipe for this ?

Ive seen this exact recipe posted in a bunch of places here as Barry Darr's lube, whoever he is. I made some once and I discovered the exact same thing as the OP. Some added Ivory, beeswax and maybe some Carnauba makes a real improvement of the handling qualities.

In warm weather it leaves handguns greasy and often gave me purge flyers in rifle. It does do a great job preventing leading but the storage and handling qualities leave a lot to be desired. If two bullets touch each other you can be sure one will pull the lube out of the other one's grooves.

[runfiverun]

definitely add at least some bees-wax..
it will firm up your lube and allow it to hold in the lube grooves, I'd also recommend a cake/cookie cutter.
whatever they are called you push them down over the boolit in the lube to extract the boolit and squish the lube into place.
the cyberguy sells them in the S&S section.

[Ben]

Excellent advice ! !

________________

As to the OP, I've never been a big fan of high %'s of paraffin in anyone's bullet lube.

Beeswax for the past 75 years has proven itself as an excellent " base component " for cast bullet lubes. What is added to the Beeswax from that point offers an almost endless list of possible lube recipes.

The paraffin based lube may work well with 148 gr. W/C's at 720 fps. in a 38 Spec., but for more extreme applications, there would seem to be far better lube recipes.

Just my thoughts, others may see this differently.

Ben

[Elkins45]

357 Maximum's 666+1 lube (the old pre-Alox NRA formula) is 33% paraffin and I think it's a pretty strong performer. I have also experimented with a paraffin and white lithium grease mix but the jury is still out on it. It started life as a 50/50 mix but the current experimental blend is about 75% wax to give it more body and to be less gooey.

I also tried to make a high temp lube with paraffin, ATF and a full bar of Ivory soap. What I made was a scary plastic goo that smelled up the garage for weeks. I managed to pour some of it into stick molds before it congealed somewhere around 400° but I just can't ever see myself ever putting the hardened crumbly mess in my sizer.

[snaketail]

Found beeswax and will shave up some Ivory soap today. And, I'll craft a cookie cutter from a shell case, or something similar.

Thanks for the advise.

M

PS:
We're having some "civil unrest" here in St. Louis - so my test of the new lube may have to be postponed a few days. Keeping a 12 gauge near the TV till this blows over. Last night the police had a stand-off with hundreds of people - angry that an officer killed a teen as the kid tried to take the officers sidearm. The looting and burning may happen again tonight if it doesn't rain...let's hope it rains. (Amazing how the "witness" stories vary - the Medical Examiner found two bullet wounds, but the locals say they shot 15 or 16 times - while he had his hands in the air...cops musta been really bad shots, or witnesses had really bad memories.)

[FergusonTO35]

In my pan lubing I have found that adding some LLA right out of the bottle while the lube is still liquid helps it to firm up nicely. Also, when I pop the boolits out of the cake the lube is more apt to stay in the grooves.

[fredj338]

I'm with Ben on this, paraffin has never been a good choice. Bees wax or micro crystal waxes are a better base.

[snaketail]

What is LLA?

[skeettx]

http://leeprecision.com/bullet-casting/bullet-lube/

[snaketail]

Got some Alox - was afraid it stood for Lower Los Angeles, lot of greasers there too.

[Toymaker]

Sans the crayons and that's what I use for my Creedmoor Ribgy muzzle loader. It's Darr's lube and great for black powder but I've found it isn't so good for smokeless. I can watch TV and hand lube bullets. Keeps my hands nice and soft . Keeps the BP fouling nice and soft too. I haven't noticed much difference in the consistency of the lube in weather. Virginia can have some interesting extremes in weather too. I've shot competitions in below zero to over 100 temperatures. If I can stop shivering when it's cold the accuracy is consistent too. (I grew up on an island in the Western Pacific, so anything under 68°F isn't appreciated).