As to the issues of drying and drying time. . .a possible option:
I'm probably using more of the stuff than is necessary, based on the philosophy that lube is cheap, tumble lubing is quick, and scrubbing out lead is a pain in the butt. . .
Pop and I have been collecting the 50-round plastic trays that come with a lot of factory pistol ammo. The solid-bottomed ones (they would hold water if you poured it into them) make great loading blocks and places to stage your sizer-lubed bullets prior to loading. The open-bottomed ones (that wouldn't hold water) also provide a lot of air circulation around a BLL lubricated slug. We place the wet bullets into these and then leave them in his gas oven for a day with the pilot light on. We have a nice hard candy shell after this.
WWJMBD?
In the Land of Oz, we cast with wheel weight and 2% Tin, Man.
I've been mixing Lars 45/45/10 and JLW for quite some time now. No leading at all at 70 to 30 ratio. Problem is finding the Johnson wax. The small "real"hardware stores still stock it.
You got that right slohunter...I am glad I have a big box store with a small store outlook.
I see some questions on drying time and speeding it up...I made it exactly as Ben specified at the beginning of this very long thread. I have found that by heating the boolits with a heat gun until they are just too hot to touch before tumbling them in the lube speeds the drying time up to minutes. It steams the solvents out like crazy. I have not read the thread in a few months so don't know if anyone else uses heat but it works for very well me.
Do bullets need to be lubed before using BLL, or will it work by itself? In other words, is BLL a protective coat for the already lubed bullet, or will it work as lube as is?
Is BLL a protective coat for the already lubed bullet, or will it work as lube as is?
EITHER.............And / or both.
Ben
So if it will work by itself, why bother with pre-lubing with something else???
It will work by itself with some loads , under some conditions.
I use it as an " Over Coat " at 2,300 - 2,400 fps sometimes with rifle bullets.
Obviously , you wouldn't need that for a 38 Spec. with a 148 gr. wadcutter and 2.7 grs. of B'Eye. A single coat of BLL would work just fine for this type of application.
The only time I use something else is on high speed rifle boolits. A little ben's red in the grooves probably is not required. But it does give me a confidence boost. And the 2 seem to work well together. Makes the Ben's red lubed boolits nice and hard, not sticky, store better, cleaner.
Most likely not required, is probably like suspendors and belt kind of thing.
I see the liquid wax has naptha. That's lighter fluid. So, another way to thin lla maybe?
Naphtha is a very general term that covers petroleum distillates from the very lightest fractions like lighter fluid all the way up to about Diesel fuel. LLA (Alox 606/55HF) is thinned with a naphtha, probably "Paint and Varnish Maker's Naphtha," a.k.a. mineral spirits, Stoddard solvent, Varsol, etc. Folks in the business will have lots of criteria for different grades, but for my crude purposes those are all very nearly the same. The big concern is the volatility of the solvent. The more volatile it is, the lower the temperature at which it puts out enough fumes to be lit with a burning splinter, known as the "flash point." The HF in the Alox 606/55HF means "High Flash point." Safer to handle from a fire prevention standpoint, maybe a little slower drying than standard Alox 606/55 which you can buy in bulk from Lubrizol and in smaller quantities from lube vendors. You can thin it with lighter fluid, Coleman fuel, unleaded gasoline or any other similar light naphthas you may think of, and it will dry faster, but it will be much easier to catch on fire and you'll have more fumes.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
I've had good results with it in all my handgun target/plinkin loads. .38/357, .45 and .44 under 1000 fps. I add a couple thimble full of lube to up to a hundred warm bullets in an empty round plastic powder canister, tumble on a thumblers for several minutes, shake then lay out to dry on an elevated screen. So easy a hunky like me can do it.
Last edited by cephas53; 01-29-2016 at 08:47 AM.
If you take a dog which is starving and feed him and make him prosperous, that dog will not bite you. This is the primary difference between a dog and a man.
A hunting report using BLL...
With 2 days left in deer season for me i finally caught a morning without the wind blowing hard.
I called a young buck in to a doe bleat this morning and the 3 coats of BLL lubed noe 360230 gr. fp. going 2200 fps. hit exactly where the crosshairs were. The shot was DRT.
BLL has now performed in the woods and on the shooting range for me with the same results as the Ben's Red lube i've used for the prior 2 years.
I can now tl or traditional lube with equal results....first shots from a cold bbl. on target either way.
This is the ONLY tl lube i have found that will do that for me.
No Ben,
It's me that THANKS YOU!!
Using your lubes eliminates a variable when i'm hunting or working up loads at the range.
I no longer worry about if my lube is working right, because i only use Ben's Red and now BLL.
I just sit at the range and work up loads with confidence! Then i go hunting with no worries about how hot or cold it is or where my FIRST shot will go.
That's the lube part of the equation.
Believe me...that's a very good feeling.
FWIW, buy any SCJOSNBW when you find it. I was having difficulty finding it locally, so I called SC Johnson to see if they could locate a distributor or retailer. They said they quit making it in October of 2015.
'Ben'slick'
a m e r i c a n p r a v d a
Be a Patriot . . . expose their lies!
“In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” G. Orwell
It still shows up on the company website. A Canadian FAQ page said it is not sold in Canada, but it appears to be available from Amazon in Canada.
Didn't this rumor come up some months ago? Yup, see posts 576 and 601. Not searching the entire thread.
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 |