Lee lube

[Jim]

I just joined your forum and am hoping to find some help with lubing. I've been using this infernal lee lube and am about fed up with it. About the only thing i CAN say for it is it's easy to apply. Once it dries, though, it's the stickiest mess I've ever cleaned out of my guns. I might as well use pipe dope.
I'm looking for something that's easy to use but has real lubrication qualities. I'm open to suggestions.

Jim

[45nut]

Welcome to CB Jim.

Do a search for Johnson's Paste Wax,,,it seems to have promise.

Stick around,,ask away and soon you will be answering these requests yourself.

[cherok9878]

Jim, I was having the same issues with LLA that you seem to be having. Just couldn't get it to work with anything I tried. A board member, RB Stern, talked me thru the process. Now,I can push pistol bullets(boolits, sorry) to 1500fps without leading in a Rossi 92 clone.
Tell us what you are doing, process wise, and see if anyone can help. The knowledge here is beyond belief. Any question you have, someone here can elaborate on. At times, with more info than you can process.............larry

[Junior1942]

Jim, I'm an old time cast bullet shooter and I consider LLA the best thing since somebody took a sheet of copper and punched out a gas check. Explain your lubing/shooting/loading process in detail and we'll see what's wrong.

[Jim]

All castings are first visually inspected and the flawed castings go back in the melt. The acceptables are then sized in a Lee sizing die. From there, I pretty much follow the instructions by putting the bullets in an enameled stew pot, dribbling a small amount of lube over them and swirling them around. I let 'em dry and load 'em up.
This stuff is gumming up my sizing dies, my bullet seating dies and my guns. If one of you can show me the magic trick, that would be nice. As frustrated as I am, if I have to jump through hoops to get this stuff to work, I'm gonna pitch the whole case in the dumpster and do something else.

Jim

[Newtire]

All castings are first visually inspected and the flawed castings go back in the melt. The acceptables are then sized in a Lee sizing die. From there, I pretty much follow the instructions by putting the bullets in an enameled stew pot, dribbling a small amount of lube over them and swirling them around. I let 'em dry and load 'em up.
This stuff is gumming up my sizing dies, my bullet seating dies and my guns. If one of you can show me the magic trick, that would be nice. As frustrated as I am, if I have to jump through hoops to get this stuff to work, I'm gonna pitch the whole case in the dumpster and do something else.

Jim

Hi Jim,
I agree about the mess. Just roll em in Midway Mica powder and the sticky mess part is gone. It is really Motor Mica but parts stores around here don't carry it anymore. I get the same gummy stuff with any softer lube in my seating dies etc.
I take em apart & clean them up once in awhileis about all I can say to do. Hope this helps!

[Ranch Dog]

Jim...

I use the LLA to the tune of about 10,000 rounds a year and it works for me. I assume you are using the Lee sizer kits and that is the sizing die that you mention is the boolit sizing die and not a case sizing die.

When I open a new bottle of alox, I fill the airspace in the bottle with mineral spirits. In prepping to use the wax, I fill a small bowl or coffee cup with hot water and let the bottle of wax sit in it a few minutes. While I'm using the wax, I keep the container in the hot water. That and the mineral spirits seem to make the LLA flow "just right" for me.

The first coat I apply is rather thin. It is just to help get the boolit through the sizing die. With the next coat, I get the boolit pretty wet. With both applications I let the boolits sit on their base on wax paper to dry. In a couple of hours, they are dry and that process can be accelerated by using a hair dryer.

Personally, I just don't see the wax build up in the die as a problem. Lead and steel are going to displace wax any time pressure is applied to the two. I do clean my dies a couple of times a year and the three dies effected by the wax (boolit sizing die, boolit seating die, and Lee Factory Crimp die) clean quickly and there is NEVER any corrosion as the LLA is about the best corrosion fighter there is. To clean them I simply spray Birchwood Casey's Gun Scrubber through the die. The boolit seating die and Factory Crimp Die are both open. I leave them on my press and hold a cloth under them. It takes a couple of seconds of spray and no trace of the wax remains. With the boolit seating die, I remove the adjustment stem and push out the plug and then spray it clean. It takes about three minutes to clean all three dies.

I inspect all of the ammo I reload. I've always used a old hunting sock to lightly polish my ammo before it is stored. With the ammo topped with a LLA loaded boolit, the rag has a small amount of Gun Scrubber on it. In seconds it removes the alox that is exposed on the nose of the boolit and there is no trace of the lube. For ammo that is going to be in storage for an extended period of time, I will leave the alox on the boolit. The lead will not discolor or start to corrode like it normally does over time. When that ammo is brought out for use, I polish it up in a few seconds. None of this takes hardly any time.

I wouldn't think that you would want any type of lube exposed on ammo as it enters the gun. All kinds of stuff would stick to the stuff.

I shoot the LLA on all my boolits now and won't shoot anything other than a Lee "TL" design. I shoot my boolits up to 2500 FPS with outstanding results. I'm pretty pumped right now as I just finished a couple weeks worth of work with the Lee TLC359-180-RF in my Marlin 336D (35 Rem) and the Lee TLC379-210-RF out of my Marlin 375.

The little Guide Gun is spitting that 180-grain boolit out it's short barrel at an average velocity of 2174 FPS (AD:6, SD:8, ES:16) and gave me an amazing .36 MOA for accuracy. The 375 Win is going to be a real hog thumper. The 210-grain boolit is moving at average velocity of 2264 FS (AD:8, SD:12, ES:44) and the MOA is .95. Lee Liquid Alox plays a big part of this performance.

[Ricochet]

http://www.performancebike.com/shop/Profile.cfm?SKU=17143&item=40-1654&slitrk=search&slisearch=true

[Jim]

I spoke w/ a guy the other day about this problem and he had a suggestion. He said he puts a very thin coat of lee lube on the bullets, let's 'em dry and then rolls 'em around in 350 count graphite. He said the graphite sticks to the lee lube and provides a wonderful dry lube for the bullet.

Standing by......................

[mag_01]

-Jim the longer you let them dry the better---I do them ahead of time and let them set ---No sizing---shoot as is---works best on tumble lube design---have also sized lubed with Felix lube and then tumble lube if I'm pushing hard---Mag


To lube or not to lube that is the question.

[Cloudpeak]

Jim,

It sounds like you might be using too much LLA. I dilute the LLA with mineral spirits and roll them around in a coolwhip container with a lid on it. You really don't need very much Alox. I then size them with the Lee push through and then tumble lube them again. I pour them out on wax paper and let them dry for a few days (Wyoming-dry climate). I haven't had to roll them in anything to lessen the stickiness. Some here have mentioned rolling the bullets in "motor mica". Graphite sounds like it would be kind of messy.

I clean my dies with a rag moistened with acetone on a popsicle stick. I have no problems with my pistol barrels. I used to clean the bullets with acetone before boxing but no longer do that. I'm shooting 40 S&W and 45 ACP

Cloudpeak

[Leftoverdj]

You can tumble lube with regular lubes just by heating the bullets to the point they will melt the lube and tumbling. It'll harden when it cools. Running them through a Lee sizer wipes the surplus off into the grooves. You still wind up with the nose coated, but it's a lot less obnoxious than LLA.

[Jim]

Well, I might be using too much of this stuff. I'll back off on the second application and see how that works out. I was under the impression that the lube grooves needed to be mostly filled.

Thank y'all for the help.

Jim

[PatMarlin]

Yikes RD,

With those kinds of results I may be forced back to LLA and that 180gr mold for my Marlin 336/35rem.

[Ranch Dog]

Pat... I've been real pleased with the last couple of days shooting. My dad has been hunting with the rifle and boolit but to date the 336D hasn't been shot at a critter. I was going to go out this morning with it... got up, couldn't get ready so I took my dad out and put him in a tower blind. The shots are longer there and he hasn't put in the range time with the 336D (I'm just about out of boolits) so he took his long range gun... a M94 (30-30 Win) with a side-mounted Bushnell Banner 4X (this is actually his super-long-range-antelope-gun). We are a little different here.... levers all the way. Anyway, I have a couple task here in the barn that have been bothering me and once they are done I will hit the brush with the "D" and the TLC359 boolit.

If there was enough interest, may be a group buy would be in order. Cast boolits and 35 Rem aren't for the faint of heart. It has taken 5 powders and 175 boolit to figure out what the rifle likes. I will say that I've tried 5 different boolits out of this gun with the same type of effort and I never suceeded in finding a boolit that I would hunt with until now.

[PatMarlin]

Michael,

Let me say you are very fortunate to have your father around. What a blessing.

I've had my 35 Rem for a long time and haven't had much cast time with it. In fact it won't shoot factory loaded condom covers worth a damn.

I got it shooting the 200 RCBS real well with GreenDot under 1500 fps, but that's been the extent of it.

This rifle's a 70's vintage and probably hasn't had 3 boxes of ammo through it.. :mrgreen: