Lube on Hornady Swadged bullets

[Johnch]

A freind loves the Hornady lead bullets

I...... don't
But I am going to cast him up a bunch of soft Boolits anyway

Just need a idea of how to come close to the wax like lube they use

John

[870TC]

Rooster Jacket

[stubshaft]

I always thought it was LLA rolled in mica.

[fecmech]

I believe BABore uses LLA+mica on his Hornaday clone.

[BABore]

Yep! One thinned coat (50/50 LLA & mineral spirits). You can barely tell anythings on them. When dry, I put a 150 or so at a time in a gallon ziplok along with about a 1/4 tsp of motor mica. They come out looking just like the Hornady boolits. I do believe that Hornady does use Rooster Jacket lube on theirs. I tried that and also White Lightning bicycle chain lube (about the same as Rooster) along with motor mica and accuracy was not as good. Too much LLA and accuracy goes south as well. I tried many different 358 booits cast from PB and couldn't match the Hornady accuracy. I finally did the honorable thing and made a close copy of it. My best load is 5.0 grains of WW 231 in a 357 mag case with a CCI 500 primer.

[Johnch]

Thanks

I have LLA and Mica


If he wants Rooster Jacket
He can buy it LOL

John

[Russel Nash]

@ BABore, just how close of a copy to those Hornady boolits is yours? The Hornady swaged lead boolits I have used in the past had a cross hatched pattern on them to hold the lube.

I had called Hornady on a few different times hoping they would tip their hand. I said, "hey, that seems a lot like dried liquid alox?" They always would say, "Yes, it is, but is "mixed" with something else that we would like to keep proprietary or a trade secret."

Hmmn.... sounds like we all know now what that trade secret is.

If yours also have the same cross hatched pattern, just wondering how you did that?

Thanks!

[noylj]

As far as I could "see", the only "lube" on the Hornady swaged bullets was the mica. Remove the mica, and all I see if nice shiny lead.
If it wasn't for the cost and the lack of accuracy I get in my guns, I would use them all the time. They are about the best looking swaged lead bullets I have ever seen.
I found that an additional coat of LLA or RJ would let the 140gn Cowboy bullet work quite well in my .38 Super. Just didn't get the accuracy I can get with other cast bullets.

[357maximum]

@ BABore, just how close of a copy to those Hornady boolits is yours? The Hornady swaged lead boolits I have used in the past had a cross hatched pattern on them to hold the lube.

I had called Hornady on a few different times hoping they would tip their hand. I said, "hey, that seems a lot like dried liquid alox?" They always would say, "Yes, it is, but is "mixed" with something else that we would like to keep proprietary or a trade secret."

Hmmn.... sounds like we all know now what that trade secret is.

If yours also have the same cross hatched pattern, just wondering how you did that?

Thanks!

Not Bab's but I can answer the question. Bruce's SWC "Hornady clone" plinker boolit has 3 shallow lube grooves seperating 4 wide but relatively short drive bands and there is no crosshatch pattern. Bruce is good but making a mould and casting that crosshatch pattern into a boolit would be a David Copperfield thing.

I have shot over 3,000 of these boolits cast of any alloy soft enough to put a thumbnail into in several 38/357revolvers, a 38 special H&R carbine, a 35 rem marlin 336 and a 357 max encore with small doses of fast shotgun powders. There is no better plinking boolit for the 35's IMO. I am not sure why they stay stable way out there at sloooooooooooow speeds but they do. I really like the pop............................................... ...............................clang you get with this boolit. I have shot them from 400 to 1000 FPS with exceptional accuracy out to and beyond 400 yards.


Bruce really outdone hisself on this design.

[357shooter]

Y'all are killin' me. Soft semi-wadcutters in my 357 revolver and lever rifle are incredibly accurate. The most accurate bullets that I've found actually.

So looking for funds to place the order for the Hornady clone. Otherwise I won't be able to sleep.

[Doby45]

They must have some automated process of the boolits rolling on a belt and a file our some other instrument above or below it that puts the cross hatch pattern on them. Prolly would not take much to make something that would do the same thing.. You would just need to be able to control the amount of pressure that is applying the boolit to the hatching fixture.

EDIT: To add crude drawing..

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b327/Doby45/Untitled.jpg

[BABore]

I copied the Hornady design as close as a micrometer can come. What I couldn't duplicate was the rolled in texture they use. I decided to put in 3 very shallow lube grooves. I had planned to use a liquid lube and wanted someplace for it to go without upsetting the center of gravity and balance of the original design too much. I also wanted to cover my butt should the liquid lube fail and I had to use conventional stuff. It all worked out fine. My goal was to match the accuracy I could get with the Hornady swaged boolit. My normal NRA silhoutte load was 5.0 grs of WW 231 and CCI 500 in a 357 mag case. From my 8 3/8 S&W 686 with red dot sight, this load clocks just shy of 1,100 fps. Benched accuracy at 25 yards is a ragged hole at 1/2" or less. My buddy's Contender will do that at 50 yards. What seperated the men from the boys was long range stability and accuracy. All of the normal Lyman designs fell apart after 100 yards or so. The Hornady boolit is stable and has no flyers out past 400 yards. My clone of it will match that.

[gray wolf]

The cross hatch is done with knurling tool, it is rolled on.
Corbon sells a small scale version for home type swagging operation.

[northernlead]

anyone pc these

[Grump]

An old thread indeed. New post brought me in.

I don’t remember any item/catalog number but this sounds like their full wadcutters. But at least one comment is about SWCs. Being familiar with FWCs going sideways (literally) between 75-100 yards from .38 Specials, I’m wondering if this is really about SWCs. ???

[Lead pot]

I swage most of my pistol and some rifle the bullets I swage I knurl and pan lube them with the lube I make. This works very well with no lead problems because no bare lead makes contact with the bore. I also make full .355 wad cutters for the 52 S&W Master those I lube with Mika and Johnson one step.

205560205561205562

[country gent]

To get the pattern shown in lead Pots picture isn't hard. it rolled in using knurled rollers. That is the mirror image of a diamond pointed knurl. I has some gripers I edmed with a diamond knurled electrode that looked the same. A copper electrode and edm machine would cut that surface into the mould blocks with no problems.

My guess is that the surface is applied with 3 rollers and as the bullets come from the swage press they are rolled thru the rollers with the bottom 2 in a tray of mica applying it as well on the trip thru. The bottom 2 rollers would be fixed and the top adjustable to set the depth of the knurl and dia of the bullet. This set up would only need to be a couple inches long and the bullets would feed in one end thru and drop out the other being knurled and lubed on the trip thru. A plus to the mica being applied to the bullet like this is it also lubricates the tooling increasing its usefull life. LLA could also be used in this set up thinned some to get the desired coating.

While that surface can be edmed into the moulds casting it and getting the good fill out may be a different story. Air pockets and voids may be a real issue

[Lead pot]

I made rollers on my Lathe using the knurling tool with different pattern depths. The thing with knurling a bullet is it also increases the bullet diameter. This pattern you see on the pictured bullets will increase the diameter by as much as .013" just right for cast or swaged bullets for a PP at bore diameter. This pattern will hold more lube as the 720 gr .50 cal hollow point in the center photo left bullet.

[country gent]

The displaced material from the "knurling" has to go somewhere as the only way is out and longer they get bigger in dia and longer. But with the right frame and adjustment bullet dia could be maintained and adjusted easily thru a set screw or shim set up. It would be interesting to figure volumne of the knurl and a actual grease grooved bullet. Ill bet that pattern over the hole bullet may be holding very close to the same amount of lube as a grease grooved bullet. Pan lubing with a regular lube might be interesting also.

[Lead pot]

I weight the bullets before and after the knurl and the knurled bullet gained the most weight. I have never seen a gain in length but changing to a more aggressive knurl you can gain diameter just about as much to a reasonable diameter you want like taking a .44 cal PP bullet that is .434" and increase it to .444" and use it in a .45 caliber rifle patched.