Ever Shoot W/o Lube?

[BulletFactory]

Just to be curious, I loaded 10 rounds today for the .40 with no lube, just to see what happened. Hooooly smokes what a mess!

Anybody else done this?

BTW, is BHN 16 good for a .40?

[RobS]

Nope..............and you know why :lol:

[sirgknight]

It would be kinda like driving on your rims without rubber on them.......it will work great......for a period of time!

[HARRYMPOPE]

yes, i have shot many rounds without lube.lately In a 35 Whelen with a 200g GC bullet at 1600 and a 30-06 with a plainbase bullet at 1200.Both will keep 1.5"-2" at 100 yards and its not far off what lubed bullets do in these guns..it takes about 40 shots for the accuracy to degrade,then a lubed GC bullet or two clears it all out.My buddy loads all of his defensive handgun ammo without lube to keep the worry of melted lube fouling the powder in the hot weather.All of this is with WW or Linoel and nothing soft.

HMP

[luvtn]

It happens many times. I have picked up lswc lubed with a hard blue lube that was still present after firing and could be reloaded as was found!
ll

[BOOM BOOM]

HI,
My friend Wade took a whole 10lb. pot full of 38's I had cast ,lubed them with case sizing lube,& loaded them up , by the next day. then shot them.:Fire::Fire:

[Tom W.]

When I was a bit younger and moly was all the rage, a friend of mine told me to bring over some boolits and he'd put moly on them and I wouldn't have to loobe them.. I loaded up the Lee TL boolits with just moly and, while thinking that this can't be true, I shot them from my Colt GM.
After about three shots the slide failed to go into battery. I bumped it and fired again, and got another ftf. I cleared the pistol and looked at the muzzle, and there was what looked like silver tinsel hanging from it...I went home and pulled the remaing loaded rounds, tl'd them and had no more problems. Never wanted to use moly again, either...

[BulletFactory]

The thing looked like someone had smeared JB weld all over the inside of the barrel.:lol:

now I know how to prank a caster.

[geargnasher]

Now that you've done that, try a starting-level load with the space between the UNlubed boolit and the powder filled with slightly compressed and lightly toasted Cream of Wheat. The results might surpise you, and beg the question of what lube really does. I maintain it's a micro-stop-leak, as well as a fluid film lubricant.

Gear

[HARRYMPOPE]

a fast burning powder under a case full of 4831(or a like speed slow rifle powder)) in a 44 magnum also will not lead and shoot very well with unlubed soft bullets.its like the 4831 scours out the barrel and leaves it shiny clean.

HMP

[HammerMTB]

There's no lube on my PP rifle boolits, but that's kinda not the same.
Gear, do you have a recipe for "lightly toasted" COW? :kidding:

[snuffy]

Take a look at this thread over on TFL;

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=456835

I thought, as most do, that un-lubed boolits would cause a major amount of leading. Apparently he got away with it. So he says----------

It's just amazing how some people don't research things before rushing headlong into something.:popcorn:

I've never tried un-lubed boolits. I seem to remember this subject came up here before, but don't remember the final conclusion.

[BulletFactory]

conclusion... We have lube for a reason.

[XWrench3]

NO THANKS! i have had to scrub enough lead out of barrels using lube. i can not even imagine how bad it would be without. now, if you were trying to get a boolit to come out @ roughly 20fps, then it MIGHT work. that might be accomplished with 5 to 10 kernals of powder. but you had better be prepared to drive several squibs out in the process.

[HARRYMPOPE]

Take a look at this thread over on TFL;

[

It's just amazing how some people don't research things before rushing headlong into something.:popcorn:

I've never tried un-lubed boolits. I seem to remember this subject came up here before, but don't remember the final conclusion.


Well it has worked for me (sort of) and a few friends and we did our own research.its not good long term but i didn't have the horror stories of mass leading others have.I shot 20 in my Sporterized Enfield 30-06 today wth 8.5 of Unique and 190 PB bullet without lube and shot two ten shots groups a bit over 2" at 100 yards NO LEADING.The gun shoots lubed bullets about 1/2" better so no lube in no advantage but it was interesting anyhow.I have the same group shape without lube that i have with it.I had always blamed lube "issues" for the egg shaped groups and apparently it is something else.

HMP

[quack1]

I tried it in a Makarov, once. Got to looking at that nice, smooth, chromed bore and just had to try some without lube. I had the same accuracy and no leading for over 20 rounds. After that, accuracy started to degrade and leading showed up. The chrome bore cleaned up easily.

[1Shirt]

Have tried a lot of things ONE TIME, and one time only. (Even voted once for a Democrat ONCE) However, I like to think I have always been smart enough to know that lube grooves have a purpose, and that is to put lube in. It (lube) is a replacement for a patch in a front stuffer, and most patched are lubed as well. Even when I load round ball loads (single or multi)-and I load them for a number of ctgs, I roll them in Lee mule snot. So, have been smart enough over many many years not to shoot cast w/o lube. And I learned that from old Lyman manuals. Now, we have this forum, and it is the best thing for the inexperianced caster since sliced white bread and dry toilet paper. Good luck!
1Shirt!:coffee:

[oksmle]

This was originally posted on January 11, 2007. I'm still shooting the same load in this SMLE. Clean up consists of two dry patches thru the bore & a wipedown.
oksmle

Update On .303 Load With No Lube

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A while back on a particular thread, during our usual wandering away from & eventual return to the main topic, I mentioned a .303 load I was working on in which I used no lube. I received a couple of PMs & a couple of phone calls from folks asking me to report on my findings. I told them I wanted to fire about 800 rounds to satisfy myself that what I was experiencing wasn't a fluke. Yesterday I fired number 770 with the intention of going to the range this weekend & running the last 30 through the rifle. Since it looks as though Oklahoma will be covered in ice this weekend, & I don't have time to get to the range before then, I thought I'd go ahead & let you know my findings.
The rifle is a "scratch-built" No.1 Mk III SMLE I assembled from parts left over from other stuff I had worked on. The barrel is new surplus & instead of simply screwing it into the receiver I took one turn off the breech end & finished the chamber to minimum SAAMI specs. Then I eased the throat just a tad to make it easier on cast boolits. After working on the trigger it breaks right at 4 pounds. The first 50 rounds (which didn't count in the 770) were fire lapping rounds.
The Load: NEI #72 cast of straight WWs at .313", & weighing 163.0 grs. Annealed Hornady GC sized at .314". 23.0 grs Surplus 4895 dropped from my RCBS powder dispenser topped by 1.6cc PSB dipped with a Lee dipper. This is a lightly compressed load. Remington 9 1/2 primers & a light Lee crimp. OAL - 2.936". The front driving band just barely touches the throat when chambered. Sixty new Remington cases reamed, turned & prepped then dedicated to this rifle. After the first firing they weren't even neck sized thereafter. Just belled a bit to accept the GC snugly. After 30 or 40 rounds I noticed a leading condition devloping at the junction of the lands & grooves. My cleaning was two dry patches run through the bore after however many rounds I fired that particular day. Sometimes it was twenty & sometimes sixty. But the condition never got any worse & I never picked up lead on my patches. The only way you can see it is to shine a flash light at an angle across the muzzle. And the top of the lands & bottom of the grooves are clean with no lead accumulation at all.... Maybe because of the fire lapping.
The largest ten shot group fired measured 2.772" & the smallest (fired yesterday) was 1.324" (with an internal six round group of 0.635").
I'm not suggesting that everyone who owns a SMLE should try this load, but it will probably be the only load this particular rifle will ever see.

oksmle

[HARRYMPOPE]

This was originally posted on January 11, 2007. I'm still shooting the same load in this SMLE. Clean up consists of two dry patches thru the bore & a wipedown.
oksmle

Update On .303 Load With No Lube

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A while back on a particular thread, during our usual wandering away from & eventual return to the main topic, I mentioned a .303 load I was working on in which I used no lube. I received a couple of PMs & a couple of phone calls from folks asking me to report on my findings. I told them I wanted to fire about 800 rounds to satisfy myself that what I was experiencing wasn't a fluke. Yesterday I fired number 770 with the intention of going to the range this weekend & running the last 30 through the rifle. Since it looks as though Oklahoma will be covered in ice this weekend, & I don't have time to get to the range before then, I thought I'd go ahead & let you know my findings.
The rifle is a "scratch-built" No.1 Mk III SMLE I assembled from parts left over from other stuff I had worked on. The barrel is new surplus & instead of simply screwing it into the receiver I took one turn off the breech end & finished the chamber to minimum SAAMI specs. Then I eased the throat just a tad to make it easier on cast boolits. After working on the trigger it breaks right at 4 pounds. The first 50 rounds (which didn't count in the 770) were fire lapping rounds.
The Load: NEI #72 cast of straight WWs at .313", & weighing 163.0 grs. Annealed Hornady GC sized at .314". 23.0 grs Surplus 4895 dropped from my RCBS powder dispenser topped by 1.6cc PSB dipped with a Lee dipper. This is a lightly compressed load. Remington 9 1/2 primers & a light Lee crimp. OAL - 2.936". The front driving band just barely touches the throat when chambered. Sixty new Remington cases reamed, turned & prepped then dedicated to this rifle. After the first firing they weren't even neck sized thereafter. Just belled a bit to accept the GC snugly. After 30 or 40 rounds I noticed a leading condition devloping at the junction of the lands & grooves. My cleaning was two dry patches run through the bore after however many rounds I fired that particular day. Sometimes it was twenty & sometimes sixty. But the condition never got any worse & I never picked up lead on my patches. The only way you can see it is to shine a flash light at an angle across the muzzle. And the top of the lands & bottom of the grooves are clean with no lead accumulation at all.... Maybe because of the fire lapping.
The largest ten shot group fired measured 2.772" & the smallest (fired yesterday) was 1.324" (with an internal six round group of 0.635").
I'm not suggesting that everyone who owns a SMLE should try this load, but it will probably be the only load this particular rifle will ever see.

oksmle

Nice results that mirror mine.

George