RCBS green lube get stiffer with age?

[Oblofusc]

I pulled out the ol' RCBS Lub-a-Matic last night to size a bunch of .45 230 RN's I cast the other day. There was a mix of lube coming out on the bullet grooves, mostly dark tan (Lyman?) and a little RCBS green lube too. As I was going along all was fine for a while but then the lube pressure handle seemed like it suddenly started getting real hard to turn and I thought it was out of lube, so I unscrewed it and found it was at least still 1/3 full.

I stuck another couple of inches of RCBS green lube in to top it off and continued. It seemed to go OK for a while but then it started getting harder & harder to turn the lube pressure handle and it got to the point where even getting it to go half a turn was either going to break my fingers or bend the rod. By this point it was almost all the RCBS green lube. Is that green RCBS lube just stiff as heck? Is this normal? I don't remember it ever being that difficult.

Maybe my real question is, does the green RCBS lube go bad or get stiffer with age? Some of these sticks must be at least 15 years old but they looked OK. Ambient temp was around 70 - 75F so I don't think temp was an issue that would fully explain it.

[mooman76]

Lube will dry out some as it gets older and of coarse as it dries out it will get harder. I'm sure you could melt it down and add something to it to soften it back up. I'm not sure what would be best but I'm sure someone here does. Maybe some bees wax or another type of soft lube or even a little vegetable oil.

[randyrat]

Yes it will dry out a little bit..Any beeswax base lube will shrink and loose some moisture over time. No fix, just add some heat, 100 watt bulb against the reservoir for 5-10 minutes should soften it.