45/45/10 Tumble Lube Alternative

[honus]

Having good experience with the 45/45/10 in the past, I decided to try an alternative formula using dissolved beeswax in place of the JPW/MS. It dries faster and works as well or better. Accuracy is great and no trace of leading but I have not yet compared the two lube versions over the chronograph.

When I was a full-time gunsmith years ago, I used to dissolve beeswax and carnauba waxes in naphtha to be used as gunstock wax and as a mold release, so I decided to try it as a tumble lube ingredient.

I shaved some beeswax into a small jar containing naphtha and in a few hours I had a beeswax paste, I added enough additional naphtha to make it compatible with the LLA and mixed the two 50/50 by volume.

Surely, someone else must have tried a similar formula in the past and I am curious about their experience with the recipe.

[geargnasher]

I believe Recluse has done a lot of work with beeswax in that formula. Might have been part of the secret underground Recluse/Lars ongoing joint venture to make a commercial version of tumble lube.

When I was an engineering student years ago I shot a lot of .38 Special to keep sane in my "spare time" and money, being non-existent, drove me to find the cheapest, most spartan methods of casting and reloading I could. I detested LLA, but had no room or money for a lube-sizer, so I enrolled some of my buddies and perhaps a Ph, D. or two from the petroleum engineering department to help me find a better way. After a couple of Saturdays "borrowing" one of the chem labs (one of my friends was a lab assistant with KEYS!) I finally settled on a mixture of anhydrous Turtle Wax (water cooked off) and liquid Alox with either turpentine or denatured alcohol as a solvent. It worked well, I'd put on a heavy coat and shove them through the sizer to fill the grooves, then put on a light coat for the finish. At 700 fps dang near anything will work!

Gear

[honus]

I tried a second batch using dissolved beeswax this weekend with the 45 acp. No more cooking JPW; just naphtha dissolved beeswax and LLA. Next I need to check out the results with my 308 win and my wildcat 375 CB loads.

[runfiverun]

b-wax is one of my ingredients in the modified recluse lube.
there is more than one way to make tumble lube work, the key is the light coating and that it drys.
one of my versions comes out like the coating on 22 boolits and is tan.
the other is a bit different and comes out more brownish red and actually has alox in it.
don't much matter they both work.

[palmettosunshine]

Honus,

What are you using for "naphtha"? Lighter fluid?

[honus]

You can buy naphtha in the paint section of most hardware stores. Home depot, Ace and Tractor Supply always have it in stock.

Three and one half reasons I chose Naphtha over mineral spirits:
1) Alox as it leaves Lubrizol is cut with naphtha.
2) Beeswax will dissolve in naphtha.
3) Naphtha leaves no oily film and dries faster than mineral spirits.

Take a small glass jar with 3 or 4 oz. naphtha in it. Grate some beeswax into the naphtha, seal it, shake a bit and leave it over night. Add the LLA, shake and you have it.

[noylj]

VM&P (varnish maker and painter) naphtha is "best." Lighter fluid is too expensive.
Re: beeswax
Have you tried ONLY beeswax?
Seems like beeswax alone or beeswax+Xlox will still give you tacky bullets. Nothing wrong with tacky bullets, but it seems to be a "bug-a-boo" with lots of folks.