Stupid Question: Do Lube Cookies Replace Lubing Grooves?

[Texantothecore]

The reason I was wondering is that I can put a heck of a lot of lube down a barrel with a lube cookie. I always tumble lube my boolits in JPW, BTW, as an added measure.

This is strictly Black Powder.

[martinibelgian]

Can you? Don't forget only the sides of the cookie make contact with the bore, most of the rest is pretty useless... Check immediately in front of the muzzle, chances are you'll find some pretty much intact lube cookies.

[wild thing]

Lube cookies =pure lube. If you fire the rifle the lube melts , coats inside of barrel. Only problem I see would be to much lube, if that's possible. Just my opinion. john

[Don McDowell]

No lube cookies don't replace a lubed bullet, they are mainly useful for bullets that don't carry much lube, or under patched bullets.
If you get a lube star on the barrle crown without the cookie you likely don't need it.

[martinibelgian]

The lube melts? think again - even a card or paper wad doesn't have any scorch marks - nothing. I can guarantee you the heat won't melt it.

[Gunlaker]

The lube melts? think again - even a card or paper wad doesn't have any scorch marks - nothing. I can guarantee you the heat won't melt it.

Definitely. In your typical .45-70 black powder rifle the bullet spends only a few milliseconds in the barrel. Even though the expanding gasses are easily hot enough to melt the lube there just isn't enough time for the heat to transfer.

Chris.

[Ed in North Texas]

Definitely. In your typical .45-70 black powder rifle the bullet spends only a few milliseconds in the barrel. Even though the expanding gasses are easily hot enough to melt the lube there just isn't enough time for the heat to transfer.

Chris.

Thanks MartiniBelgian and Chris. Another bit of "common knowledge" bites the dust. And I'll bet that in another 3 or 4 decades someone will still be posting (if there are computers and forums) that it melts.

Ed

[mzlldr]

Thanks Martinibelgian and Gunlaker , you have just simplified my reloading for me . I also would appreciate your comments regarding wads --- veggie or cardboard ? If cardboard , hard/stiff , or similar to plastic coated milk carton cardboard ( i dont favour the idea of l/d polythene or plastic of any breed , BUT I am willing to take advice from experienced B/P shooters ) .
Thanking you in anticipation .

[Nobade]

The main thing I have seen is the lube gives a good gas seal in the bore. It doesn't melt, does leave the bore wet, and protects the boolit from powder gas allowing it to shoot accurately. When I started playing with PP boolits in my 45-70, which has a long throat, I couldn't get any kind of decent accuracy until I went to a thick grease cookie. All of a sudden the rifle started shooting wonderfully! I just had to protect that boolit and get it past the throat undamaged.

They also work quite well in muzzle loaders.

[Texantothecore]

Here is my thinking:

I am using Emmert's Lube (45% beeswax, 45% Crisco and 10% vegetable oil, whatever is on sale). It occurred to me that since over half my cookie is liquid the pressure from the initial explosion should squeeze the lighter fractions from the lube cookie and shoot them forward coating the boolit and then the barrel giving a nicely lubed rifle. In my own rifle there is probably a minimum of 9 tons of pressure with as much as 14 tons and that should drain the cookie of all liquids quickly. I don't think heat has much to do with it as the heat is only momentary.

One of the tests I am going to do is to look at any partial lube cookies that are lying on the ground to see if they have been stripped of their liquids. They should be quite dry and possibly hard due to the action of the pressure.

While I was waiting for Emmert's to harden up I read the Crisco can and found out that the hydrogenated oils used in it are Soy oil and Palm oil. Has anyone tried Soy wax or Palm wax?

For any noobies out there, Emmert's is extremely easy to make and use. I will be photographing and posting a thread on making it on my next run. As an added bonus it does not require "Hummingbird Tongue" or those hard to find "Eye of Newt". Just stuff from Kroger and Hobby Lobby.

[Texantothecore]

Nobade, what thickness are you using for your .45-70? You mentioned that they are thick.

[Lead pot]

There is several ways you can use to make the lube wad do it's most good.
Heat is generated by more then the flames. pressure, and friction will also do it.
You can greatly regulate the amount of lube that gets left behind by how the lube is made and wad stacks used and the type of wad material.
I will get into this later. Right now I have an appointment to get my ears fixed so I can hear again. :grin:
But look at the photo and you will see how some of the lube wads get consumed more then others. All the lube wads in the picture are made from the same items with coloring agents added to identify them, and some felt wads.
All wads were the same 1/4" thickness before they were shot.

http://i704.photobucket.com/albums/ww43/Kurtalt/IMG_0237.jpg

[Texantothecore]

For those of you who are just starting out:

Lube has several functions. They are:

1. Makes the barrel and bullet slippery to allow the bullet to travel down the barrel with less hindrance than if unlubed.

2. According to the experts the lube will pass the bullet during the firing of the gun, coat the bullet and the barrel, get to the end of barrel and exit while a small amount will curve back in a vortex and coat the crown of the barrel with lube in a pattern that is called a "lube star" or a "lube rose". If you see a lube rose on your crown it is very likely that your lube is working well and you are using enough of it. If you don't see that rose, you may need to add a lube cookie to your load as the lube grooves may not be holding enough for the load, or the lube grooves may not allow the lube to be stripped from the grooves and moved forward into the barrel while coating the boolit.
Lack of a lube rose may also mean that your lube is too hard and you may need to soften it with Crisco or vegetable oil.

3. The other function that lube performs is to provide a proxy surface on which the high temperature gas expends its high heat. In the absence of lube the high temperature gas (5,000 F?) will melt a small amount of lead on the bullet and deposit it on the barrel. In other words, leading. That is why undersized bullets (read commercially available bullets, particularly "Hard Cast" bullets) will lead the bore unless they are the right size as they are too small to seal the bore which also prevents leading.

Which goes a long way to explain why simple lube steps, such as tumble lubing the boolit in Alox or Johnson's Paste Wax are generally effective in eliminating leading. They have a proxy surface which absorbs the heat of the hot gases for a short period of time.
Copper jacketed bullets will leave a copper deposit for exactly the same reason.

[Texantothecore]

Lead Pot,

That is one of the most interesting pictures that has appeared on this board. When you get time I would be very interested in knowing the mix and wad material for the pink lube. It appears to have expended nearly all of its lube on the boolit and barrel.

Were there any shots that left no lube cookie on the ground?

It also appears that the cork wads are less effective as the lube associated with them is still pretty complete.

Good luck with your hearing test.

[Wally]

For those of you who are just starting out:

Lube has several functions. They are:

1. Makes the barrel and bullet slippery to allow the bullet to travel down the barrel with less hindrance than if unlubed.

2. According to the real experts the lube will pass the bullet during the firing of the gun, coat the bullet and the barrel, get to the end of barrel and exit while a small amount will curve back in a vortex and coat the crown of the barrel with lube in a pattern that is called a "lube star" or a "lube rose". If you see a lube rose on your crown it is very likely that your lube is working well and you are using enough of it. If you don't see that rose, you may need to add a lube cookie to your load as the lube grooves may not be holding enough for the load, or the lube grooves may not allow the lube to be stripped from the grooves and moved forward into the barrel while coating the boolit.
Lack of a lube rose may also mean that your lube is too hard and you may need to soften it with Crisco or vegetable oil.

3. The other function that lube performs is to provide a proxy surface on which the high temperature gas expends its high heat. In the absence of lube the high temperature gas (5,000 F?) will melt a small amount of lead on the bullet and deposit it on the barrel. In other words, leading. That is why undersized bullets (read commercially available bullets, particularly "Hard Cast" bullets) will lead the bore unless they are the right size as they are too small to seal the bore which also prevents leading.

Which goes a long way to explain why simple lube steps, such as tumble lubing the boolit in Alox or Johnson's Paste Wax are generally effective in eliminating leading. They have a proxy surface which absorbs the heat of the hot gases for a short period of time.
Copper jacketed bullets will leave a copper deposit for exactly the same reason.

Have read that bullet lube acts as a gasket/seal preventing the melted lead alloy from blowing past the bullet while it is in the barrel..similiar to your # 3.... This may well be true as wax gas checks seem to do the very same thing as do metal gas checks.

[Texantothecore]

Have read that bullet lube acts as a gasket/seal preventing the melted lead alloy from blowing past the bullet while it is in the barrel..similiar to your # 3.... This may well be true as wax gas checks seem to do the very same thing as do metal gas checks.

I would think that the lube would seal the gases in as the lube moves forward in the barrel. Although liquid, the seal should be pretty good as it takes time for the wax and liquids to squirt past the boolit and into the barrel.

As much pressure as there is in the barrel of even a very mild load, the wax as well as the carried liquids should squirt through every available hole: Space around the bullet before it enters the main bore, through the rifling before the boolit obturates etc.

As far as metal versus wax I would guess that lube cookies might be ideal as gas checks. Cheap and effective.

I hadn't thought about those two aspects but it seems that lube cookies may have a number of benefits other than just making it slippery.

[Nobade]

Nobade, what thickness are you using for your .45-70? You mentioned that they are thick.

About 3/8" with a .030" card on either side.

You mentioned soy wax - I am using that in my grease cookies. It is Dick Dastardly's "pearl lube" mix, equal parts soy wax, crisco, and toilet bowl ring. Makes a pretty good and very cheap BP lube. I added a little patchouli oil to mine and it has quite the distinctive smell. Mixes nicely with BP smoke and ballistol, I think.

[Lead pot]

I'm by a long shot not an expert. But there is a lot I learned shooting the black powder rifles since 1954 or 55 observing what bullets do and how they are loaded.
There is a lot in your post I disagree with, but I wont go into that.
I dont know for sure if your talking about PP bullets or GG. I think you might be referring to the GG bullet.
I shoot mostly a PP bullet but I don't lock myself into just loading or shooting one way.
Lube will help lock gases behind when using a lube wad but the cards will do more sealing gasses but even a good wad combination with lube sandwiched in between will by pass a lead bullet that is undersized and to hard that it does not get enough obturation to seal the bore.
Below is a bullet that did just that. Lube wad and the cards did not stop the gas from cutting this bullet.
As far as the GG bullets. the amount of lube it carries is not as important as how much of that lube is in contact with the bore. Shooting a greaser will only use a very small fraction of the lube that in the groove. It just deposits what is in contact when a black powder round goes off and the obturation just seals the bore and a little gets squeezed out of the grooves as the nose gets set back and the base gets pushed forward nothing more then what initially was in contact with the bore gets pushed forward with a proper fitting base wad and what little gets rubbed off by the time it gets to the end of a long barrel will get pretty slim if it is not a good lube.
I have lubed bullets and cooled them off and scrapped the lube off the bullet and weight it and shot those bullets through a very long split tube in cold weather and collected the lube that spun off as the bullet passed through that tube and weight it again and I could not get a different reading before and after.


http://i704.photobucket.com/albums/ww43/Kurtalt/IMG_0330.jpg

Below is a bullet that had no wads or lube wad just a little oil I smeared on the shank of that bullet to help keep the lead off the bore wall. This bullet did not get gas cuts because it was a soft cast bullet that obturated and sealed the bore.


http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b302/940Leadpot/200-1-1.jpg


I use three carriers in my lube. Tallow I render from my yearly Deer harvest.
Ozokerite Wax. (dirt wax) and Soy wax.
The lube I make is simple. I just mix Jojobe oil or I might use peanut oil.
Another mix I like is the one you asked about, the one with the pink color I added so I can identify it after recovering it.
It is a mix of OZ wax and vaseline.
You can see how much of the lube was used in this mix by how close the two cards are. most was left in the barrel to keep the fouling soft for the next round fired.
I make a different lube for the PP lube wad and the GG is different.

Using all of that mineral stuff in the OZ wax and Vaseline should make a very bad Tar Eh???[smilie=1:

Another thing I do when making my lube is; I add all the ingredients in boiling water to let a little water molecules get into the mix and let it cool and take the cake off the water and scrape off the gelatin off the bottom.

[Texantothecore]

"There is a lot in your post I disagree with, but I wont go into that."

Please do go into that. I think that you may know a great deal more about it than I do and I would love to find out what your experience has told you over the years.

I had to look up Ozokerite Wax which is a naturally occurring paraffin. Very odd. I had no idea it would ever occur in nature in quantities sufficient to allow mining of it.

[Lead pot]

Texas to the core.

Tex, I went with a lot more then I said I would not do again a few years ago. It just starts a bunch P-N's matches. These computers are the next best thing to the Ham Radio bands for passing on usable information. But here on the keyboards the standards are not the same.
I'm at a point where I will not do much of this anymore.

The best I can tell you to do is try it, study the results like recover your bullets if you want to see what the alloy is doing, what the wads are doing to protect the bullet from gas cuts and what gets left down the bore.

There is nothing new that can be invented for shooting the black powder rifle shooting lead bullets that has not been done back in the 19th century.

The good think shooting these old rifles is keep it simple!
Lube does not need all of the exotic junk that a lot of the people put in it. The trick is use what will hydrate the fouling and a lube that will leave a coating of wax/oil on the iron so the tin in the alloy dont solder it's self to the bore.
The old stand by B-Wax and Sperm oil that the Sharps rifle company used worked as good as the most exotic lube used now days.
Well no days you cant get the Sperm oil but there are substitutes you can use.

I dont use B-Wax any more. Waxes like I listed above were not available in the far past.
I use them because I found I can hydrate the fouling faster using them.
Test your lube sometime by blowing down the muzzle just one time and then push a patch down the bore and see how moist that patch comes out. Or on the second shot fired push a dry patch down the bore with out blowing, this is the real test to find out how good your lube is doing.
Those lube wads in the photo that have the pink tint I can shoot with just one blow down the barrel after 5-6 shots and it will hold accuracy.

You will be farther ahead if you try and study the results.

[Texantothecore]

Lead Pot,

Great advice as usual. I will do as you recomend. Shoot and score the hydration, post my results for others.

Thanks for your help.
TTTC

[MikeS]

Texan, the only thing you said that I have to say is wrong is about a lube cookie keeping the hot gasses off the boolit base, otherwise the base will melt some which causes leading. Lead boolits DO NOT MELT from heat on the base. They melt, and therefore lead the bore when a jet of hot gasses gets past the boolit, causing the side of the boolit to melt some, and that lead gets shot past the boolit via the hot gases, then the boolit irons it onto the side of the bore. The lube cookie DOES help keep the gasses from getting past the boolit, so in that way help stop leading, but it's not because the boolit base is melting. Think about it, if the lead was going to melt just from the heat, the wax would vaporize, and again be of no use.

[Texantothecore]

Mike,
I agree with you. It appears that the cookie does seal that bore. I was apparently dead wrong about the lube squirting around the bullet in the first millisecond which I find very curious. It does not do so.

I will be posting an article from LASC in which Glen Fryxell discusses the functions of lube and an executive summary will be included. It is enlightening and has much information which I had not considered.

[MikeS]

Actually his entire book which is posted on LASC has lots of great info in it.