Re-lubing boolits

[JWFilips]

Hi All,
I'm really enjoying this entire forum on my quest for knowledge of cast bullet shooting.
I have a question to ask & I hope this is the right place. I'm still relatively new to cast boolit shooting since I just started loading casts last year at this time. I have not made the plunge into doing it all myself but I'm finding out from all you knowledgeable folks that that is the only way to go. So I have been reading as much as I can from all the old post and asking a lot of questions when I can't find old posts with the questions I have.
Recently in one of my threads I was told that commercial cast bullets ( what I am using at this time) do not have the best "shooting lube" applied to them but more it is a lube that satisfies many different criteria ( namely "shipping in hot trucks" and for mass handling for packaging & the like) most of the commercial cast I have here has either a blue or a red wax lube in the one large lube groove
Can these boolits I have here be re-lubed or or "duplex lubed" as it were with these better shooting lubes that I see posted in this forum? and if you what would be a good one and what procedure would I follow?
I shoot primarily 127 gr & 158 grain in my .357 mags and .175 grain & 180 grain in my .40 S&W
I would think that all of the boolits I have in my loading room are around 18 BHN commercially produced by different manufacturers. I'm getting leading with certain loads and also would like to try to shoot softer alloys with lighter target loads of Bulleye & WST
Thank You

[blikseme300]

I have never used commercial cast but understand that adding tumble lube often helps preventing leading. The leading cause for leading is under sized boolits - Fit is King. Have you slugged the bores and measured the boolits you are using? I have read that most commercial boolits are at the nominal size and are typically too small and often harder than needed.

If I had a large number of commercial cast that did not function well I would melt and cast them. Maybe it is time to start casting?

[Jailer]

place them on an old cookie sheet in the oven with a couple paper towels under them at low heat. The lube will melt out and soak into the paper towels. Just make sure its an old cookie sheet that you don't plan on using for cooking anymore.

[JWFilips]

I have never used commercial cast but understand that adding tumble lube often helps preventing leading. The leading cause for leading is under sized boolits - Fit is King. Have you slugged the bores and measured the boolits you are using? I have read that most commercial boolits are at the nominal size and are typically too small and often harder than needed.



If I had a large number of commercial cast that did not function well I would melt and cast them. Maybe it is time to start casting?

Yes I have done all that & yes one of my revolvers has .359" throats So commercial cast are around .358" (That what I have) I'm curing that problem (in a slow & a somewhat more expensive way ) by re-ordering custom sized boolits Mostly it is a time factor since it isn't standard production so I never know when my orders will be shipped
However I have had recent success shooting these at higher pressures using full loads of 2400 but ouch ...that is a lot of powder & recoil for target loads I would like to go to light target loads with softer boolits

[JWFilips]

place them on an old cookie sheet in the oven with a couple paper towels under them at low heat. The lube will melt out and soak into the paper towels. Just make sure its an old cookie sheet that you don't plan on using for cooking anymore.

Gee that is so simple! Never thought of that. After that would I tumble lube? The casts I I have here only have one big lube ring not sure if that would work because I thought you needed a boolit with many small lube rings , Correct?

[Jailer]

Tumble lube or pan lube, your choice. Try a few each way and see what works for you.

[Dave C.]

JWF:

You do not have to remove the lube that's on them now. Just tumble lube them and your good to go.
Are you in Luzerne county?

Dave C.

[mdi]

place them on an old cookie sheet in the oven with a couple paper towels under them at low heat. The lube will melt out and soak into the paper towels. Just make sure its an old cookie sheet that you don't plan on using for cooking anymore.
Been using this method for quite a while. Sometimes I purchase bullets that I don't have a mold for and sometimes I would rather use Mike's Marvelous Lube (my home made Speed Green), so I'll melt the factory lube off the store bought bullets. Melting has less labor involved than using a solvent and less messy...

[JWFilips]

JWF:

You do not have to remove the lube that's on them now. Just tumble lube them and your good to go.
Are you in Luzerne county?

Dave C.

Dave I'm up here in Lackawanna county ( Scranton area)

[ShooterAZ]

If you have a LOT of boolits to de-lube, another way of doing it use a big pot of boiling water with a drop or two of dish soap... (again, not your wifes good pot!) I use a coleman stove to do this outdoors. The lube will melt out of the grooves and float to the top. Once it cools, you can pick up all the old lube in one piece and dispose. Pour the water off and let dry on an old towel. You are now ready to re-lube perfectly clean boolits.

[454PB]

Not all commercial lubes are bad, I've used some that shot fine. Have you tried these commercial cast boolits with the original lube?

[JWFilips]

Not all commercial lubes are bad, I've used some that shot fine. Have you tried these commercial cast boolits with the original lube?

Yes I have and many do work fine. But after doing all this reading on this forum I was interested in trying to experiment to see what could be improved. Since I'm really not set up to cast anything yet...figured this would be a little diversion for me this winter when I can not get out & shoot as much. I would love to start casting but I have a lot to learn yet and want to approach it slowly & get the right equipment The only casting I have ever doe was making sinkers for fishing when I was a kid and also many hours spent at Revolutionary War Re-inactments molding round ball in a fire for the public.

So If I choose to try my hand at re-lubing ( now your all going to hate me!) Which lube should I start with? ( may well just ask which is the best beer: Ha! Ha!)

[ShooterAZ]

For general handgun use, I like White Label's BAC. It is a relatively soft lube, and does not require a heater in a lube sizer. For use in the hotter summer months, sometimes I will mix it with a little Carnauba Red to stiffen it up a little.

[Horace]

Tumble lube with a lite coating of Lee Liquid Alox load and shoot worked great when I was buying hard cast.

Horace

[root]

I'm up here in he Scranton area too..

Boil off your lube when it cools into one piece remix it.

No sense in wasting lube even if it is used as a filler to stretch out your good lube.

[leadman]

You can buy some gas checks and use these under the boolit in an inverted position. Make sure you invert the gc and set it in the mouth of the charged case and push it in with the boolit during seating. You want no air space between the gc and the boolit base. Dave Scovill editor of Handloader wrote this up quite a few years ago. I have used it with great success many times in the straight walled pistol cases. Straight walled cases are required for this to work.
blammer sells gas checks on this site for a reasonable dollar amount.

[JWFilips]

Thanks Guys for all your help. I'm trying to absorb as much knowledge as I can from this great forum. Just wanted to let you all know your replies are all appreciated.
Jim

[runfiverun]

just tumble lube the ones you are having problems with.
i still have a couple of sticks of that hard lube you are talking about.
it worked just fine for a number of years in many applications.
i still use it for some guns as since it works why change?

the whole point of this casting stuff is to make boolits that shoot well and don't lead.
i don't get too worked up about the details untill i need them to get the boolit to do what i want it to do..

[Shiloh]

I've done it with both alox lube and traditional lube.
I got some commercial cast bullets for free that the blue lube was flaking out of. I ran them through the Lyman 450 with Larsen's BAC on top of the blue lube and they worked fine.

Shiloh