Bullet lube components matrix

[EDG]

Has anyone ever written a white paper about bullet lubes? I am not talking about their favorite lube but about the different varieties or classes of greases, oils, lubes and other bases that are combined to make a bullet lube.
What I had in mind was a general discussion of the desirable performance characteristics desired and then a list with a set of check boxes or a matrix indicating satisfactory performance for that characteristic.
My question is aimed at giving a non-expert a chance to compare characteristics in something like a spread sheet.
For example there are various spread sheets capable of calculating the percentages of Pb,Sn,Sb alloys.
While I would expect lubes to be more complicated than lead alloys, any presentation that allows direct comparison would be useful to many of us.
I would appreciate any comments.

[btroj]

Many times a lube is chosen based upon things other than performance characteristics.
Home made vs purchased
Needs heater vs no heater required
Pan lube vs tumble lube vs lubrisizer
Hard lube vs soft lube for bulk storage
Cold weather use vs hot weather use
Handgun vs rifle velocities
Black vs smokeless powder

90 percent of shooting can easily be covered with one of the commonly mentioned lubes.

The other 10 percent can make or break a lube decision.

Some just have a "need" to tinker with stuff and make lubes or modify them.

In short, a spread sheet would be interesting to see but wouldn't help much. Lube choice is based upon too many factors that can't easily be quantified. Sometimes you just have to jump in with both feet and try some different stuff.

[mdi]

Here's a start regarding lubes; http://www.lasc.us/LubeIngredients.htm

[Marlin Junky]

Unfortunately, you won't learn much about making lube from that list published at LASC.

A better use of your time would be to study dissertations describing the qualities of good boolit lubricants. The following could be the best read to date: http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Chapter_5_Lubrication.htm. Study the whole chapter without concerning yourself with particular lube ingredients.

A better approach for a beginning to intermediate caster (who is serious about accuracy) is to experiment with alloys and pressures while using a time honored and proven lube that has been prepared correctly. After sufficient knowledge has been accumulated with respect to alloys and operating pressures, one can more successfully venture into experimenting with various lube ingredients. Start by reading the thread on lube recipes http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?26524-Just-the-facts-Lube-recipes and ask questions about specific recipes by opening a new thread (read Fryxell's Chapter 5 first). You might also send a PM to the original poster... some of those recipes were published years ago and have since been improved.

MJ

[EDG]

I guess that I should not have been surprised by this response. I once suggested a component for a lube at another site and one of the answers was - "If it can't be used for pan lubing I will not use it."
My point is that people's thought processes get so rigid they cannot get past their own biases. They are often unable to understand that any characteristic can be rated or graded and compared to another.
There are books on the subject that explain the rationale and also illustrate it graphically. One of those books is "Materials Selection in Mechanical Design".

http://www.amazon.com/Materials-Selection-Mechanical-Design-Fourth/dp/1856176630

Another technique used is Design of Experiments.

These two resources are used to solve engineering problems far more difficult and complex than any bullet lube project.


The rating of components permits optimizing of the solution. That includes cost or any other characteristic you want to consider. On the contrary a spreadsheet would provide an excellent tool to get past the mountain man alchemy approach.



Many times a lube is chosen based upon things other than performance characteristics.
Home made vs purchased
Needs heater vs no heater required
Pan lube vs tumble lube vs lubrisizer
Hard lube vs soft lube for bulk storage
Cold weather use vs hot weather use
Handgun vs rifle velocities
Black vs smokeless powder

90 percent of shooting can easily be covered with one of the commonly mentioned lubes.

The other 10 percent can make or break a lube decision.

Some just have a "need" to tinker with stuff and make lubes or modify them.

In short, a spread sheet would be interesting to see but wouldn't help much. Lube choice is based upon too many factors that can't easily be quantified. Sometimes you just have to jump in with both feet and try some different stuff.

[Bullshop]

There is an ongoing thread that is sorta doing what you want. I think its " the ultimate lube" or something close to that. There are posts to it every day and have been for a few months. Go to the lube forum and it should be easy to find. Should keep you busy reading for a few days.

[btroj]

Spreadsheet away my friend.

The mountain man achemy approach has worked for years and I suppose it will continue to work.

[EDG]

I don't doubt that a bit. However I am not interested wasting time on a non-systematic approach that is guaranteed to yield sub-optimal results.



The mountain man achemy approach has worked for years and I suppose it will continue to work.

[btroj]

If you look at the "quest" thread it is anything but "non-systematic". It IS a series of trials and learning experiences.

Has anyone ever compiled an actual list of ingredients and their properties? Nope.

Thanks for volunteering.

[runfiverun]

glen done that one on ricks lahsc websight.
it is about the only one I have ever seen dealing with boolit lube ingredients, everything else is either in notes in some ones garage or locked up in their head.

[geargnasher]

All this is bass ackwards. We thought the same thing a year and a half ago when we started in on the quest for what I called "Extreme boolit lube", a lube that could handle the extremes of the big variables (pressure, velocity, and temperature) with negligible variance in performance. Along the way, after testing just about every kind of oil there is, even polyglycol and silicones, about ten kinds of grease gellants, and a smattering of waxes as well as many organic fillers and solid lubricants, we've discovered that you don't build a successful lube based on what the ingredients are known to do, you first have to figure out what job needs done in the gun, and formulate a lube to do exactly THAT. Yes, a library of known-quality ingredients and experience with how to blend them and what effect certain combinations have is important, but you have to approach it as a tribologist would: First, determine the needs, then engineer the product. When you start mixing things to create other things, the end result is usually not anywhere close to the sum of its parts, so that makes a library of substances and individual characteristics pretty much meaningless. I wish it didn't, but that's the way it's turning out.

I do agree that the fellows who declare they've come up with a new recipe and list a dozen things they had lying around the house and garage that they threw together willy-nilly and managed to get melted together into some sort of goo may be having fun, but aren't really accomplishing anything. I notice that most of those threads fade into history after a few posts, almost never with any follow up on how the wild and random concoction actually shoots. In the Extreme Lube Quest, that is not what most of us are doing, although there are several people who are locked into a particular concept that is only successful in a fairly limited application.

If you want to know about how various ingredients work, start going through the thread and you can get an idea of many things that have probably never been tried before.

I'll say that a much more valuable project than compiling a spreadsheet of individual substance properties would be to study very intimately the mechanics of a firing event and determine exactly how a bullet lube actually works in every part of the cycle.

Gear

[leftiye]

"Has anyone ever...." Not that is known of. "Would it be helpful" - Maybe. So, unless you plan to make one up, that's that.