Lube suggestions for giant grease groove

[LittleBill]

A little while ago I acquired a 230 gr .454 mold from NOE. I spoke with Swede on the phone about its suitability for .45 Colt, and he thought that while it was primarily designed for black powder, this boolit would work very well in a smokeless cartridge. I did not take up his time to discuss lube possibilities.

Today I got time to cast some. They are going to be sized to .452 and run through a Ruger Bisley Vaquero or a Winchester 94. I would be interested to know if the size of the grease groove would have any bearing on the type of lube to use for this particular boolit.

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/FotoBill/giantgreasegroove_zps02c7d2f5.jpg (http://s119.photobucket.com/user/FotoBill/media/giantgreasegroove_zps02c7d2f5.jpg.html)

[geargnasher]

I've been learning that grease groove shape, size, and number have a great deal to do with the suitable performance of a given lube, and vice-versa. I would recommend a soft lube that isn't too slippery, such as the old NRA formula of equal parts beeswax, paraffin, and Vaseline for those. With that much lube capacity, you want to be sure that the lube fully liquifies in the gun and leaves the boolit right at muzzle exit or it will throw off the balance in flight and open up groups.

Gear

[randyrat]

TAC soft has worked on those with great success. In fact, couple times the grooves weren't even filled, bullet was dipped and TAC soft worked great!
Some prefer .453 providing you can chamber without any hangups. Watch for tight throats, sometimes I've seen one or two tight cylinders out of 6. Mark the tight throats and don't use them until you can relieve/ fix em.
I had one that i could only use 2 cylinders or it would lead and have terrible accuracy

[LittleBill]

I've been learning that grease groove shape, size, and number have a great deal to do with the suitable performance of a given lube, and vice-versa. I would recommend a soft lube that isn't too slippery, such as the old NRA formula of equal parts beeswax, paraffin, and Vaseline for those. With that much lube capacity, you want to be sure that the lube fully liquifies in the gun and leaves the boolit right at muzzle exit or it will throw off the balance in flight and open up groups.

Gear

Thanks Gear, this is exactly the kind of info I was looking for!


TAC soft has worked on those with great success. In fact, couple times the grooves weren't even filled, bullet was dipped and TAC soft worked great!
Some prefer .453 providing you can chamber without any hangups. Watch for tight throats, sometimes I've seen one or two tight cylinders out of 6. Mark the tight throats and don't use them until you can relieve/ fix em.
I had one that i could only use 2 cylinders or it would lead and have terrible accuracy

Randy, I still have a very large chunk of TAC1 I ordered from you not too long ago. What can do with it? Does it need to be modified to make the soft stuff, and if so, what would I do to make it so?

Thanks.

[geargnasher]

You can melt the TAC #1 and add a small amount of Vaseline or Dexron III/Mercon ATF to it to soften it.

What you DON'T want is too much slick stuff in there or it can cause random flyers from oil puddling in the bore. There has to be a balance between slippery and grabby. Vaseline is a good universal lube softening agent that doesn't add too much slippery because it's composed of paraffinic oils rather than the napthenics like engine oil, gear oil, etc. Vaseline and the Dexron ATF will both blend with the oil in the TAC.

Gear

[randyrat]

You can mess with the lube if you want but I would just use the TAC 1 just way it is. It will stick just fine to those big groves and if you just want to dip lube it will work also. Warm your bullets just over 100 degF if there is any stick problems.

[rexherring]

You can mess with the lube if you want but I would just use the TAC 1 just way it is. It will stick just fine to those big groves and if you just want to dip lube it will work also. Warm your bullets just over 100 degF if there is any stick problems.

Yup, use it as is, it's great stuff. One of my .45 molds has a large lube groove and it works perfect in my .45 Ruger BH.

[LittleBill]

Well I have the TAC1 ready to go, so I will give it a try straight up. If that doesn't work out so well, I'll break out the Vaseline.


You can mess with the lube if you want but I would just use the TAC 1 just way it is. It will stick just fine to those big groves and if you just want to dip lube it will work also. Warm your bullets just over 100 degF if there is any stick problems.

Randy, I am a little confused. Is TAC1 the same as Soft TAC that you mentioned? I just want to be clear on my nomenclature.

Rex, thanks for the endorsement. I am glad to read of other people's success with things like this.

[randyrat]

I only have 2 smokeless lubes for sale TAC 1 and TAC SOFT,,,,, TAC SOFT is softer for extreme cold shooting like below zero deg F.