Lee lube and water

[rollingblock]

Adding a small amount of water to lee lube sounds ridiculous but the lube emulsifies instantly and I think the bullets are coated more evenly an have a very even matt finish.
Actually I don't add water to the lube itself but simply add lube to the wet boolits that have been water dropped. Dry as per normal.

[gwpercle]

Which Lee lube are you refering to , the white case lube or the brown liquid alox bullet lube ? I knew the white case lube was water soluble but have never tried thinning the liquid alox lube with water.
Gary

[rollingblock]

Sorry, should have made it clear. The brown alox bullet lube is the one I'm referring to.

[dangerranger]

I add a tea spoon of laquer thinner to about 200 bullets in a coffee can before adding the allox. It seems to thin and give a more even coating. It also speeds the drying time. I had not even concidered water. Good find. DR

[roberts1]

Interesting. It smells petroleum based and doesnt readily wash off my hands with soap and water. I didnt think water would mix with it. What is it made from anyway?

[mdi]

Alox ain't water soluable, as far as I know (water and alox won't easily mx), but a bit of water and a bit of alox may be physically mixed to create an emulsion, but I believe it will quickly separate...

[rsrocket1]

Alox 606 is made from calcium soaps and mineral spirits (which is why it mixes/thins so well with mineral spirits) and was developed as a rust inhibitor and water displacement agent. I've always had a bear of a time washing it off my hands unless I start with a couple of squirts of foaming liquid soap. After that, it washes off pretty easily.

I've considered making some homemade Alox just to see if it can be done, but haven't gotten around to it yet :)

[capt.hollis]

If you tried to make your own where would you get the calcium soaps? Sounds like a good project !

[rollingblock]

I have no idea weather alox and water will mix or not or if the resulting mix will separate, but that is neither here nor there. I found that in coating boolits with lee alox without drying the boolits from the water drop the coating seemed to me to be more even with a matt finish. When dried the colour darkened but the matt finish remained. I have no idea if it is superior or if it makes the lube go further, I thought it just sort of looked better.

[Springfield0612]

Good post, any thing to get the minds working a possible new way of doing somehting better!

I mix my Alox or Xlox to make the 45-45-10 mixture. When I'm ready to coat with lube, I warm the lube in the microwave for 2 cycles of 45 seconds, I'll put the boolits I'm going to lube in a metal pot and set them on top of my lee 4-20 pot for 10 minutes and get them nice and warm. Once up to temp I put them in a Jiffy peanut butter plastic jar with the lid on (it has 3-4 ribs and really helps agitate the boolits). I'll then drizzle a little lube down the inside of the jar wall (not straight onto the boolits) with the warm boolits all ready in the jar, and you get a very even thin coat of lube. Add lube until you get the coating you want. I no longer have brown clumps all over my boolits.
Once I have them spread out on the wax paper they're good to load in about a day and a half. Since I started lubing this way I've not had to stop and clean my seating/crimping die in over 1000 loaded rounds in both .45 acp and 9mm.