New Member, need help with lube

[Steve Steven]

I am just getting back into reloading for my 45ACP (M1911 Accurized) after a 15 year lapse. I was a member when this group was on the Shooters.com site, but never registered on this site before tonight.

I bought a gallon of Alox 2138 way back then (30 years ago?) to make my lube with beeswax, which I did for many years. Tonight I dug it out to see if I could still use it. I remember I had mixed in enough beeswax the last time I opened the can (15 years ago?) to make a 50-50 mix. The wax was not dissolved in the Alox, just lumps in the can.

Tonight I found the alox was a lot darker than it should be. Anyone want to hazard a guess as to what has happened? Old age, too much heat (been stored in the house)?, some natural change normal to Alox? Comments?

I heated it up to 140deg F and stirred it until the wax melted and mixed, and poured it out into a muffin tin to make some lumps to put into the Star. I am planning on melting some of the lumps and pouring into the star and let it cool, my reloading area is unheated attic and its cold here now. Comments?

I would appreciate any comment from the group.

Steve

[paul h]

I've come across some old alox bullet lube and it will definately get very dark brown and I've seen bullets lubed with it that had cracks in the lube from the lube shrinking. My guess would be that over time some of the components of the alox evaporated which caused the change in color.

Personally I've found there are better lubes out there that produce better accuracy and don't gunk up the gun as much. If you still have some of the beeswax you can make lithi-bee (moly/lithium axle greese and beeswax), Ben's Red, or many other types of lube. If you're looking for a commercial lube that is very reasonably priced, I can highly recomend White Label BAC. With white lable so reasonably priced, it's not even worth my effort to mix up my own lube and it flows nicely even at lower temps.

[waco]

+1 on all the White Label lubes. First rate product at an awesome price!
LsStuff.com

[Steve Steven]

paul h,
Thanks for your reply. You noted some older 50-50 you had was darker, it may be what has happened to mine.

I am attaching a photo of my lube (in the muffin tin) with some commercial lube (in the tube, about 10 years old) and one of my homemade sticks, about 15 years old. Note the slightly darker color of my homemade stick, and the lighter color of the commercial stick.

I have ordered a sample of the 2500+ lube from LLS, will tryit and see how I like it.

Thanks,

Steve

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