Developing a Specialized Boolit Lube

[303Guy]

Some time ago (before D day) I was working on a lube to suite my purposes. The characteristics I am looking for are;
ability to fill the lube grooves,
body,
lubricity,
adhesion,
mechanical strength
and hardness (but not too hard as in brittle).

Here are the results so far.

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/No12Lube2_zps1bb33e7c.jpg (http://s388.photobucket.com/user/303Guy/media/No12Lube2_zps1bb33e7c.jpg.html)

The nose was dipped into the molten lube first, allowed to cool then the base was dipped. The strength is to 'glue' the boolit in the case neck which is otherwise a loose fit). The coating thickness and hardness is to form a 'skin' that will support the nose during transit through the bore. The first test boolit lived up to expectations.

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/1986LEI002_zps2543e73d.jpg (http://s388.photobucket.com/user/303Guy/media/1986LEI002_zps2543e73d.jpg.html)

As can be seen, the nose did not touch the bore. It's a Lee 180gr .311 boolit through a 303 bore (with a .305/.306 bore?)

For lubricity I added two-stroke oil and STP. For hardness I uses carnauba and as a base I used beeswax which also gives body and lubricity as well as adhesion.

I used a two-stroke oil that does not have a ammonia smell (that smell is from an additive that makes the oil biodegradable for outboard engines). I used two-stroke oil for it's lubricating properties as well as its detergent properties.

The idea of 'gluing' the boolit in the neck is to eliminate the need to size the neck. I first used this principle in my 22 hornet with j-words to very good effect.

[GhostHawk]

Interesting!

I think it is a totally different tack than most are using, but it would be interesting to see if you can get any kind of accuracy using this method.
If you can it would be a possible solution for all those casters out there who are struggling with undersized molds.

[flyingmonkey35]

It looks like you put a prophylactic on it.

[longbow]

I tried something similar many years ago with less than stellar success accuracy wise.

I was loading the Lyman 314299 in .303 for my Lee Enfield. I was dipping, tumble lubing and pan lubing with pretty good success but felt that an extra coating on the nose might be beneficial so dipped the noses.

Well, accuracy went away right away! I scraped the extra lube off the nose and accuracy returned.

My suspicion is that the lube coat on the nose was too thick (looked a lot like your), and certainly much thicker than tumble lube, so cause a hydraulic "floating" of the nose. Pure speculation on my part but nonetheless, it didn't work well for me with my lube.

Nothing wrong with trying it by any means and it may work well for you depending on nose fit, lube, etc. If you find that accuracy does go South (or does accuracy go North in NZ?) try using a thinner coat on the nose.

Something I have found works quite well for me is what I call hot tumble lubing. As you know, I make both smooth sided boolits and sometimes knurl then as well. If I melt some of my home made lube in a frying pan (no not my wife's!) so that there is a thin film then add boolits and roll them around just like tumble lubing, they warm up and get a thin coating all over them. This does not fill the grooves as you are looking for and is more like using LLA tumble lube. Then I take them out and lay on foil to cool. Works well and the lube "bonds" to the boolits way better than dipping... with my lube anyway.

As usual you photos are terrific! I cannot seem to get the clarity in blown up photos as you get.

My .303's are way to "fat" to use a 0.311" boolit. I cast or size to 0.315"/0.316" and that does well. The engraving looks pretty good and no obvious skidding or gas cutting.

Longbow

[303Guy]

Thanks. On that fired boolit I dipped the nose into another lube that had paraffin wax in it. The coating wasn't as thick. That one seemed to liquefy under pressure. My No12 crushes to a paste under pressure (thumb pressure).

OK, so I must try both with a thick coating and a thin coating. I can see quite a challenge ahead with loads, boolits and lubes all being variables. My primary objective is to use a smooth side with knurling that fits the throat and is held in the neck by the lube. That's another variable in the matrix! I did have some success with the same principle a few year years ago and that was with quite fast boolit but I think the lube wasn't quite up to the task as it did develop a little leading with less than ten shots.

[longbow]

My lube seems to be working well for me so far. I used Felix lube as my inspiration and am not trying to create something new or get a claim to fame here. I wanted to make lube and didn't all the ingredients to make Felix lube so used what I had to give it a try. Fortunately it worked and worked quite well.

I use paraffin (didn't have beeswax and couldn't get any fast enough), Lucas Red 'N Tacky grease, Ivory soap and some Bardhal oil treatment (like STP).

My intent was to make a Felix lube at first then I decided I would go the soap lube route but found I just could not seem to get enough soap into the mix.

It started out too hard and while it worked, it tended to flake off the boolits. At that point I was not using the oil treatment so decided to stickyfy the lube by adding oil treatment... it does not take much.

As it turns out it works very well for dip lube, pan lube and hot tumble lubing which is what I do mostly now.

Anyway, I digress. This is about your lube and boolits not my lube.

Are you planning to continue using filler? I use COW for almost all my casual .303 loads and find it works very well. I have not shot much lately but was shooting lots of the Mihec 311410 130 gr. HP's over 22 grs. IMR4227 and COW filler. Accuracy is quite good and they do blow up milk jugs of water! Hot tumble lubed with a thin coat and no leading at all.

I have read that if using COW filler that boolits do not need to be lubed at all. I tried it and got terrible leading. I will continue to lube!

Also, I tried shooting some GC base boolits with filler and found that the filler tended to distort the GC shank making it look like a boat tail. Yours looks okay though.

I will be interested to see how these work for you.

Longbow

[303Guy]

I haven't gotten round to testing this lube. I did measure its melting point from the top down. It starts to thicken at 60°C (140°F), turns to slurry at 53.5°C (128°F) where it stays for a while and solidifies at 48.2°C (119°F) although it is still soft at that temperature.

For interest, here is the recipe;

58 parts beeswax
6 parts carnauba
7 parts STP Smoke Stopper
29 parts two-stroke oil