How much will lube effect accuracy?

[mto7464]

How much effect will different lubes have on accuracy given that you are not getting any leading with choice of lube.

[Lloyd Smale]

in handguns not that much. Im no rifle expert and will bow to the more knowlegable guys on that one.

[45 2.1]

Quite a bit actually. One lube lube will shoot great on one boolit design and shoot poorly on another in the same weight, load and caliber.

[John Boy]

Accuracy shooting BPCR's is really effected by good v poor lubes and the capability of the bullet to carry the lube from the breech to the muzzle.

... If you have a 'lube star' on the crown of your muzzle - no lube starvation
... If the foul in your bore is soft - you have a good lube recipe

I am a fan of soywax in the recipe and I shoot alot at 200 - 1000yds

[bobthenailer]

i orgionaly had a load worked up in my pistol with red rooster zambene hard lube, when i switched to lbt commerical also a hard lube the accuracy was the same 2 1/4 inches at 100 yards for a 25 shot group but i had 67 fps lower velocity average with the lbt lube because it created less friction/ pressure therefore less velocity with the same powder charge just like molly coated jacketed bullets. i

[Bullshop]

Here is one example. I recently picked up a 1917 S&W 45 acp. It seemed to wamt to shoot a bit left of where I am seeing the sights. After trying a few differant boolit weights and powders I found that with bullseye and the Lyman 460 it shot plum center for me. I had a lube press with nasa lube set up when I had started.
Later on I changed over to a press with speed green lube. All else still being the same the gun went back to shooting left again. Still grouping equally well but centering about six inches left. I feel sure I can tweek the load again to get back to center. It just goes to show how much affect the lube does have on the load.
BIC/BS

[357maximum]

Each lube has a different :

slicky factor
tack factor
viscosity
sling-ability
compressibility
sealability
lubeability


It can and will make a difference in accuracy


I think of lube the same way you do primers..IE as a variable that needs testing.

[MtGun44]

Bullshop,

I have found the tendency of my S&W 1937 (Brazilian contract 1917) to want
to shoot about 6" left with most loads. Elmer's load of 7.5 gr Unique under a
454423 seemed a bit hot, but at 7.0 Unique, it pulled back over to almost the
center and shot very well, like 2" at 25 yds when most are more like 6-8".
I will try some different lubes to see if they can help pull mine back to center, too.

This has proved to be one picky revolver!:-D

But note my signature comment . . . . .

Bill

[Lloyd Smale]

heres some opinions and certainly not scientific fact. Most people have a tendecy especially with a heavy recoiling handgun to shoot left and sometimes low. even alot of seasoned big bore shooters still have this tendency to dive into there gun anticipating recoil.

The longer the barrel and the slower the load the more it will show up on paper because of the bullets dwell time in the barrel. Same reason why a short barreled gun tends to put loads with differnt bullet weights and velocitys into a smaller group then a long barreled gun will. Especially off hand becuase off a bench a guy tends to consentrate more on his trigger contol.

My 4 inch 500s will put most bullet weights and velocitys into a 3 inch group at 25 yards and my old 5.5 inch gun, although they would shoot a certain load just as well would open up with different weight bullets. The longer the bullet is in a barrel the more any mistake you make will be noticed. Im sure its part of the reason why in cold weather some guys groups open up.

Velocity is usually down and the bullet is in the barrel longer. changing lube to a thinner viscosity will usually increase bullet speed and cut down on dwell time and cure some of this. Im sure this isnt the only thing going on and i dont claim to have the answer but Ive fooled around enough with this theroy to know its at least partialy correct.

I put in a couple summers about exclusively shooting 1911s at a public range. I had lots of guys that wanted to take a couple shots with my guns and just about without exception these people shot my commander better off hand with the same load then they did my 5 inch comp gun.

Most shot low left from my point of aim with both guns and most shot farther low left with the 5 inch gun. Same thing was allways said about the 52 smith wadcutter guns. They were slow and demanded excellent trigger control to master off hand. Another thing that alot of times isnt taken into consideration in cold weather is your ablility to maintain good trigger control.

We have one ppc shoot thats done here outside in the winter and its usually hovering around 10 degrees for the shoot. Between being cold and being bundled up in clothes most guns including me see a drop of about ten points in there average scores. Where do most of the misses hit. Again low left. Ive even made a practice out of resighting my guns to compensate for it.

It doesnt help with the groups opening up a tad but helps with the tendency to shoot low left. One inch change in a 25 yard off hand group doesnt seem like much but it definately wll make the difference in a win or a loss. Alot of guys i shoot with have learned this trick two. they dont understand why there scores are bad and when i show them there target and explain they make a couple clicks on there sights and are back to normal.

It takes many many thousands of rounds to enbed proper trigger control in your mind and it doesnt take much to throw it off. Im not trying to claim that switch lubes doesnt effect accuracy or point of aim in handguns as i know better. But i guess what im trying to say is when it happens theres usually more going on then just the lube.

What i do notice is theres a tendency in people including myself to have a bad day and try to find something other then themselves to blame. I know ive done enough bench shooting with my handguns to know that on the same day in the same weather lube is a pretty small variable in the big picture. If a guy is trying to shoot one inch groups at a 100 yards it may show up but it doesnt effect a one inch 25 yard handgun all that much.

At least not in my experience. Like i said in my other post i wont comment on how it effects rifle cast shooting as thats a completely differnt ball game then handguns and i just dont have the bench time to make a statement.

[randyrat]

I agree with ya LOYD. I'll test some different loads in my pistol find the closest one. Then i'll shoot at least 500 rds before i even think about adjusting anything. It takes me at least 1000-2000 rds to get used to an Auto pistol(i'm slow). After 500 rds then i play with the lube a little. I also will shoot to the left and low a little more in the winter months, i think it is tightening of my fingers and trigger finger placement(gloves). I wish i knew more about lube and accuracy but i'll leave that for the experts.

[Alangaq]

I too have wondered about lube versus accuracy issues, but frankly it is the one variable that I have not yet had a chance to experiment with. I live in Anchorage and neither one of my lubrisizers have heaters installed on them, so I have always used the “standard” NRA 50/50 lube as it will still flow even when the temps in my garage are in the 50’s. But I also have to admit that spending a hundred bucks on a heater and then cleaning out one of those lubrisizers just for the sake of trying a new lube does not intrigue me very much…………..I am however thinking about pan lubing a few and see how that goes. I bought a “sample” pack of lube from some guy on e-bay and it has three different hard lubes in it, if I get around to running any experiments I will be sure to post the results.

[JSnover]

I tried a 45-70 with Lee 405HB last week. Cases all from the same lot, identical charges. primers and COAL. Ten rounds lubed with Emmert's grouped about 2.5" at 100 yds. Punched the bore and fired ten lubed with Barry Darr's. Group opened to 3.5" but was centered about 4" higher and 1" to the right.

[Bass Ackward]

In some situations, it will make more of a difference than others. Whether it is in a handgun or a rifle, the closer you are to the edge of the operating range of the lube, hardness, bullet design, pressure equation, the greater the effect will be. The key word which is easy to say but takes experience and is more difficult to understand, is that your answer to that equation must result in a "balance" or equilibrium.

How can you cheat the balance equation? Hard bullets. If you learn how to fit them and slower powders. So do gas checks. They minimize the lube factor. All of these factors give you a wider margin for error to find accuracy. (that is acceptable to you)

A guy that believes hard bullets out shoot soft sees less of an issue because he has less of a demand for lube. So .... while he may not get real "outstanding" accuracy, he doesn't see as much of the really poor accuracy either. Especially if he is using many guns and not focusing on one. Because of this, it reinforces his hard bullet accuracy opinion when what he really is experiencing is a wider margin for reloader error to get things .... correct. (balanced)

So for some guns, calibers, bullet designs, hardness's, and "people", lube makes a big difference to what they are doing, which is why there are so many on the market today. While for others it does not. Depends on how you build the equation.

[Bullshop]

Mt Gun44
That is the same gun I have, a 1937 Brazilian. I get about the same performance as you. Not the best but acceptable for its perpose. This gun has a wonderfuly smooth double action and I seem to shoot it equaly well in single or double action at the 25 yard line.
BIC/BS

[Lloyd Smale]

A guy that believes hard bullets out shoot soft sees less of an issue because he has less of a demand for lube. So .... while he may not get real "outstanding" accuracy, he doesn't see as much of the really poor accuracy either. Especially if he is using many guns and not focusing on one. Because of this, it reinforces his hard bullet accuracy opinion when what he really is experiencing is a wider margin for reloader error to get things .... correct. (balanced


Bass. now you werent refering to me here were you!!! ;) ;)

[felix]

Gosh, Lloyd, you must be feeling guilty! ... felix

[Maven]

Hmm, this one's also a bit of a poser. I've used the NRA 50/50 lube as well as its variants; LBT Blue, D.G.P. Shay's "Odorous Orange Prime" & a yellow version of it (Shay was in W. Covina, CA. I think Lyman's "Orange Magic" is its current iteration); Lyman black moly goo; Felix Lube; and Lee Liquid Alox, but never was aware of any difference in grouping that I could attribute to the type of lube I used, with one exception. To wit, I had two T/C .45cal. muzzleloaders, a Cherokee & Hawken, that were superbly accurate with T/C Maxi-Balls that I cast. I used to run them through a .452" sizer die to true up the front band, but then got the bright idea to lube them too. The lube was the aforementioned Odorous Orange, which I soon discovered, was not meant for Pyrodex or BP loading (I was using Pyro. RS) or fouling. Accuracy, normally 5 touching from a rest @ 50yd. with the factory iron sights, disappeared, but not the fouling. I learned my lesson and used T/C Maxi-Lube (ca. 1970's - early '80's) and T/C "Bore Buttter" (or Ox-Yoke's equivalent) from that point on. Accuracy returned along with the fouling, but it was easily removed.

Lube probably does make a difference when bore conditions are less than ideal (rough or pitted bore); when the CB doesn't carry enough lube (Saeco's RG-4, for ex.) or the bearing surface is so long that a very slippery lube becomes necessary (i.e., it needs all the help it can get); when the ambient temperature is extreme; and ....meaning what have I left out?

The problem, and we've plowed this ground before, is anecdotal or self-reports, my own included, v. empirical data gathered under controlled and/or repeatable conditions. While I'd like to see such data, I'm not particularly keen on doing the research, preferring to spend my time at the range with a lube (or lubes) that work for me. with few exceptions, that has been Felix Lube.

[44man]

No, Lloyd, he was referring to ME! [smilie=1:
I HAVE found a difference in accuracy with different lubes, also point of impact.
I now am going to experiment with the way I have been lubing. I rub lube in the grooves with my finger and use an oversize die to remove excess. If I use the lube sizer I get cleaner sides on the boolit.
I have wondered if too much lube on boolit sides will effect case tension evenness.
Some of my loading squeezes lube out when I seat and fills the seater and crimp die so I have to keep them clean.
I am going to experiment with clean sided boolits with ones covered in lube.
Even though I get good groups, maybe a change can improve them.
So far I have not found any difference with boolits that have lube on the ogive with boolits wiped clean. But what about too much lube between the brass and boolit?
Will this stuff NEVER END? :mrgreen:

[Lloyd Smale]

Guilty as charged!! I love having to many guns that i dont have time for just one and shoot to much to bother with the real small stuff. LOADUM AND SHOOTIM. Different guys get a kick out of different aspects of this game. Some like 44man like to squeak the most accuracy possible out of a certain gun and load and is happy to shoot 50 rounds in a day testing. Me I go to the range about 4 times a week (before this back thing) and never went with less the 4 guns and usually twice that many and probably average 3-500 rounds a cession. To me thats fun. Plinking and also tuning my off hand skills. To me bench time is a nessisary evil. Just like loading. Id rather be blasting. About the only exception to this is my love of casting. Ill spend maybe 8 hours of bench time with a new gun and usually will find a good load for it in that time. It may be able to be tweaked but thats not my top priority. If it wont shoot in that ammount of time its for sale the next day. If a gun is a below average shooter i just dont have time for it. I really dont take the time to see if one lube is better then another. If it doesnt lead it works for me. Same with alloys. I dont do much testing of different alloys. I cast a bullet for a gun in the alloy i figure will be the best in the field for that gun and thats what it gets. I could never see using alloys to soft or two hard for the field purpose of a gun to increase accuracy. To me alitmately its a tool to hunt with and its loaded more with that in mind then getting the last 1/16 of an inch accuracy. Sorry for going a little off topic but its been a long boring day and a pain pill or two taken!!
Gosh, Lloyd, you must be feeling guilty! ... felix

[lovedogs]

All I can comment on is my limited experience on this. When I first started shooting my .45-70 BC I used SPG. In my estimation it was crap. Accuracy was there but it'd lead sometimes. Not real bad but more than I cared for. I switched to Lar's 50/50. Point of impact changed a full four inches at 100 yds., accuracy was the same, but best of all, NO LEADING AT ALL. Since using Glenn's lube I've never needed to do anything but run a patch or two of Kroil through it and it looks like a new bbl.

With .44 handguns and one rifle I get no leading but can't see a point of impact difference in the handguns. I've not tried anything in the Marlin .44 except Lar's and don't intend to.

[44man]

I'm glad to see someone else calls SPG "CRAP". When I used it the last 10" of barrel was always full of dry, hard fouling.

[Bass Ackward]

Bass. now you werent refering to me here were you!!! ;) ;)


If the shell chambers, shoot it. :grin:

I will admit I was thinking about you when I wrote it. But using you as an example, not as a criticism. That was not a comment on styles or a personal attack. It was a reason for people to think about why they form the opinions that they do. A narrow focus results when we assume that is the only way or method. I was watching Kung Fu on TV once when a wise man say, "Too narrow a focus causes man to sell good gun." :grin:

But I can't count how many times I have read you to say that hard bullets are more accurate. Turns out that that statements only true because you sell the guns where it isn't. :grin:

The fella that buys your cast offs probably jumps for joy saying, "Oh boy! I don't have to buy lino anymore." :grin:

Same thing happens with bullet designs too. :grin: But I won't get into that one.

[leftiye]

If your lube utterly fails, not only will it leave gobs of lead in your barrel, but your velicity will fall off, and the point of impact will be as much as 10 inches low ar 50 yards. If your lube does not fail, it may still bugger your accuracy to a more or less extent. Better to get too good of a lube and figger out how much is enough and not too much and have done with it.

[felix]

In general, a lube star should first appear at high noon after about 7 shots, not being more than 5 minutes apart. Adjusting lube quality or quantity to make this happen will provide for a 100 round shoot without cleaning per outing. ... felix

[crabo]

This is a great discussion and I am learning a lot. Thanks for the info.

Crabo

[cbrick]

A couple of years ago I made up about a dozen home brewed lubes. All were tested in my 308 rifle (because its a known shooter) with a light load (180 gr @1900 fps), all brass, powder, primers, bullets were from the same lot. Alloy was WW+ 3% tin and air cooled at 11 BHN. I fired 5 fouling shots from a clean bore then five shots for group at 150 meters. Clean the bore and fire 10 more. All shooting was scoped from the bench. A few days at the range and I spent more time cleaning than shooting.

All of the lubes were beeswax, automotive grease based and with various other ingrediants that folks swear are wonder drugs for cast boolits. I didn't get to test Felix lube though it was on the list.

The control lube that I had worked up the load with was LBT and this rifle will shoot 5 shots touching at 150 meters until it gets boring.

The various lubes had a definate effect on accuracy and ranged from this rifles 1 to 1 /14 inch 150 meter groups to no groups, just patterns. Far and away the worst lubes were synthetic grease lubes. None of the synthetics I tried would shoot. Most of the rest had minor effects on accuracy and would require many more groups fired for a definitive accuracy answer and averaged 2-3 inches or there abouts.

One very interesting thing I learned from all that bore cleaning; its very easy to make a lube that prevents leading in a mild shooting rifle. There was no leading at all with any of the lubes whether its accuracy was there or not.

Rick

[Lloyd Smale]

Bass no criticism taken. Ive allways preached that i will only post on things that ive actually experienced and try to stay away from generalitys and repeating what other so called experts say. It may be a narrow focus that my cast bullet hobby entails but It has shown me that some of whats out there is absoulte bunk. Im a handgunner first and actually a handgun hunter first and thats where my passions lie. MY casting revolves mostly around this. I try to make a bullet that i feel will give me the best chance of havesting a game animal that intend to take with a certain gun. Only exception to this is my competition guns. I believe in what i post but a guy has to keep in mind that a good portion of what i have for weapons arent the average guys guns. Most are customized revolvers and even the lever guns i shoot for the most part are customs at least to the point where there optimized to shoot cast bullets. I dont have a handgun in the safe that hasnt been massaged to some extent. Like you said i may have dumped some good guns in the past but ive got enough that I surely dont miss them. If i get something that i absolutly must have it usually has some basic costomizing whether it needs it or not. At leas an action job the chambers cut properly and the barrel lapped. But if its to far out out of spec or out of alignment and i dont need a frame for a custom project i cant see spending hours and hours of experimenting to put a bandaid on a compound fracture. sure varying lubes and alloy hardness can make up for some weakness in a gun but i take as much pride in knowing that when i start the gun is right then i do by taking a bad gun and making it shoot exceptably. As to harder alloys shooting better in a handgun. thats no doubt a generalization. But ive tested enough guns both custom and out of the box to know that even if you take the average out of the box handgun it usually is true. Now if you get a problem child it no doubt changes everything. Guys like you are the masters at working around problem guns like these and your one of the few people that i will actually quote personal experinces from and take and pass on advice from. Another one is Felix. NOBODY in my opinion is more knowlegable on lubes and what makes them work then him. Most of the lube i make is loosly based on felix lube and it works. It could be another reason why I dont see alot of differnce in accuracy in my lubes. I play alot with differnt variations of my lube but for the most part there either based on felix lube or 5050 alox or a combination of them. Maybe I dont have a big variation in accuaracy because i just don fool with crap lube to begin with. I cant see spending what i do on a gun and then trying to shoot it with vasaline or grease and paraphin wax mixed together. To me it just doesnt make sense, especially after some very knowelgable people have allready done most of the leg work in figureing what does work for me. Ive had some pretty knowlegable shooters some with names that are pretty well known in any shooters household use my bullets and the lubes ive made and to a man theyve allways came back impressed. So my narrow mindedness has to at least carry over to alot of differnt guns. Like i said i cant and dont take credit for the lubes i make. They are just basicaly felix lube ajusted for a medium viscosity. Felix as is is a tad to soft for my use and probably a tad soft for real hot weather. Make it into a slightly stiffer lube and its a good compromise in warm and cold weather and in long and short barrrels and at high and low pressures. Maybe something would work just a tad better in one extream or the other but how many guys can actually drain there lubesizer and refill it for every differnt loading situation and gun and temperature extream. I know i dont have time for it.
If the shell chambers, shoot it. :grin:

I will admit I was thinking about you when I wrote it. But using you as an example, not as a criticism. That was not a comment on styles or a personal attack. It was a reason for people to think about why they form the opinions that they do. A narrow focus results when we assume that is the only way or method. I was watching Kung Fu on TV once when a wise man say, "Too narrow a focus causes man to sell good gun." :grin:

But I can't count how many times I have read you to say that hard bullets are more accurate. Turns out that that statements only true because you sell the guns where it isn't. :grin:

The fella that buys your cast offs probably jumps for joy saying, "Oh boy! I don't have to buy lino anymore." :grin:

Same thing happens with bullet designs too. :grin: But I won't get into that one.

[Lloyd Smale]

ps I cant believe the paragraph police havent arrested me yet ;)

[44man]

I did run out of breath! :mrgreen: but it was well said. :drinks:

[Bass Ackward]

I cant believe the paragraph police havent arrested me yet ;)

Guys like you are the masters at working around problem guns like these and your one of the few people that i will actually quote personal experinces from and take and pass on advice from.



Yea. I was running out of oxygen there at the end.

And if that second statements true, boy are you in trouble. I only know this stuff because I bought your bad guns :grin: and because I have screwed up enough times to have to pick myself up. Smooth seas do not a good mariner make. Sometimes my best loads violate statistics and logic. So .... if I had to state what I consider is the biggest thing for shooting cast I would say that there IS NO right or wrong way, no laws to cast.

Just as soon as I decide one design is crap and am ready to sell the mold, I'll forget and do something else and it turns out to be my most accurate load. That's the biggest reason I stay here is because it forces me to keep an open mind and then adds to it. But when it is all said and done, my best results have been failures or accidents. :grin:

My narrow mindedness only leaves when plan A fails. Same with B, C, D, etc. Cause I bought that gun or that mold and by golly it's going to have to perform. But just like our moms told us when we were kids, you don't always get everything you want. Keeps me from being spoiled. :grin:

[Lloyd Smale]

dont worry Bass ive sold lots of guns that were good ones too. My intertests just seem to change over the years. I totaly agree with you on the above statement. Im the last guy on earth to claim to know it all or even a small part of it. About all we can do here is share our own personal experiences and let others take them and do what they will with them. I lost count of how many molds i sold that i found later worked in a gun. Ive bought some of them 3 times now. A guy should learn but rarely does.

[gcf]

A while back I was experimenting w/ light Trail Boss loads in a 444P. I was using properly sized RD 280's, the same LR primers, & brass (equaly fired, trimmed, sized) from the same lot.

I had 3 different charges (10, 11, & 12 grains - if I remember) to test, & had hand lubed enough bullets w/ 2 different lubes, to shoot a couple of groups at each charge weight, w/ each lube. Bore was cleaned & fouling shots fired, before shooting for groups.

Both of these lubes are top quality, & familiar to all here. I really did not expect to see much difference in performance, aside from finding the optimum Trail Boss load charge weight, for the rifle.

What I found, was 2 accurate loads, - at opposite ends of the spectrum. The lightest load shot most accurately w/ one lube, & the heaviest load shot most accurately w/ the other lube.

Not exactly scientific results, as I'm sure there were variables that I had not taken into account, but enough to make an impression on me. Enough to get me to try a different lube, before giving up on any bullet - for accuracy problems anyway...

Regards - GCF