Second Pan Lube attempt

[Savage99]

Howdy all
First off this is a great place to learn stuff. I had always used my Lyman 45 and Saeco lube sizers.
Then I saw some things about pan lubing on here and you tube.
Why not give it a go, always learning and willing to try something new.
First attempt was pretty much a giant nightmare and mess, lube everywhere except where it should be.
I do not remember all of the specifics so I won't go there.
My second attempt I took a bit more time and took notes. So here goes. This is over the last week or so.
Bullet = 152 gr (+/- 1 gr), Lyman 358477 mould, not sized yet as I thought I would do that after lubing.
Day 1 Using Jake's Bullet Lube Ceresin Scarlet, which is pretty hard and requires at least 125 degree heat. Since I don't have a means to heat the sizers I thought I would try using this to pan lube. I melted (double boiler) the lube, placed 100 bullets in a pan and poured the lube in the pan and let it cool down so it was hard again. No lube stuck to any of the bullets and had a hard time getting it out of the pan.
Day 2 Same lube. Melted down and put the lube in the pan with the bullets, but put the pan in the freezer to get this to come out of the pan easier, still no lube on bullets.
Day 3 and 4 watched you tube videos and internet searches. Noticed where they heated the bullets in a toaster oven. Don't have one so I decided to try a double boiler type set-up (outside and on a Coleman) to heat up the bullets while the wax melted around the bullets. Drank beer.
Day 5 melted lube around the bullets in the double boiler (boiling water with the bullet pan in the water) set-up, which appears to have gotten the bullets to the same temperature as the lube, measured at about 145 degrees, put pan in freezer for 1 1/2 hours to get the lube out of the pan again no lube on bullets and hard as a rock.
Day 6 melted lube around the bullets, let set out over night (which will carry over to day 7) at 50 degrees or so and set out in the sun to soften lube up a bit, still no lube on the bullets and lube sticks to everything except the bullets after sun softened.
Day 7 (today) Right now things are just sitting there and I am writing this and drinking beer.
SO WHAT THE H**L AM I DOING WRONG?????????????????
Any ideas??
Ron

[bangerjim]

I struggled with pan lubing for a long time and NEVER got it right. Darned stuff would not stick or was too sticky or just did not work.....not enough to trust going down my barrels! Works for some....NOT for me.

So I switched to the 45/45/10 tumble lube stuff for a while. OK.

Then about a year and a half ago, the powder coating thing came along and after playing around a lot and working with many people on here, ESPC and BBDT are all I will EVER use for coating boolits now. No grease. No smoke. No sticky boolits. No leading. Just fun shooting with hardly any clean-up!

Give it some serious thought rther than wasting time and effort on pan lubing.

Sure works for me!

bnager-j

[varminter66]

Are you using a "cutter" to cut the bullets from the lube? In the old Belding and Mull reloading manual, they refer to it as a "cake cutter". I made my own cutter from a fired 35 Whelen case (cut the base off it with a pipe cutter), melted the NRA Formula Alox lube in the pan lid, and it worked well for me. I haven't tried this method with any harder lubes yet.

[Beagle333]

All of these say add lanolin for more tackiness or "stickiness" to the boolit.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/google.php?cx=partner-pub-6216953551359885%3A1942134700&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=add+lanolin+for+stickiness&sa.x=0&sa.y=0
but personally I pan lubed my last when I got my first lubesizer. I absolutely love my Lyman 45's. I do powdercoat a lot, but the ol' 45 works in any weather and I can lube one boolit or 1000 and walk away or return at any time. 8-)

[big bore 99]

Same problems here. I took to just dipping them with a tweezers.

[CastingFool]

When I started casting my maxi hunters, I pan lubed with Emmert's lube. Had no trouble whatsoever. I have used it for my 45LC boolits, too, and works fine. My Emmert's is sticky, but not real messy. It seems to stick well to the boolits. I use beeswax, lard, and canola oil. I did a lot of reading before choosing Emmert's, as I wanted something with few, easily obtainable ingredients. I do have the makings for Ben's Red, and I have been looking for the Johnson's liquid floor wax to make Ben's new LLA, but have not found it locally.

[Ben]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?119056-So-you-can-t-afford-one

[BenW]

Pan lubing with the wrong lube is tricky. You have to find a lube that'll work or make your own so you can tinker with the mix to get it just right.

[9-toes]

Used this guys formula - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBDFO0ftCQc - works for me.

I use a big old electric griddle and silicone baking pans. I size my boolits first as it seems to help retain the lube. The silicone pan makes it easy to get the lube out. You can use another pan to get your lube melted first then add your other pan of boolits. Get the boolits warm then add the lube. When I remove the boolits all that I do is maybe push down slightly on them first then push them out and away from me. Seems like this is needed for LEE molds with the small grease groove - not so much for larger grooves.

[runfiverun]

hair dryer.
lube cutter.
timing.
this is like a hand held sizer, only it cuts the lube. [warm lube] and pulls the boolit out of the mess.
then you size the boolits.

I have never had much luck pain lubing with anything other than a b-wax based lube.
paraffin type waxes either go too hard, don't stick, or just crack and the lube falls out when you try to remove the cake.

[oldfart1956]

Ron my first attempts at pan lubing went puddy much the same as yours. Took me a while to figger it out. I use the lubesizer now for most boolits but still pan lube for the 45/70 as no one currently makes a .462 lube sizing die. Here's what I figgered out. Don't let the lube cool too much. I set the boolits in the pan using the double-boiler method. Mine is an 8 inch cake pan that sets on top of a 2 quart sauce pan with water in it. Set the boolits in the pan and start heating things up and add lube till it covers up the lube grooves. When all is melted set it on a level surface and watch it a spell. Once the lube has firmly set (keep note of the time) snatch up a pair of pliars and get a grip on the nose of the boolit and pull straight up. It should make a sucking/popping sound as it pulls free. You don't want the lube cold or it won't work. How soft/warm varies with the lube. So far this works dandy for me. Now refill the holes the boolits left, re-heat and do it again. I like to let mine set a day on a cookie sheet (gets rid of some of the tackiness) and then poke em' thru a Lee sizer. Audie...the Oldfart. P.S. tried the cookie cutter method and it was awful messy.

[Lead Fred]

Sorry to see you guys going though so much torment.

Home made lube is all Ive ever done.

1lb Bee's wax
1lb lard
8oz STP oil treatment.

preheat the boolits in the oven @ 200 degrees for 20-30 mins.

pour the mixed wax in the pans with the boolits up right. Set the pan on a concrete floor over night.
The next day pop the puck from the pan, and push the boolits out with your fingers.

Set the lube puck back in the pan, put heated boolits in same holes you took others out of.
repeat until you have to add more lube to cover the boolits

[Savage99]

Thanks for all of the comments and suggestions. I am determined to make this work with the lube that I have, fixed income and all that. I will make some of my own after this is gone, I am looking at Ben's Red from this site somewhere. I will go back to my sizers when I get the right top punches and size dies. Anyway, I went back to it after a day or two. I heated everything again and decided to try the "cutter" idea. I have a small bucket of old brass I don't use and not enough to sell. I cut a rifle case down and put a little edge on the outside to help the "cutting" and made sure the inside was smooth, used a small pipe cutter to do the cutting. I waited for the wax to harden but still soft and warm, the "cutter" worked (yahoo) with wax still clinging to the bullet, I couldn't find a "perfect" fit for the bullet so there is a little bunch of wax around the bullet. First I sized while still warm, mistake, made a mess. I then waited until the wax hardened real good and then sized, (yahoo!!!) lube in the grooves and not falling out, there is a very small amount of lube at the top of the wad part of the SWC's that I am currently making but this should be no big deal, just makes them a little perttier. The wax gets trimmed off the bullet during sizing and put in a recycle bin to be added back to the boiler set-up. This may not be the perfect scenario but it is working for me for now with this hard lube. Old Fart, I do put bullets back in the holes the cutting action made, thanks for the other suggestions as well. I tried the pliers and that didn't work for me. I am refining my "cutting" tools and technique as I go along, I know I can't get bullets to just pop out "perfectly" lubed for me, others have but not me, maybe with different lube (Ben's Red?). Another day.
I am in a bullet making mode with about 900 lbs of lead to make into something useful and start shooting again. FYI, bullets I am going to cast; 9 mm, 38/357 (7), 44-40, 44 Mag (3), 45 ACP (3), 45 Colt (5), 45-70 (5) and 38-55. Thanks again everyone for the ideas.

[John Boy]

Here's what Jake has to say about the lube:

Clean wax lube that stays in the grooves, will not crumble or shrink, is heat stable for warm climates, and is not sticky or greasy. Great accuracy and it won't gum up your seating die. This lube requires steady heat. It goes in orange when the temp is right and cools to red after lubsizing. Pan lubes great as well.
Ron, your Day 5 pan lubing should work but your leaving it in the freezer too long. A trick I use lubing is ... when you put your finger on the nose of a bullet in the melted cake and the bullet is hot to touch ... that's when you put a fan on the melted lube in the pan to solidify it from a liquid and then ... put the pan in the freezer

The pan cake comes out of the freezer when the bottom of the pan is warm and you see the cake has separated it's adhesion from the sides of the pan. This indicates the adhesion on the bottom of the cake has also loosened from the pan. Then I remove the complete cake - set it on a 3/4" piece of siding foam insulation (prevents the cake from breaking up) and push down on the noses. When I hear the bullet 'snap' slightly out of the cake, slid the edge of the cake off the insulation and push the lubed bullet into my hand

I have never had any issues pan lubing with several lubes that I use regardless how shallow the grease grooves are

[cajun shooter]

I actually love pan lubing my 45-70 bullets and prefer it to using a sizer/luber press.
It's not hard if one has the needed tools to make it simple. I use a 9x9 cake pan that my wife donated to the cause.
I use a BP lube as that is all that I shoot these days. I don't use the freezer method but allow the lube to set at room temperature. The most important tool is having the proper kate cutter. Lee made them at one time and they were a part of the original pan lube sets sold by them. The problem was that they are small in size and not easy to hold in ones hand.
Buckshot makes the best kate cutters that I've had the pleasure of using. Just tell him the size of the bullet and he will make sure you receive the proper sized cutter. If you are doing bullets that drop out of the mold at .460 then you need at least a cutter that is .462 to clear the sides. The cutter is hollow so that as you lube and cut the bullets from the lube, they continue out the top of the cutter.
If your lube is sticky and not firm, it will not work well for pan lubing. I suggest you add in small amounts, carnauba flakes to firm it up. The carnauba will treat your bore and make your lube perform better.

[Brett Ross]

I pan lube with Ben's Red, homemade cake cutter for removal (rifle boolits); I also use a mix of Alox, Vaseline, parrifin and STP, pistol rounds) this I just push the boolit out of the cake. I PC most pistol rounds now but still have a couple I lube. I just melt the lube in old crock pots and preheat boolits with a heat gun .
Tony

[edctexas]

I have used RandyRat's TAC-X and Ben's Red in panlubing. I just put the boolits on their base in a square pan and set the pan on the hotplate. My hot plate is on a PID but I did the TAC-X without the fancy control. All the PID does is let the pan heat faster without smoking the lube. After you run one batch and cut out the boolits, you place the boolits in the empty holes in the lube filled pan. If you are fussy about the size of the "kookie cutters", go to a real hobby shop and look at their assortment of brass tubing. You can also heat old brass to anneal it and stretch it to get a better fit.

The big pain to me was getting the lube off the top and bottom of the boolits. So mostly I do PC on the boolits. Still for a smaller batch, pan lubing works.

Ed C

[Cmm_3940]

Before I got a lubesizer, I pan lubed in a silicone cake pan. After the lube hardens you just turn the pan inside out to remove the cake. Then, either get a sore thumb pushing the boolits out, or cut them out on a cutting board. For a cake cutter, I use a brass case with slits cut up the side to let it expand and drill out the primer pocket. heat shrink a spare shell holder over the rim for something to hold on to. After cutting, use an old pin punch to push the boolit out of the case through the hole you drilled. Once I then have an established cake full of holes, I just put the cake back in the pan, refill the holes with boolits, and microwave for 5 mins. I know it seems counterintuitive putting metal boolits in the microwave, but the oven never seemed to mind.

[Mavrick]

Did you know that a golf club is tapered on the inside?
Just push a newly-cast boolet into it until it stops, then cut it off just before the tight spot. then go back toward the larger end for 2 1/2-3" so it'll be long enough for you to control as you pus it through the "cake."
Mine made cutters for .30, .41, .44, and .45.
Have fun,
Gene

[country gent]

I made my own kake cutters from old cases its simple enough to do. I used a wood ball for a handle drilled a hole case head dia in ball and a smaller hole thru depending on bullet dia for a dowel to be the ejector to push bullet back out. I lightly belled the case mouth and expanded to .005 bigger than bullets dia. sharpen edge on inside with a deburring tool. The slightly larger dia makes bullets easier to slide in and out. The light bell and inside sharpening help to push lube into place and hold it there better. Kake cutters make pan lubing much easier and they also can help make some lubes more useable when built right.