igolfat8
08-09-2015, 10:46 AM
I have been experimenting with lube recipes for a few years and have not really settled on a formula that I am 100% pleased with. When I got into casting my own pistol boolits I had a heck of a time totally eliminating lead until now. Last season I went back and forth between Mike's 6-6-6-1, Lithi-bee variants and Felix lubes. Mike's worked pretty well except for leading in the first half inch of [my] barrels. Felix worked about the same and was just a pain to cook up. Both lubes left a lot of wax build up around my breach faces and extractors. I tried tumble lubes as well but they were the worst (for me) for leading.
FWIW, I shoot 12-ish Brinell lead out of mostly .40 S&W with a few .45 pills and 9's mingled in just for fun. I shoot about 16K rounds annually of .40s alone but far less .45s and 9's. Keep in mind that I only shoot lead in pistols and have no experience with rifle lead projectiles.
Just a bit of background info on me; I work for a Fortune 100 company in the role of Maintenance Reliability Engineer. I manage the Predictive Maintenance organization, Oil Lab Wear Particle Analysis program and the Maintenance Oiler personnel and have spent 38 years in the Maintenance organization. I am NOT a chemist but do have some light background in Tribology.
One of our other U.S. manufacturing plants had been testing an oil additive, in several different applications, with excellent results. My counterpart, at our sister division, had called me and urged me to consider trying a new product that they had been using. They had found a gearbox that was alarmingly hot, and a bore scope inspection revealed the gear teeth were nearly gone. The vibration amplitude peaks were in alarm level and to make matters worse, the lead time on a new gear set was 10 weeks out. If this gearbox failed they would have shut down their conveyor system to their physical distribution warehouse halting finished product flow. They drained the oil in the gearcase and filled it with virgin gear oil and put this additive in the gearbox. A few hours later the temperature and vibration amplitudes dropped, significantly under the software’s alarm levels. They were able to continue running the conveyor system, without any downtime, until the new parts arrived 10 weeks later.
My counterpart also shared two other success stories with me that almost sounded too good to be true. We’ve all heard the old saying when it sounds too good to be true … it usually is?
I called the salesman and set up a meeting. Many salesmen that I deal with are trying to get their foot in our door with hopes of landing a huge contract but a few will surprise me on occasion. The salesman sent me literature and a few weeks later we met. After the husband and wife sales couple had put on their “dog and pony show” touting their product as the best thing since sliced bread they left a couple sample quarts with me to test. I always take these meetings with a grain of salt until the product proves itself in testing and actual field use.
First we ran in house Falex film strength tests with surprising results. Next we sent samples to an independent lab for certified ASTM testing. The results came back a few weeks later, again with surprising results compared to another product we currently use.
September 2014 we added the oil additive to four crane trolley gearboxes at the suggested ratio of 5%. Due to the way we use this crane, to flip 15 ton tool dies, we routinely replace these four gearboxes every two months on average. In July 2015, I ordered an inspection of these gearboxes, because none had failed since last September. The gears were all worn but none of them had failed and this amazed me. It got me thinking, what if I could use this in my boolit lube. I wondered if it could have any effect on the first ½” of leading that I could not eliminate.
I mixed up a batch of lube, with this additive, and to my amazement my leading is gone, completely! As of yesterday I have shot 1000 rounds without cleaning my barrel. I have done visual inspections every 100 rounds and there is NOTHING in my barrel but a mirror shine and a few flakes of powder.
I am not touting this as the “end all, be all” lube but it has worked amazingly well for me. I have no dog in this fight nor do I have any connections with the additive company other than being an end user. Is this additive responsible for my success? I don’t really know because I have not made a batch of lube to test without the additive. Therefore, that will be my next step to test. I am just so elated to have stumbled on this that I wanted to share it with you folks if you had an interest in trying it out?
I call this lube Lucky 7 because it was pure luck that I came up with it but "luckily" I kept accurate notes when I brewed up a small batch of 7 ingredients to test. Must be the Engineer in me ;) SO without further ado here is the recipe:
37 Grams paraffin
37 Grams Johnson’s Paste Wax
37 Grams cheap lithium grease
21 Grams Fastex Surface Modifier
http://www.fastexlubes.com/main.php?cat_id=84
1 Teaspoon grated Ivory soap flakes
69 Grams of Beeswax
3 Crayons in the color of your choice
- Melt, under LOW heat, paraffin, grease, JPW until liquid.
- Stir with whisk
- Add Fastex Surface Modifier,
- Whisk in Ivory until melted
- Remove from heat
- Melt in Beeswax & crayons last
- Pour into molds for Star lubri-sizer or pan for future use.
If you test this lube, please share your results with me as I would like to hear how it works for others.
FWIW, I shoot 12-ish Brinell lead out of mostly .40 S&W with a few .45 pills and 9's mingled in just for fun. I shoot about 16K rounds annually of .40s alone but far less .45s and 9's. Keep in mind that I only shoot lead in pistols and have no experience with rifle lead projectiles.
Just a bit of background info on me; I work for a Fortune 100 company in the role of Maintenance Reliability Engineer. I manage the Predictive Maintenance organization, Oil Lab Wear Particle Analysis program and the Maintenance Oiler personnel and have spent 38 years in the Maintenance organization. I am NOT a chemist but do have some light background in Tribology.
One of our other U.S. manufacturing plants had been testing an oil additive, in several different applications, with excellent results. My counterpart, at our sister division, had called me and urged me to consider trying a new product that they had been using. They had found a gearbox that was alarmingly hot, and a bore scope inspection revealed the gear teeth were nearly gone. The vibration amplitude peaks were in alarm level and to make matters worse, the lead time on a new gear set was 10 weeks out. If this gearbox failed they would have shut down their conveyor system to their physical distribution warehouse halting finished product flow. They drained the oil in the gearcase and filled it with virgin gear oil and put this additive in the gearbox. A few hours later the temperature and vibration amplitudes dropped, significantly under the software’s alarm levels. They were able to continue running the conveyor system, without any downtime, until the new parts arrived 10 weeks later.
My counterpart also shared two other success stories with me that almost sounded too good to be true. We’ve all heard the old saying when it sounds too good to be true … it usually is?
I called the salesman and set up a meeting. Many salesmen that I deal with are trying to get their foot in our door with hopes of landing a huge contract but a few will surprise me on occasion. The salesman sent me literature and a few weeks later we met. After the husband and wife sales couple had put on their “dog and pony show” touting their product as the best thing since sliced bread they left a couple sample quarts with me to test. I always take these meetings with a grain of salt until the product proves itself in testing and actual field use.
First we ran in house Falex film strength tests with surprising results. Next we sent samples to an independent lab for certified ASTM testing. The results came back a few weeks later, again with surprising results compared to another product we currently use.
September 2014 we added the oil additive to four crane trolley gearboxes at the suggested ratio of 5%. Due to the way we use this crane, to flip 15 ton tool dies, we routinely replace these four gearboxes every two months on average. In July 2015, I ordered an inspection of these gearboxes, because none had failed since last September. The gears were all worn but none of them had failed and this amazed me. It got me thinking, what if I could use this in my boolit lube. I wondered if it could have any effect on the first ½” of leading that I could not eliminate.
I mixed up a batch of lube, with this additive, and to my amazement my leading is gone, completely! As of yesterday I have shot 1000 rounds without cleaning my barrel. I have done visual inspections every 100 rounds and there is NOTHING in my barrel but a mirror shine and a few flakes of powder.
I am not touting this as the “end all, be all” lube but it has worked amazingly well for me. I have no dog in this fight nor do I have any connections with the additive company other than being an end user. Is this additive responsible for my success? I don’t really know because I have not made a batch of lube to test without the additive. Therefore, that will be my next step to test. I am just so elated to have stumbled on this that I wanted to share it with you folks if you had an interest in trying it out?
I call this lube Lucky 7 because it was pure luck that I came up with it but "luckily" I kept accurate notes when I brewed up a small batch of 7 ingredients to test. Must be the Engineer in me ;) SO without further ado here is the recipe:
37 Grams paraffin
37 Grams Johnson’s Paste Wax
37 Grams cheap lithium grease
21 Grams Fastex Surface Modifier
http://www.fastexlubes.com/main.php?cat_id=84
1 Teaspoon grated Ivory soap flakes
69 Grams of Beeswax
3 Crayons in the color of your choice
- Melt, under LOW heat, paraffin, grease, JPW until liquid.
- Stir with whisk
- Add Fastex Surface Modifier,
- Whisk in Ivory until melted
- Remove from heat
- Melt in Beeswax & crayons last
- Pour into molds for Star lubri-sizer or pan for future use.
If you test this lube, please share your results with me as I would like to hear how it works for others.