How much lube?

[Twmaster]

I've got some 314" wadcutters with three lube grooves. Do I need to fill all three grooves or can I just lube one or two grooves? The grooves are kinda small after sizing. No, it's not a Lee tumble lube bullet.

[Cowboy_Dan]

I can't personally answer your question, but more knowledgeable members will probably need to know what lube and how hard you are pushing that boolit. You could maybe start by trying one or two and see what happens.

[fryboy]

well you could just tumble lube them ...there's several options to do so

as for the grooves ... it varies , how good of lube , what velocity/pressure also plays a major part , some guys have shot unlubed with good results ( me ..i'm not so lucky ...yet ;) )

in essence lube all of them and see , if it shows you have too much try two grooves , if that still shows too much lube try one ...or you could just try one or two and see if it works , if it doesnt it doesnt [shrugz] ( but since they're wadcutters .. that tumble loob is looking sweet ! )

[RobS]

I agree with fryboy, you won't know until you try lubing one, two or all three lube grooves. I would lube only as many grooves as you need so there is less likelihood of having a purged barrel resulting in fliers.

[Mk42gunner]

Like so many things pertaining to reloading the answer is: It depends. I would guess without knowing your particulars that two grooves will be sufficient, one may be enough.

Although I have to agree with fryboy, wadcutters and a good tumble lube like BLL sounds like an easy way to make target/ plinking ammo.

Robert

[Stoats]

Probably only one, but you never know until you try.

in rifle world, the Lyman 311 160gn Silhouette bullet I found to run best with only one groove lubed, and the accuracy dropped off with both of them filled.

[Dale53]

Many years ago, NRA Staffer E.H. Harrison ran a series of tests using the Ransom Rest to develop quality target ammo with .38 Special wadcutters. He learned that lubing one groove was best (he used NRA 50/50). I use only one groove with my solid base wadcutters with excellent results (target accuracy) with my .32's, .38's, .44's and .45's. I AM critical and have had access to a Ransom Rest for many years.

FWIW
Dale53

[edctexas]

Try one groove and see if you find any lube on the guns or pistol's muzzle. If you don't see any lube at all on the muzzle fill another lube groove. I don't see as much difference with some boolit shapes as with wadcutters. So try it.

Ed C

[Twmaster]

Thanks all. I've lubed them to two grooves. Hopefully I'll have time to load some and try them this weekend.

[paul h]

Years ago people did accuracy tests with Ransom rests and found the best accuracy with just a single lube groove filled.

[Le Loup Solitaire]

Using H&G wadcutter #251 in the 38 special, I use lube(NRA 50/50) in one groove. When two grooves are filled and specially three there is a lot more smoke and the excess starts to crud up the gun with deposits of lube building up everywhere. Essentially a waste. LLS

[cajun shooter]

We have much cleaner powders to choose from today than when I first started shooting PPC matches with my own bullets. There were several magazine articles written over the years about this very thing. To do a proper test with the correct standards will take a lot of time if you want the smallest groups possible. It was found that too much lube was not good and too little lube gave the same answers. Later David