Synthetic lube

[andrew375]

Was reading a post about using synthetic based greases for lubrication purposes and was wondering where to get some at a decent price. It occurred to me that grease is basically oil thickened with soap and that I had a bottle of fully synthetic motor oil that I use in the car and a block of soap I'd used for making a lube based on stiffened moly grease.

For my first attempt I used 40 grams each of 5W-30 oil and finely grated soap. After just an hour in the toaster oven at 120 degrees Centigrade the soap was fully dissolved in the oil and the result was a VERY smooth grease just a little bit thicker than regular axle grease. I added 20 gram of paraffin wax and back in the oven for another hour and I had what looked and felt like it should be a decent bullet lube.

Tried it out by smearing the lube into the grooves of some Lee .310-150s for the K31 and .308 and some .312-185s for the mosin. With loads in the 2000 - 2100fps range I got the same accuracy as with other lubes and the bore scope revealed only normal fouling. So success!!!!

Now before someone takes me to task for using engine oil, I fully realise that it contains more than just oil. There are emulsifiers, anti-ashing agents, detergents amongst other things, but the soap went into suspension in the oil at room temperature and stayed there. I didn't need to stir the mix at all except when I added the wax. There was no smoke or smell whilst it was cooking, which is a bonus. The lube flows easily under pressure and is just sticky enough to stay in the grooves.

I've got to to do a bit more playing with it to really make sure it can hold its own against other lubes but so far, so good.

[Mk42gunner]

Interesting, I have never tried to make grease before. Sounds like you may be on the way to a good (and inexpensive) lube.

Robert

[runfiverun]

grease is super simple to make.
I have seen recipes from the frontier days for making your own axle grease,,, etc.

one thing you have to look out for when using stearates [sodium in soap] in higher amounts
is a slight build up in the first third of the barrel.
you have super good accuracy for the first several shots then the vertical stringing sets in and you have to push a patch down the barrel.

your newer motor oils are generally a PAG base, the older types are mineral oil types and make into a grease very easily.
if your interested in making a soap/grease boolit lube look up the recipe for SL-68 or 68-1 Jon started a thread abut it and it shows tons of promise.

you can also follow through the lube quest thread and see all the stuff we tried and their results.
bring a lunch and some coffee the thread is super long.

[andrew375]

Thanks. I had read the thread you refer to several times, in fact the lube currently in my lubamatic is one i made from moly grease and soap with some carnuba wax to bring the hardness up. I was just playing and as I didn't have to make any extra effort or expense to do I thought I'd give it a try. I'm glad I did and I'll now investigate lubes based on synthetic motor oil further. Next will probably be a simple mix with bees or carnuba wax and see what that gets me. On reading up on synthetic oils one of the properties is they have much higher shear strengths than normal mineral oils, which I keep seeing is very desirable in a bullet lube. The stuff is certainly slippery!

I'll keep a look out for the vertical stringing, thanks for the heads up.

[andrew375]

Well, I've been testing this lube and the Poly-X for the past few weeks and it looks like this one is a failure. I've basically been testing these lubes side-by-side with bullets from the same batch in known accurate loads that are in excess of 2100 fps. In all cases those with this lube have consistently shot markedly larger groups! They are groups, but nowhere good enough to be useful. This is a real disappointment because as a lube for keeping the barrel clean it is outstanding! 25 rounds with the Lee 150 and 32 gr. of RL15 and the Lee 200gr. with 34gr. of RL15 left the 28" barrel of my .308 target rifle almost looking unfired when I put my Olympus bore scope down! Just shiny bright steel looking back at me, end to end.

I will mix up one more batch to try, this time with either Beeswax or Carnuba wax as a stiffener.

[303Guy]

Why not experiment with different loads? Maybe this lube is too slippery to give the pressure that burns your powder consistently?

[andrew375]

I've fixed the accuracy problem! It was just the nut behind the trigger getting a bit loose, again.

I loaded ten rounds of the Lee 200gr. bullet in front of 35g N140 (2129 fps), one of my consistent performers in this rifle. This time I applied the same level of concentration and attention as when I'm shooting my small bore match rifle and got a group; 1 1/2" wide by 2 1/4" high, with four shots going in to 3/4"! This is for ten consecutive shots. I think most of the vertical dispersion was me. This was from a clean barrel and the bore scope showed it to be virtually as clean as I started! So this lube is definitely a goer!!

[runfiverun]

adding a bit of friction to a lube can help it settle down too.
I started a thread some time back titled 'does your lube have enough friction' that might have some pointers in it that could give you some ideas.
Eutetic has some good posts on controlling carnuba wax [and it's uses] and manipulating the fling off at the muzzle to help it settle down too.

[andrew375]

I've finished with the test of this lube. Basically used it with all my rifles at various velocities and pressures. Nothing wrong with accuracy!

Average velocities down across the board by between 10 and 20 fps, which probably means there is less resistance to the bullet travel. Irrelevant to ballistics but interesting. Also, the velocity drop was consistent over the range from 1200fps to 2200 fps; interesting.

The actual lubricating qualities as far as lead fouling though was disappointing. Up to 1800fps the bores were left uniformly clean and even shinier than when freshly cleaned. Over 2000 fps things deteriorate. With a known consistent load in the .375 that puts out a 300 gr. bullet at 2200 fps, ten shots resulted in distinct lead fouling at the muzzle. A look through with the bore scope revealed a steady progression from slight traces two inches into the rifling to complete lead coating running back from the muzzle. There were no lumps or streaks of lead and the rifling was still clear and sharply defined, just a coating of lead indicating the lubricant breaking down.

So to sum up. This is a good lube. It would probably excel in pistols and sub 1800 fps rifle loads using fast pistol powders. But as most of my rifle shooting is with 2000 fps+ loads I wont be making any more.