BP with micro-groove bullets...options?

[DrDucati]

I have cast tumble lube style bullets from Lee mold. I'm going to load them in 32-20 brass with black powder for my original 1880s Colt Lightning carbine.

Which will work ok:

- powder coat
- card and grease cookie
- pan lube with bees-n-tallow lube (wondering if that works with a tumble lube bullet)

[Nobade]

Option #3 - Pan lube and use a duplex load with 2.0gr. smokeless in the burn rate of Unique with 15gr. FFFg over it. Keep an eye on the bore condition, but you should be able to fire quite a few before you need to wipe.

-Nobade

[longbow]

Believe it or not I used to shoot my 1895 Marlin .45-70 with BP and the Lyman 457124 385 gr. boolit quite often and with no issues with microgroove barrel. I was using Valvoline PB wheelbearing grease wiped into the lube grooves and it work very well. I have read many negative stories about petroleum based lubes and BP but that Valvoline PB wheelbearing grease worked well and kept fouling soft. Not sure what the formulation is but I am sure it is petroleum based grease. In any case it worked well for me and the microgroove Marlin shot well with BP.

Not saying you should use petroleum based lube, just that I don't think you will have any issues with BP and microgroove rifling if you use a lube that keeps fouling soft.

Longbow

[curator]

Back in the 50's I was loading .32-20WCF with the Ideal 100 grain .313" bullet, 50/50 bee's wax/Lard lube and 19 grains of C&H #5 (3Fg), and a card wad. Shot great in our Win. M73 with very little fouling. I'm not sure that a tumble lube design will have enough lube to keep powder fouing soft. Best to add a grease cookie to be sure. The Old .32WCF is a fine BP rifle cartridge!

[Multigunner]

I've used Valvoline wheel bearing grease with two brass framed 1851 replicas and though I was using exactly the same light BP charge with those as when I'd used Crisco one cylinder arbor shot loose and the other pulled through breaking the frame. Neither of those replicas was very well put together, the broken frame was badly milled with only two threads catching at the bottom of the pin and the arbor that pulled through had rounded off threads. I was able to rethread the frame that didn't break and make a new arbor to match, adding silver solder to make it tight a fit as possible, its still here and works fine.
I suspect that Valvoline is not as slippery under that level of pressure and mixed with BP fouling. A stronger action can no doubt handle any slight increase in friction better than those poorly made brass frame pistols could.

Some grades of wheel bearing grease contain a micro fine non abrasive polishing compound to clean and polish rusty bearings, avoid those to be sure.