Running a tumble lube bullet through a lubesizer?

[happyfast79]

Hello I have a few types of tumble lube bullets ( lee dies and ranchdog lee dies in ). Would it work to run them through a line sizer vs useing the Alox.

[Winger Ed.]

No reason it won't.
But you will need some form or fashion of lube in the sizer press or tumble lube 'em first.
(I'm a big fan of Lyman's 'orange magic' for rifle stuff.)

[megasupermagnum]

Yes, it works. A number of members traditionally lube "tumble lube" bullets. The only snag is that the lube can then be knocked off easily, you have to be gentle handling them until you load them.

[GregLaROCHE]

The tumble lube boolits I’ve seen are mostly bore riders and have less and shallower lube grooves near the back end. I would be concerned about having enough lube for the boolit. With normal lube, some is supposed to get forced ahead initially, where tumble lubed boolits are already all lubed.

[RU shooter]

It should work ok I pan lube TL design bullets and only the bottom three grooves get lube and shoot them at jacketed speeds in my 35 rem

[happyfast79]

I’m mostly just not wanting to have lube all over the nose of the bullet. I usually just put them in a bag with alox and tumble them by hand them spread on cardboard to dry. Is there a better way that’s just as fast? Or should I just live with it?

[mdi]

Yep, it'll work, but try some normal wax based lubes too. I have pan lubed some 44 cal. TL bullets in Carnuba Red for my 44 Magnum revolvers. IIRC, worked with mid to upper Magnum loads. I don't like brown nose bullets either, so I dip lube ala Ranch Dog, mostly with 45-45-10 with good results.

[RU shooter]

I’m mostly just not wanting to have lube all over the nose of the bullet. I usually just put them in a bag with alox and tumble them by hand them spread on cardboard to dry. Is there a better way that’s just as fast? Or should I just live with it?. Nothing that a quick wipe of solvent on a small rag won’t fix when they dry

[414gates]

There's two reasons to run bullets through a lube sizer , and usually for both to happen at the same time

1. size the bullets
2. lube the bullets

Tumble lube bullet design doesn't lend itself well to having lube applied in a lubesizer. It may or may not work.

You can definitely size the bullets in a lubesizer after applying the alox, or even powder coat, with no issue.

[megasupermagnum]

I’m mostly just not wanting to have lube all over the nose of the bullet. I usually just put them in a bag with alox and tumble them by hand them spread on cardboard to dry. Is there a better way that’s just as fast? Or should I just live with it?

An alternative method is dip lubing. It is basically how it sounds, you dip a bullet in Alox lube however deep you want, and it leaves the nose dry. It's tedious, but you can knock out a few hundred pretty quick. I'm not a fan of this method. I like regular old tumble lubing. The way I do it, it is dry as can be on the whole bullet. Very thin coats being the key. Another method I've seen that may be helpful is to bake the bullets after tumble lubing. I believe this is the method used by Mehavey if you look him up.

[GregLaROCHE]

I’m mostly just not wanting to have lube all over the nose of the bullet. I usually just put them in a bag with alox and tumble them by hand them spread on cardboard to dry. Is there a better way that’s just as fast? Or should I just live with it?

When I was tumble lubing it was for a 6.5 Swede. I used an RCBS mold that was designed for tumble lube. I tumbled mine in a plastic container, let them dry, put them through a sizer to put on the gas check and then tumbled them again. Wax paper works well to dry them on. Perhaps you need to thin the Alox with some mineral spirits so it doesn’t go on so thick. It doesn’t take a lot because the nose of the boolit is coated from the start. Try a plastic container and don’t add too much. It may help to get less on them.