suggest an alloy for me...

[mike in co]

here is the criteria:
45acp, 800 fps,225/230 rn/tc , 5" bbl

( i currently use a lee 225 water dropped and felix lube...this is too hard for the velocity, i'm sure and the lube is too dirty in use)

so mix me up an alloy and suggest a lube or mod to felix's formula( add some beeswax ?)

thanks
mike in co

[GabbyM]

What's dirty about the lube? shooting smoke and crud or sticky all over when loading?
I've made up a batch with 1/4 pound of gulf wax to each 1 pound of beeswax. like a double batch of felix then add the one block of gulf wax to stiffen it. I use a slow cooker to make it in.

for the alloy you didn't list the lead you have on hand. I have 2/6 foundry alloy and some pure pb. Use a 8 lb ingot of 2/6 with a 2 ½ pound ingot of pure lead. 1-20 tin lead will shoot in a 45 acp. Some say you need a 14 BHN or harder while others say you need no more than a BHN #12. I say it will all shoot in a 45.

[carpetman]

Gabby M---Is what you are calling Gulf wax just parafin?

[SciFiJim]

I say it will all shoot in a 45.

I agree. I use 50/50 clip on and stick on WWs, air cooled using the Lee 200gr RF and tumble lube with 50/50 Xlox/JPW. I went through 300 rounds of this in one session at the range once and the dirtiest part was from the Bullseye powder residue.

[mike in co]

What's dirty about the lube? shooting smoke and crud or sticky all over when loading?
I've made up a batch with 1/4 pound of gulf wax to each 1 pound of beeswax. like a double batch of felix then add the one block of gulf wax to stiffen it. I use a slow cooker to make it in.

for the alloy you didn't list the lead you have on hand. I have 2/6 foundry alloy and some pure pb. Use a 8 lb ingot of 2/6 with a 2 ½ pound ingot of pure lead. 1-20 tin lead will shoot in a 45 acp. Some say you need a 14 BHN or harder while others say you need no more than a BHN #12. I say it will all shoot in a 45.


lube holding carbon in the chamber/breech end of bbl exterior.

i have lino, ww, indoor range lead...close to pure...some tin.

mike in co

[Lloyd Smale]

I dont agree that your water dropped ww is to hard for a acp. I actually get better accuracy from all of my 1911s when using harder bullets. Ive torcher tested a few 1911s and using javalina and bullseye is about the dirtiest combo i can think of but if you have a good gun a 1000 round range session still wont cause problems. If your gun wont do it you probably have to address the gun.

[HeavyMetal]

Change powder!

That issue was the major factor in my search, back in the 70's, for a powder as accurate as Bullseye but without the filth.

Found WW 452AA and have been a happy camper ever since! Current version is Super Target.

[mike in co]

Change powder!

That issue was the major factor in my search, back in the 70's, for a powder as accurate as Bullseye but without the filth.

Found WW 452AA and have been a happy camper ever since! Current version is Super Target.


well its accurate 2...and it works well with hard cast commercial with hard blue lube.....so me thinks its my boolit/lube combination...

it may simply be a lube issue, but thought i would look at alloy as well.

mike in co

[GabbyM]

Gabby M---Is what you are calling Gulf wax just parafin?

Yes the canning wax from grocery store. Comes in a one pound box with four blocks in it. So ¼ lb per block. I should have known most of you wouldn't be to deep into preserving jams to have seen that brand. :-? You can buy higher melt temp microcrystalline wax online if you need a big block of it. I'm not sure what melt temps would be compatible with beeswax or if higher temp wax would simply bring the melt temp up or if the bees wax would melt out leaving the microcrystalline behind. I'm no lube engineer for sure. I think I paid about $3.75 for a pound box of the Gulf canning wax at the grocery store.

Online wax:
http://www.lonestarcandlesupply.com/candlewax/index.html

Castor Oil , Lanolin for Felix lube.
http://www.thesage.com/catalog/FixedOil.html

[sargenv]

The other molding hobby I had was making candles.. so I still have a good supply of various temp parrafins.. the place I used to go to (and still do occasionally) is Candles and more out of NY. They had the best prices on the web at the time and would ship large orders. Sometimes they would have deals on bulk wax that they had left over from jobs that were reslabbed. I picked up a few 50+ # boxes in this manner. They have 4 or 5 different grades at diff melt temps.. Even with shipping as UPS (before FRB) was cheaper than ordering the wax more locally.

[HeavyMetal]

Is the powder your using Accurate #2? I had used it back in the day, but, I think the powder has changed greatly from the 70/80's. I heard then that most of accurates powder were surplus at that time and changed a bunch. The fact that every other month or so a new accurate powder manual came out kind of verified that for me.

Non the less the pound or two I burned up was OK, meaning way better than Bullseye but no where near as clean as 452.!

Now that you say that the commercial stuff is working great for you with the hard Blue lube, most likely Blue Angel or LBT, I will suggest you try a stick or two of Lar's Carnuba Red!

What I can tell you from personel use is the hard lubes handle and store better and don't make as much smoke with the right powder!