Lube Purging ?

[outdoorfan]

Will, generally speaking, a slower twist rifle be just as susceptible to throwing flyers as a fast twist rifle in similar bore size/loads/conditions?

[rob45]

If I understand your question correctly, I would say- I don't know.

Are you asking if the bullet can be understabilized as well as overstabilized?

Or are you asking if a slower twist will somehow aid lube preservation without having too negative of an impact on stabilization?

[outdoorfan]

I've heard over and over that lube changes in cold/colder weather causing innacuracy issues. I've also heard it said that with high velocity in rifle applications that a slower twist is helpful for accuracy. I realize that lube purging causing flyers is not twist dependent, but is there any relation to it at all? I figure there's enough people on this forum that shoot multiple cartridges in various twists at HV that would see a trend as to whether or not slower twist rifles are less prone to throwing flyers in cold weather.

[BABore]

I've had it happen with 1 in 10, 12, 16, 18, and 20 twist barrels. It doesn't even have to be cold for it to happen. Take a boolit with a generous lube capacity and fill them grooves with a high tech, super slippery lube and it will happen. You just need to balance the boolit's lube capacity, lube quality and viscosity, and velocity so you've just about run out of lube when the boolit exits the bbl. I've always found that best accuracy to be on the verge of leading.

[44man]

I've had it happen with 1 in 10, 12, 16, 18, and 20 twist barrels. It doesn't even have to be cold for it to happen. Take a boolit with a generous lube capacity and fill them grooves with a high tech, super slippery lube and it will happen. You just need to balance the boolit's lube capacity, lube quality and viscosity, and velocity so you've just about run out of lube when the boolit exits the bbl. I've always found that best accuracy to be on the verge of leading.
Another good answer from Babore, another sticky in the making.
Cold weather presents a problem when hard lube is used and a few like super clean boolits with just a very hard lube in the grooves most of the year. Drop a boolit on a piece of cardboard and lube breaks out. NICE! :veryconfu Then when the boolit clears the muzzle, lube on one side leaves but there is a chunk left on the other side. You can use the bullet for a case tumbler motor. :bigsmyl2:
This is what I am talking about. A recovered commercial boolt with hard lube. Just how accurate do you suppose this is?

[44man]

That boolit also shows NONE was used in the bore, NONE was squeezed out to lube anything, NONE was used to soften fouling. Need I go on.
It was applied to the boolit for good looks only.
Now here is a PROPER recovered boolit, notice the grooves are CLEAN so that lube was used in the bore and any left ---well it just left.

[mpmarty]

Are my old eyes deceiving me or are the land marks narrower on the check than on the boolit?

[44man]

Are my old eyes deceiving me or are the land marks narrower on the check than on the boolit?
Well, isn't that what a gas check is for???
But on this boolit, not enough that I can measure, it has performed almost as perfect as a cast boolit can get.

[Bass Ackward]

I figure there's enough people on this forum that shoot multiple cartridges in various twists at HV that would see a trend as to whether or not slower twist rifles are less prone to throwing flyers in cold weather.



Naming "fliers" are we. :grin:

Lets deal with purge fliers for a minute. Because best accuracy occurs just before leading begins, it can be lube or lead, based upon where it occurs in a string defined by bore condition at a certain temperature. At first you have an excess of lube, or hardened lube because of cold and later in the string not enough lube and you change the fouling.

More velocity requires more powder which provides more heat. Then you compound this if you need more shots. Anything that is deposited in the bore (fouling) that requires a bullet to pass it without removal will require the slug to size down to pass it and affect the launch.

A slower twist rate simply is a lesser obstacle to forward motion that allows limited strength lead that sizes in smaller amounts to still hold jacketed height rifling and launch .... in an acceptable (accurate) fashion out to the range of interest. It will stabilize at common distances (as defined by the launching platform) to call it accuracy.

The faster you go, the more fouling will affect the launch so that more air will act upon your slug when less than a perfect rotating launch occurs. The faster the barrier to forward motion (twist rate) the sooner (lower velocity level) lead will fail to hold the rifling and begin to launch badly.

This is your flier. Your "flier(s)" are named by the velocity level of the slug.

At lower handgun velocities and too slow rifle twist rates it is called a poor stabilization.

At normally accepted cast velocities it is a purge flier.

And at high velocity many call it high RPMS.

Each situation occurs from too LOW of RPMS for spin recovery from a poor launch out to the desired range before air acts negatively upon the slug. It's a flier and velocity determines what we call it. Fouling simply determines when and how often it happens.

[outdoorfan]

Thanks guys. I appreciate the responses.

The rifle and load I am currently playing with and trying to figure out is a Savage .223 with a 1-9 twist. The boolit is my 70 grain LBT. I cast it as hard as I could, which is about 26-27 bhn according to the Lee tester.

With a full case of Varget it's scooting along at 2,700-2,750 fps and sometimes shoots into 1.5 MOA for five shots at 100 yards. The "other" times I get "fliers" that blow the group to typically 2.5-3 inches.

I'm getting a small amount of leading, and I think that is affecting things. I am not done playing with this, but I have a feeling this is going to beat me and I'll have to revert to lower velocity levels.

[felix]

Slow the very same boolit lot to about 2400 and you should get enough accuracy for 20 shots; slow it to 2100 and you might get 80 shots. Then it's time to call it a day when every shot was made with 100 percent effort using wind flags as is required for a one-hole group. Anything under a half-inch group would be a one-holer with your kind of gun. ... felix

[outdoorfan]

Yes, I did see some accuracy potential at 2400 fps when I was working up the powder charge, but I stuck with the 2700 level due to the potential that I saw at that higher level. I have been shooting up to 31 shots before cleaning, and the leading is there. My next test tomorrow will be to stop at 16 shots. All of the groups that I've shot have been done with the first shots of each load done in sequence before moving on to the next subsequent shots. That way the fouling is even for all loads that I'm testing on that particular shoot, and it gives me the opportunity to check the target and mark each shot without having to run up and down the range after every single shot.

My last session, which was 31 shots, showed promise until the the last round of 5'th shots (6 5-shot groups). 4 out of the 6 groups were blown open by those 5'th shots.

[runfiverun]

yhe 22 cals are very picky.
beagle has a very informative article in the cast pics section.
picture at bottom of this page click to link.
lube purge flyers generally come in regular intervals like 5 good shots then a flyer,etc...
just flyers have other causes generally like bbl temp,leading, lube not up to the task,poor boolits,
crooked g/c's, slumping from alloy,inclusions,loose or tight case necks mixed in, bad primers, powder shifting in a case can do it too.

[Bass Ackward]

Thanks guys. I appreciate the responses.

The rifle and load I am currently playing with and trying to figure out is a Savage .223 with a 1-9 twist. The boolit is my 70 grain LBT. I cast it as hard as I could, which is about 26-27 bhn according to the Lee tester.

With a full case of Varget it's scooting along at 2,700-2,750 fps and sometimes shoots into 1.5 MOA for five shots at 100 yards. The "other" times I get "fliers" that blow the group to typically 2.5-3 inches.

I'm getting a small amount of leading, and I think that is affecting things. I am not done playing with this, but I have a feeling this is going to beat me and I'll have to revert to lower velocity levels.


The faster you want to go with lead, the lighter the bullet you need per caliber. Same strategy as slower powders.

This is bass ackward to conventional thought for jacketed where people try to match bullet length to what twist rate they have.

You must be having to size fairly small too or seating deep. Yep, gotta love 50 grainers in a 223.

[outdoorfan]

You must be having to size fairly small too or seating deep. Yep, gotta love 50 grainers in a 223.

Nope. :D Boolits sized at .2265. I have a .226 throater that made it real easy to seat those puppies where they need to be.

[Bass Ackward]

My last session, which was 31 shots, showed promise until the the last round of 5'th shots (6 5-shot groups). 4 out of the 6 groups were blown open by those 5'th shots.


After I read what you are sizing, I figure that you are sizing fairly good in the bore too which holds the bullet back longer. Those are usually held pretty tight.

I don't think that is lube or over lube. And I still believe that a slower powder of some unknown variety would help for longer strings even if initial accuracy isn't as good.

Shoot some hot jacketed in it every now and then to flash harden the throat / rifling area or your perfect throat is gonna take a walk on ya. Hope you came up just a little short when you cut it. :grin:

[outdoorfan]

After I read what you are sizing, I figure that you are sizing fairly good in the bore too which holds the bullet back longer. Those are usually held pretty tight.

I don't think that is lube or over lube. After checking my previous targets, I didn't see any particular pattern as to when the fliers occurred that happened early on and midway through the shooting session. However, most of the fliers did come towards the end. So, after thinking this through more I would have to agree that lube is probably not the factor here And I still believe that a slower powder of some unknown variety would help for longer strings even if initial accuracy isn't as good. Probably, but time and money isn't on my side right now. 4831 & 4350 were a bust. Maybe the next time I get the itch to tinker with this gun (usually happens every six months or so) will allow me to do that

Shoot some hot jacketed in it every now and then to flash harden the throat / rifling area or your perfect throat is gonna take a walk on ya. Hope you came up just a little short when you cut it. :grin: I did aim to be a little short, but it already walked a good bit. :groner: There's still plenty in the neck, however. :grin:

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[outdoorfan]

Fired three more 5-shot groups today. Temp was in the low 20's. Best group was 2.5". The other two had crazy fliers. This time I counted them as being mostly about every 5'th shot.:-? Haven't cleaned the rifle yet.

It's unbelievable to me how one shooting session to the next can have dramatically different results when all the conditions appear to be the same.

I've decided to forgo the rest of the tests that I've had at this velocity level and try something more reasonable.

[runfiverun]

h-335 is rumored to work well in the 223 sized cases with cast.

[dubber123]

A thought. Are you weighing you boolits? A small internal void in a .22 cal boolit would probably account for a wild flyer at those speeds.

[outdoorfan]

I initially weighed ten at random, and they were well within .1 grain of each other. Most were less than that. Otherwise, I visually inspected them only.

[Bass Ackward]

Fired three more 5-shot groups today. Temp was in the low 20's. Best group was 2.5". The other two had crazy fliers. This time I counted them as being mostly about every 5'th shot.:-? Haven't cleaned the rifle yet.

It's unbelievable to me how one shooting session to the next can have dramatically different results when all the conditions appear to be the same.

I've decided to forgo the rest of the tests that I've had at this velocity level and try something more reasonable.


I am not picking on you, but this is a classic example.

If you didn't clean, the longer it sets, the harder the fouling becomes and the more problems it will be the next time out. It ain't going away. If you have a chrono, you would see either way higher velocity or way lower depending on where the fouling is building from your first shots.

This is the biggest mistake made by cast shooters in any venue. In order to stop leading, you need to remove ALL leading. Not simply look like you did. And quite honestly that is VERY difficult. I know because I have a scope. I test myself and I fail every time. After I lead I must clean and then shoot jacketed for awhile to get it ALL out.

I'd say that 95% of people shooting cast that say they don't lead simply don't know that they are. And you can go in with a chore boy and some solvent and have it shine like a mirror. Then use JB or ISSO and anything else that you want. Oh it will shoot fine again at low velocity, but you will still be leaded enough to effect you at higher velocity.

And this is the biggest single reason people have trouble with HV. But telling a gun man that he isn't getting all the lead and you won't get a Christmas Card from him again. Yet I see it all the time.

[outdoorfan]

I am not picking on you, but this is a classic example.

If you didn't clean, the longer it sets, the harder the fouling becomes and the more problems it will be the next time out. [B]Oops, in my previous post I meant to say that I hadn't cleaned it yet since that day's shooting. I had cleaned it since the last time shooting. I did clean it last night, and I hardly got any perceptible leading at all, but it was only 16 shots.[/B ]It ain't going away. If you have a chrono, you would see either way higher velocity or way lower depending on where the fouling is building from your first shots. I cleaned it as thoroughly as I knew how, and then went to the range yesterday, which I reported on (the three 5-shot groups). The chronograph showed that the velocity numbers were approximately 100 fps higher than the previous times I shot it. Maybe that is from lead fouling build-up, like you stated. I don't know. I cleaned it the best I could. I'm going back to the range in a few minutes to test loads ranging from 2300-2600 fps. If these shoot horribly, then I will be quite convinced that there is lead fouling in there that I haven't gotten yet. Thanks for your perceptive comments.

This is the biggest mistake made by cast shooters in any venue. In order to stop leading, you need to remove ALL leading. Not simply look like you did. And quite honestly that is VERY difficult. I know because I have a scope. I test myself and I fail every time. After I lead I must clean and then shoot jacketed for awhile to get it ALL out.

I'd say that 95% of people shooting cast that say they don't lead simply don't know that they are. And you can go in with a chore boy and some solvent and have it shine like a mirror. Then use JB or ISSO and anything else that you want. Oh it will shoot fine again at low velocity, but you will still be leaded enough to effect you at higher velocity.

And this is the biggest single reason people have trouble with HV. But telling a gun man that he isn't getting all the lead and you won't get a Christmas Card from him again. Yet I see it all the time.


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[Slow Elk 45/70]

Very interesting thread, it would make a good stickie in my mind.[smilie=1:

[outdoorfan]

Well, it was windy and snowing, but that didn't stop me from blasting a few more off this afternoon. The wind was mainly at my back, though.

I dropped down in powder charge weight and shot five shots each at 21, 22, 23, and 24 grains of Varget. The averaged velocites started and 2,336 on the low end and ended up at 2,614 at the high.

This thread started because I was wondering if I was getting lube purging and how to identify it. Now with Bass & the others chiming in about fliers from being underlubed, overlubed, and leading, I'm probably more confused then when I started. :D

Anyhow, I didn't notice any fliers from lube this time out. The one group was large, but that was probably just the barrel harmonics. If from lube, it would have to have been exactly every 4'th shot.

Next time I get out I'll continue to play around with charges around that 22-grain/2,400 fps level. My goal is to have a fairly consistent 1.5 MOA (five-shot groups) at the highest possible velocity without having to clean every 10-20 shots. If I can achieve this at 100 yards, then I can only hope it holds together at 200.