Making a good hard lube

[Colorado4wheel]

Seems I find a lot of lube formulas for softer lubes. Admitedly, I am new with all this stuff but I have had good luck with Magmas lube which is a 120F or so lube. I like it's low stick ratio. I ordered some more but they are really slow to deliver. I would prefer to make my own and save money and having to order from someone. Anyone have a good recipe for something thats hard like Magma or Blue Angel?

[357maximum]

Start with a base of 50/50 Beeswax/paraffin and add only enough vaseline to it to make you happy(keep notes)...............it can be that easy as long as you are not trying to go over 1600fps in a rifle barrel.....at that point you will likely need a better(softer/slicker) lube.

[buck1]

I used to be a fan of hard lubes , untill I used softer lubes. I never looked back.
But if its hard lube you want the above recipe should do ya.

[MtGun44]

IMHO the concept of "good" can't be applied to hard lubes.

At best - "marginally usable". I shoot lots and lots of commercial boolits with
hard lubes, and they do work. Kinda marginal, slight leading all the time, mediocre
accuracy at best - horrible accy in all the rifles that I have tried hardlube commercial
boolits.

I do understand that customers want a non-messy lube, esp if shipped in the summer
where the soft can melt in heat of a truck in the sun. A commercial necessity does not
make it a good lube.

[fredj338]

IMO, the White Label lubes are tough to beat for the money. Like 1/2 the price of the Magma & IMO, better quality. Just buy the CarnubaRed, it needs about 90deg or so to flow. If you want to make your own, I had good success using the left over Magma mixed 50/50 w/ beeswax & a tsp of LLA/4oz of the 50/50. Therecipe from 357max will work, watch the amount of vaseline to get the consisancy you want.

[Colorado4wheel]

Magma Lube is cheaper then Carnuba Red.

[StarMetal]

IMHO the concept of "good" can't be applied to hard lubes.

At best - "marginally usable". I shoot lots and lots of commercial boolits with
hard lubes, and they do work. Kinda marginal, slight leading all the time, mediocre
accuracy at best - horrible accy in all the rifles that I have tried hardlube commercial
boolits.

I do understand that customers want a non-messy lube, esp if shipped in the summer
where the soft can melt in heat of a truck in the sun. A commercial necessity does not
make it a good lube.

Interesting, more then a handful of us (myself, 45 2.1, BABore, to name just a few) have had very good success with hard lubes...particularly LBT Blue in rifles. It is over kill for handguns and very low velocity mild rifle loads...kind of like running premium gas in your lawnmower...not needed. About the worse thing I can say about hard lubes is having to heat your luber sizer.

[fredj338]

Magma Lube is cheaper then Carnuba Red.
Hey, how about that, they actually reduce their price. I bought a bunch back when I got the sizer & it was more than that & not in 6" sticks either. If you like their lube buy it. Unless you get beeswax for free, you can't make it much cheaper. I prefer the CarnubaRed for a broad range of vel. but the Magma seems a better deal @ $1.60/6" solid stick, if yo ulike it.

[Colorado4wheel]

It seems to work fine after the throat. I thought I had zero leading after shooting 600rds but I just swabbed the barrel and it had a little in the first 1/8". Much less, almost hard to see but still present. I don't think it's a issue. I have some NRA lube stuff I got free with the sizer. I was thinking of cleaning the sizer out and mixing the NRA stuff with the magma just to see how I liked a semi soft lube. Never used the soft stuff. I just don't want sticky bullets that pull lube when I grab them to load.

[geargnasher]

Interesting, more then a handful of us (myself, 45 2.1, BABore, to name just a few) have had very good success with hard lubes...particularly LBT Blue in rifles. It is over kill for handguns and very low velocity mild rifle loads...kind of like running premium gas in your lawnmower...not needed. About the worse thing I can say about hard lubes is having to heat your luber sizer.

Like you say, Joe, most casters and shooters will never enter the realm where a quality soft lube will ACTUALLY fail. That doesn't mean, though, that any average caster/shooter can have the success you and others are having with those harder lubes. There is an awful lot to know about all aspects of shooting cast before the real need for LBT hard shows up.

Gear

[hunter74]

I've been using carnuba red with great results for all my shooting but since I got my star sizer I've had som trouble with the lube smearing and getting nocked out of the loob grove when the sized boolits fals into the bucket. Would it be smart to add some vaseline to get it a bit harder?

I've tried with different pressures and temp on the heater but I don't get it to work better with different settings on either.

[fryboy]

I've been using carnuba red with great results for all my shooting but since I got my star sizer I've had som trouble with the lube smearing and getting nocked out of the loob grove when the sized boolits fals into the bucket. Would it be smart to add some vaseline to get it a bit harder?

I've tried with different pressures and temp on the heater but I don't get it to work better with different settings on either.


vaseline will not make it harder but rather softer , smearing sounds like either the lube is too soft or perhaps too warm ( hard lubes shouldnt smear normally )
as for falling out of the grooves i'm guessing that you mean in chunks ?
try warming the boolits themselves up ,it should if nothing else help the lube to stick to them and decreasing the drop from the sizer to the bucket ( or cushion/control the fall )

[hunter74]

Less heat, and it doesn't flow. The drop is as little as possible. Seems a bit to worm but it has to bee to flow! CR has in my opinion a too narrow window from flow to liquid state.

I've ordered comercial 160 lube from lsstuff. I guess that lube is a bit harder. I'll se how that works.

In the meantime I'm looking to mix my CR to get it a little too harder, just to try. Would a bit parafin wax or bees wax do the trick? At what ratio would you mix this into the lube?

[Ben]

Colorado4wheel (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/member.php?12725-Colorado4wheel)

Seems I find a lot of lube formulas for softer lubes.

Makes you wonder if there is a valid reason for so many soft lube recipes vs. hard lubes.

I happen to believe there is a real good reason............

[randyrat]

vaseline will not make it harder but rather softer , smearing sounds like either the lube is too soft or perhaps too warm ( hard lubes shouldnt smear normally )
as for falling out of the grooves i'm guessing that you mean in chunks ?
try warming the boolits themselves up ,it should if nothing else help the lube to stick to them and decreasing the drop from the sizer to the bucket ( or cushion/control the fall )

Bingo! Heat your boolits a bit before you try to size and lube, makes a world of difference.

[hunter74]

How do you do that if you want to size 2000 boolits? Hair dryer?

[fryboy]

i use a regular spot type lamp and set it over the boolits ( in tuna cans actually lolz ) such as one in the fotos at the link , of note i do not use a heat lamp bulb but a regular light bulb
https://www.google.com/search?q=clip+on+spot+lamp&espv=2&biw=1152&bih=779&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=a_wZVM6oIISejAL-3oHQCQ&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg#tbm=isch&q=clip+on+brooder+lamp&spell=1

but anything to warm the boolits would work , you dont want them hot hot just warm , a hair dryer could be used or even a pan on a stove set to low , the tuna cans work for me because by the time i'm at the end they've lost a bit of heat and i just grab the next can and go

as for the CR you have now to make it harder ... a bit more carnuba wax should work but you may have to add something to give it back a wee bit of flex and tack ( carnuba in too large of a quantity can make the lube brittle ) lanolin USP is great for this ,vaseline to a lessor extent , if you was to add some paraffin( or micro wax ) i'd recommend a high melt temp version as some actually have low melt temps

[edctexas]

Try RandyRat's TAC1 or TAC X lubes if you don't want to heat a bunch of goop and stink up ur place. Randy's lubes seem to work very well on pistol cartridges. I can't comment on rifle velocities but warm 40 S&W and stout 45ACP works well. This is at Texas outdoor temps. We never get cold enough to stiffen a soft lube here.
Ed C

[randyrat]

Order some Bulk TAC1(softer cold weather formula) or TAC X (harder summer blend) and add High temp paraffin to your liking. I do have some i can send along for you to experiment with. Shipping is not slow from me..The order does not sit in the shipping dept for 2 weeks before getting shipped. You pay it gets shipped out the next day. These two lubes work real good with rifle also.

[boho]

I will say randyrat gets stuff out fast. I bought my beeswax from him last time and it was great. I made FWFL this last time around and I am very pleased with it for pistol rounds up to 1200 fps.

[randyrat]

A real good hard lube is like a real good snake bite or a real good black eye.:kidding: I couldn't resist that one.

[303Guy]

:mrgreen:

Well, I want a 'hard' lube to 'glue' the boolit in an unsized neck. Not so much hard as 'strong'. But I want that lube to crush into a paste. I made one that worked great with jacketed bullets in my hornet and now I'm trying to create one for boolits for a 303 Brit. So far I have one to try and this one does crush to a soft paste and it has a reasonable melting point (something in the 100 F range) and it holds the boolit reasonably well so we'll see when I get a round toowit. (This lube is only solid if melted on).

Talking of hard and soft lubes, is there a measure of a lube's hardness? I mean, how do we convey a lube's properties to another?

[Hardcast416taylor]

I have found what I think is a cross breed of a hard lube (carnuba Red) and soft lube (BAC) both of these from Lars white lubes. I melt 1 solid stick of C. Red with 2 solid sticks of BAC stirring well. I then pour this mix in my Lyman 450`s and give the mix time to set and cool. What I now have is a lube that will work thru the luber without needed heat, adhere very well to lube grooves and has been used with velocities into the 2000 ranges. I order 6 C. Red sticks in bags and 12 sticks of BAC in bags at a time, this last me a very long time and I don`t have the mess of making a lube as I did for awhile.Robert

[Bullwolf]

I have found what I think is a cross breed of a hard lube (carnuba Red) and soft lube (BAC) both of these from Lars white lubes. I melt 1 solid stick of C. Red with 2 solid sticks of BAC stirring well. I then pour this mix in my Lyman 450`s and give the mix time to set and cool. What I now have is a lube that will work thru the luber without needed heat, adhere very well to lube grooves and has been used with velocities into the 2000 ranges. I order 6 C. Red sticks in bags and 12 sticks of BAC in bags at a time, this last me a very long time and I don`t have the mess of making a lube as I did for awhile.Robert

I wasn't going to mention this, but since you did...

I will occasionally mix BAC and Carnuba Red as well, only at a 50/50 ratio.
End up with a medium lube that is mildly sticky, and medium hard in cooler temps. Best of both worlds.

I use it for higher velocity boolits, when I don't feel comfortable with a TL application of Alox or 45-45-10.



- Bullwolf