I used the Alox very thin need help

[Bkid]

I used the Alox very thin. I had so many problems when shooting. The slide would not engage all the way on a new round. So I went home and sized my boolits and tried them that way. No luck.
I have some of Randy Rat`s Bees wax which I was going to use for fluxing. Well I like the way saw dust works. Not that Randy`s wax did not work. Now I use his bees wax and pushed it in the tumble lube grooves. Those rounds fired flawlessly. They had a light coat of ALLOX with RR`S bee`s wax pushed in by hand.

I was wondering if I just did not coat the boolits enough with the alox or does alox just not work?

I also was wondering if I could melt the bee`s Wax and mix it with the alox and would that work? I read the stickies about JPW and will go that route if necessary. I just have a lot of RR`S bee`s Wax and would like to use it.

I saw in the sticky where one guy dipped the boolits in the mix, then ran them through the Lee sizer.

[bigboredad]

I assume you are talking about boolits for a .45 acp. In that caliber I've had no luck at all with the tumble lube boolit or the lee liquid alox. As a experiment I tried pan lubing the tl boolits with the lube I pan lube all my .45 colt loads with and got no leading. So I'm ditching the tl boolit mold and going with the rcbs 45-230-rn

[Bkid]

I assume you are talking about boolits for a .45 acp. In that caliber I've had no luck at all with the tumble lube boolit or the lee liquid alox. As a experiment I tried pan lubing the tl boolits with the lube I pan lube all my .45 colt loads with and got no leading. So I'm ditching the tl boolit mold and going with the rcbs 45-230-rn

Yes 45 acp, that is discouraging. I may call Lee today also.

[bigboredad]

jmho go with traditional lube grooves even if you have to pan lube for awhile. If you have a bunch of beeswax you can easily make a good lube. I have very good luck with pan lubing and can lube a bunch fairly quickly and not too much mess. but I have those days when I can get lube on everything I look at.

[Trey45]

Before you scrap the whole TL boolit design, have you tried mixing johnsons paste wax, mineral spirits and alox? Have you tried more than one coat of straight alox? There's more than one way to skin a cat.

My one and only TL boolit is a 45acp 2R mold, I TL once, let them dry, then TL again using straight alox. NO leading at all, in any of my 45's using this boolit.

[Recluse]

OK, let's see if we can dissect your concerns and experiences here. Will make it easier to address them.


I used the Alox very thin. I had so many problems when shooting. The slide would not engage all the way on a new round. So I went home and sized my boolits and tried them that way. No luck.

First off, you can use ANY lube so thin or diluted that it becomes totally ineffective. However. . .

In all the years I've been reloading and shooting and casting and handloading, I've never had a battery problem due to bullet lubrication. Basically, the two are mutually exclusive.

The only exception I can think of would be if you got so much lube on the nose of the boolit that it started to glob up in the chamber, thus preventing the slide or bolt from going all the way forward into battery.

But a very thin alox will not cause that, so I'm puzzled. Typically, failure to go into battery is a sizing and/or crimping problem.


I have some of Randy Rat`s Bees wax which I was going to use for fluxing.

Randy's wax is far too high quality to waste it on fluxing. Whenever I feel the need to use a wax-base product in the flux, I use old or discarded table candles.


Now I use his bees wax and pushed it in the tumble lube grooves. Those rounds fired flawlessly. They had a light coat of ALLOX with RR`S bee`s wax pushed in by hand.

THIS one has me really scratching my head.

I'm guessing you did NOT size your boolits before you loaded them?

For the record, I ignore anything and everything that says "load and shoot as cast." Why? Far too many factors that can affect that. If all your conditions are 100% perfect, then yeah, you might possibly get away with casting your TL boolits, one quick coat of alox and then load.

But that ain't the way casting works. Your alloy composition, alloy temperature, mold temperature, chamber and bore diameter of your gun, etc etc call all affect what the size of the boolit needs to be.

I size every single boolit I cast, without fail and without exception. For one, the little push-through dies from Lee only cost $15 and there is nothing easier to use. But the bigger reason is that when I size the boolits, I have just eliminated a very important variable to poor performance--and that would be incorrect size of boolits.

Biggest thing I push for in my handloading is consistency. When I size every boolit the same, that's a large factor I can eliminate when things don't go as well as I had wished they would.


I was wondering if I just did not coat the boolits enough with the alox or does alox just not work?

Again, I've yet to hear of alox causing a round to not chamber. I've used the Lee Liquid Alox for years, albeit not in its "pure" form. But the only problem I've ever had with the LLA is in getting it to dry, which results in a slight buildup from time to time in the bullet seating die.

But long time ago, I started playing around with blending other ingredients into the LLA, and once I settled on a blend that made the mix harder and with no tackiness, I haven't even had any buildup problems.

Alox is a tool, same as a mold or furnace or lubesizer. How you use it (correctly, incorrectly) determines how well it does or does not work.


I also was wondering if I could melt the bee`s Wax and mix it with the alox and would that work? I read the stickies about JPW and will go that route if necessary. I just have a lot of RR`S bee`s Wax and would like to use it.

I made up a concoction lube using (Randy's) bees wax, LLA, JPW and some stearate. I pour it into my lubestick molds and use it in the lubesizer. It works superb. I sent a small brick to another Texas caster for him to experiment with it and see how it does with pain-lubing. Haven't heard back from him yet, but it hasn't been all that long ago, either.

So yep, you can use your beeswax as a base and add ingredients to it. Just be careful and cognizant of what you add. Biggest mistake new folks make is trying to throw everything "slick" that they have on their workbench into the mix. This most often results in a dirty lube that will smoke like hell, gum things up in the barrel and give you non-existent accuracy.

Check out the stickies dealing with making your own lube. Lots of very good, tried and tested advice in there.

:coffee:

[Bkid]

First off, you can use ANY lube so thin or diluted that it becomes totally ineffective. However. . .

In all the years I've been reloading and shooting and casting and handloading, I've never had a battery problem due to bullet lubrication. Basically, the two are mutually exclusive.

The only exception I can think of would be if you got so much lube on the nose of the boolit that it started to glob up in the chamber, thus preventing the slide or bolt from going all the way forward into battery.

But a very thin alox will not cause that, so I'm puzzled. Typically, failure to go into battery is a sizing and/or crimping problem.
I am loading a 200 grain lee TL SWC ,CRIMP=.472-.473, OAL=1.250 this has always worked for the 200 gr SWC that were store bought in my KIMBER NOT THE VALTRO.
Randy's wax is far too high quality to waste it on fluxing. Whenever I feel the need to use a wax-base product in the flux, I use old or discarded table candles.



THIS one has me really scratching my head.

I'm guessing you did NOT size your boolits before you loaded them? The first time out yes that is correct I did not size. The second time I did re-size,just didn not re-tumble lube. Mistake
For the record, I ignore anything and everything that says "load and shoot as cast." Why? Far too many factors that can affect that. If all your conditions are 100% perfect, then yeah, you might possibly get away with casting your TL boolits, one quick coat of alox and then load.

But that ain't the way casting works. Your alloy composition, alloy temperature, mold temperature, chamber and bore diameter of your gun, etc etc call all affect what the size of the boolit needs to be.

I size every single boolit I cast, without fail and without exception. For one, the little push-through dies from Lee only cost $15 and there is nothing easier to use. But the bigger reason is that when I size the boolits, I have just eliminated a very important variable to poor performance--and that would be incorrect size of boolits.

Biggest thing I push for in my handloading is consistency. When I size every boolit the same, that's a large factor I can eliminate when things don't go as well as I had wished they would.
I agree and will re-size every bullet from now on.


Again, I've yet to hear of alox causing a round to not chamber. I've used the Lee Liquid Alox for years, albeit not in its "pure" form. But the only problem I've ever had with the LLA is in getting it to dry, which results in a slight buildup from time to time in the bullet seating die. I check every round for OAL=1.250.
But long time ago, I started playing around with blending other ingredients into the LLA, and once I settled on a blend that made the mix harder and with no tackiness, I haven't even had any buildup problems.

Alox is a tool, same as a mold or furnace or lubesizer. How you use it (correctly, incorrectly) determines how well it does or does not work.



I made up a concoction lube using (Randy's) bees wax, LLA, JPW and some stearate. I pour it into my lubestick molds and use it in the lubesizer. It works superb. I sent a small brick to another Texas caster for him to experiment with it and see how it does with pain-lubing. Haven't heard back from him yet, but it hasn't been all that long ago, either.

So yep, you can use your beeswax as a base and add ingredients to it. Just be careful and cognizant of what you add. Biggest mistake new folks make is trying to throw everything "slick" that they have on their workbench into the mix. This most often results in a dirty lube that will smoke like hell, gum things up in the barrel and give you non-existent accuracy.

Check out the stickies dealing with making your own lube. Lots of very good, tried and tested advice in there.

:coffee:
Thank you Recluse!I have read many of your threads , and I am thank ful that you are tring to help me out. I re aloxed the boolits and was going to try and shoot them . Will let you know what happens.
I may have to go and get some JPW . I have a lot of Randy`s wax and would like to try a 45/45/10 with his bees wax and mineral spirits. Do you think that might work?

[Bkid]

Ok I went and shot the bullets I sized and re-lubed last night. I had a couple that failed to return to battery. I noticed those where the ones I did not wipe of the alox off of the nose of the bullets. I am not sure that is the issue. I tried a few batches at different OAL`S. 10 of each. I noticed one of the shorter OAL`S 1.23 shot good. I notice the 1.24 had one that FTRB it had alox on the nose of the bullet. I am not sure what is going on at this point. The first 3 clips shot great of the re-sized and re-tumbled Oal 1.250 ,Crimp .471-473. Then FTRB ,I could not push the slide up. I had to take the bullet out. I put it back in and let the slide fly.Then it would return to battery. This happened with my sig p220 and my 1911. I wonder if I need more crimp,and wipe all the noses off. Maybe just wipe the noses. SOUNDS FUNNY. LOL

[runfiverun]

easy on the crimp.
you can undersize your boolits.
if the shoulders are sticking out of the case the same amount as the nose, [diff oal] this could also cause you some issues.

[looseprojectile]

The method of lubing has little to nothing to do with functioning of the gun.
Let me rephrase that. The type of lube has no effect till you fire it. Most any lube will work good when properly applied.
Owning a .45 auto does not make one an experienced ammo crafter.
You must take the necessary steps to insure that the ammunition you make will fit and function in your gun.
Each bullet/boolit has several different criteria that need to be considered when loading.
You will have to take steps to insure that your cartridges are the right length the right diameter and the correct load to work in your gun. I size all my .45 auto boolits to .452. I never have had occaison to suspect that my boolit size was a problem in any .45 auto.
When loading the combat level loads for a gun with a standard spring I try to seat the boolits so that they very slighty kiss the rifling when dropping them in the chamber of the barrel that I have taken out of the gun. This is headspacing on the boolit instead of the mouth of the case as was intended. I pretty much disregard the OAL in the book and just make sure that my cartridges fit in the mag. and function through the gun.
It is also possible that your gun needs a little adjusting and polishing.
Magazines are also suspect when your ammo is right and does not function in your gun.
It is often difficult to diagnose what the problem is when there can be so many possibilities. I hope you get it figured out. Welcome to Cast boolits.

Life is good

[Bkid]

Ok I took the barrel out and made a huge adjustment to OAL . 1.217 sits flush and falls out. My crimp was a bit loose as well. At the case mouth I got .469 and .472 at the back of the bullet. I made up 20 dummy rounds . I manually racked them in and out with out issues. Do you think I am on the right track?

[Bkid]

I am back now from measuring . I made the mistake of thinking my Valtro`s chamber was the same as my Kimber 1911. Sure all comercial bullets fire through both ,why don`t mine. Well I figured it out, The Valtro has a tighter chamber,the shoulder of the bullet was not seated enough to let the bullet drop flush with the hood. I dropped OAL to 1.230 which seems really short. Is it this possibly the trouble?

[Bkid]

Oh yea no more leading after re tumbling after sizing. I just need to figure out the feeding issue. I hope to figure it out soon.

[Bkid]

easy on the crimp.
you can undersize your boolits.
if the shoulders are sticking out of the case the same amount as the nose, [diff oal] this could also cause you some issues.

I do not understand , could you explain a bit more on what issues?

[Bkid]

Ok I figured it out the bullet was not seated enough, the shoulder (of the bullet)was sticking out to much, and causing the bullet not to seat flush in the chamber. I had a bit to much crimp as well backed it off to .469. The boolits function fine now. I was tired and read the stats as 1.22 Min OAL ,that is for the copper plated bullet. 1.19 is the min OAL for the 200 gr lead bullet. I broke the big rule of never reloading when you are tired. That will not happen again!

[Bkid]

Ok so.. How many here have had success with Lee`s Alox?

[Recluse]

Ok so.. How many here have had success with Lee`s Alox?

I've had good success with it, as have a lot of folks. It's just too messy and tacky in its original form, however, for my tastes. That's why I blend with with JPW and just the slightest hint of mineral spirits.

I continue to get the benefits of the LLA, plus the benefits of the JPW--and without any of the negatives (tacky, sticky, slow-drying, etc).

:coffee:

[Bkid]

I've had good success with it, as have a lot of folks. It's just too messy and tacky in its original form, however, for my tastes. That's why I blend with with JPW and just the slightest hint of mineral spirits.

I continue to get the benefits of the LLA, plus the benefits of the JPW--and without any of the negatives (tacky, sticky, slow-drying, etc).

:coffee:

I am going to try it tomorrow. I need to buy a hot plate since my stove is gas and do not want to stink up the kitchen. I wonder what I can use Randy Rats Bees wax for I have a lot of it? To bad I can`t mix some of that in? Hmm
Oh I shot 200 rounds today of just aloxed bullets and had a smidge of leading nothing major ,is that normal?

[geargnasher]

I've had good success with it, as have a lot of folks. It's just too messy and tacky in its original form, however, for my tastes. That's why I blend with with JPW and just the slightest hint of mineral spirits.

I continue to get the benefits of the LLA, plus the benefits of the JPW--and without any of the negatives (tacky, sticky, slow-drying, etc).

:coffee:

FWIW, I have the same opinion, method, and results exactly using "Recluse Snot".

Gear

[kentuckycajun]

I've had good success with it, as have a lot of folks. It's just too messy and tacky in its original form, however, for my tastes. That's why I blend with with JPW and just the slightest hint of mineral spirits.

I continue to get the benefits of the LLA, plus the benefits of the JPW--and without any of the negatives (tacky, sticky, slow-drying, etc).

:coffee:

Same here - have great results - good accuracy and no leading at all. Of course I'm not pushing my .357 or .38 158gr boolits over 1100fps. But for quick, easy lubing for mass produced practice loads, I love it.

[NSP64]

I luv LLA. I thinned mine down, mixed in some powdered Molly and apply straight to boolit. I hold the boolit by the nose, put a drop on the lube groove(TL and regular groove), let it run around the boolit, set it in front of the fan. Presto, ready to load in an hour. No lube on the nose, no lube on the base(no smoke). As you can tell, I'm not a high volume loader. When I used to shoot alot out of my .45 I would tumble lube with thinned LLA and fan dry.

[Bkid]

I luv LLA. I thinned mine down, mixed in some powdered Molly and apply straight to boolit. I hold the boolit by the nose, put a drop on the lube groove(TL and regular groove), let it run around the boolit, set it in front of the fan. Presto, ready to load in an hour. No lube on the nose, no lube on the base(no smoke). As you can tell, I'm not a high volume loader. When I used to shoot alot out of my .45 I would tumble lube with thinned LLA and fan dry.

Hmm Powdered Molly. I knew her.:bigsmyl2: