Double Lube Boolit; Regular Grooves on Bottom + Tumble Lube on Nose?

[turbo1889]

The idea being to cast the boolit, run it through a conventional lubra-sizer, load it in the cartridge crimping on the bottom tumble lube groove so that the rest of the tumble lube grooves on the nose stick out the end of the cartridge to fit in the guns throat, and then finally dip lube the noses of the finished cartridges in tumble lube.

Something like this:

http://forums.handloads.com/uploads/turbo1889/2010-05-31_052614_Dip_Lube_Hammer_Head_Revolver_Boolit.GIF

Good idea or not so good idea? Thoughts?

[JIMinPHX]

My guess would be that you don't need that much lube. By cutting the extra lube grooves, you are reducing bearing surface, which I expect would reduce the amount of pressure that the boolit would be able to take without deforming. For a lite to moderate loading, this would probably not be a problem. It may limit the high end of the powder charges that it will shoot accurately with.

These are just guesses & assumptions on my part though. The only way to find out for real is to try it. It's an interesting idea. I would love to read about your actual real world experiences if you try it. I would be happy to be proved wrong in my negative assumptions.

Good luck with that interesting new idea.

Jim

[anachronism]

What would you use a double-decker wadcutter for? It doesn't look very aerodynamic, & it would likely be a bit long for any handgun. Try it. You may discover something new.

[theperfessor]

Doesn't Lyman make some bore-riding rifle bullet molds that have grease grooves on the front end? I don't have any so I'm just looking at the pictures. Maybe somebody here has used one with a LLA dipped nose and regular lube and might chime in here.

[geargnasher]

I've been double-dipping bore-riders for years. In fact, I thought I invented the process until I joined the forum here and found out several others have been doing it also.

What I usually do is tumble-lube them first with thinned LLA or, more recently, LLA/JPW mix, let them dry, THEN add a gas check and run them through a base-first sizer. In one particular case I add the tumble-lube to the exposed part of the boolit by dipping (after the cartridge is loaded and wiped off with solvent), then hang to dry boolit-down on the clothesline.

I think there is merit to designing a boolit just for that, but in reality any long bore-rider or "silhouette" boolit can benefit greatly from tumble-lube without getting too fancy.

Gear

[turbo1889]

What would you use a double-decker wadcutter for? It doesn't look very aerodynamic, & it would likely be a bit long for any handgun. Try it. You may discover something new.

That example boolit was drawn up using the mold design program at mountainmolds.com with the front being just smooth and then I added in the tumble lube grooves myself using the paint program. It is a 200 grain boolit to fit my 38-spl. revolvers. If I crimped on the bottom tumble lube groove the front of the boolit would fill up nearly the entire throat of the chambers and be just shy of flush with the front of the cylinder on the revolvers I have in that chambering so as to not stick out too far (took my throat depth measurement off the gun with the shortest overall cylinder length). According to my load manuals if one uses IMR4227 powder one should be able to push a 200 grain boolit out the end of the barrel just as fast as a more conventional weight 158 grain boolit with more conventional powders for that particular cartridge with chamber pressures reduced by a little more then a thousand PSI and nearly a 2/3 fill of the case so no chances of a double charge. Must be a sweet spot for that cartridge with that particular powder. Cross checked the data across several different manuals because it almost seemed to good to be true but they all pretty much agree that an extra heavy 200gr. cast boolit with IMR2447 is on par velocity wise with a convention 158gr. boolit weight load with more conventional powders for the 38-spl. cartridge with slightly less chamber pressure as an added bonus.

So basically that's the direction I'm headed and that’s the basic boolit shape that immerged when I was trying to figure out the right shape for a 358 diameter 200 grain plain base boolit minus the tumble lube grooves on the nose. Then I started worrying about that big massive front band that fills nearly the whole throat causing leading problems since it wasn't lubed and then the idea of putting tumble lube grooves on the nose and leaving the base regular style lube grooves popped into my mind. So I thought I'd toss up the idea on here and see what you guys said before I went through with it.

[crabo]

I often conventionally lube and then put LLA over the whole thing when breaking in a new gun to shoot cast. It often helps. I got the idea from Bass.

[Buckshot]

Doesn't Lyman make some bore-riding rifle bullet molds that have grease grooves on the front end? I don't have any so I'm just looking at the pictures. Maybe somebody here has used one with a LLA dipped nose and regular lube and might chime in here.

............Yup, but one or 2 conventional lube grooves. If turbo1889's design were done in a rifle boolit design, like a Loverin you could make the nose slightly oversize yet it'd engrave the lands easily. As a matter of fact my MO is to always TL bore riders in a thinned LA mix and store them that way. They DO engrave noticeably easier that way.

http://www.fototime.com/847CF97C8B92632/standard.jpg

Just like these.

.............Buckshot

[BABore]

Doesn't Lyman make some bore-riding rifle bullet molds that have grease grooves on the front end? I don't have any so I'm just looking at the pictures. Maybe somebody here has used one with a LLA dipped nose and regular lube and might chime in here.

Those are likely a dirt groove. The 311440 for instance has a dirt groove on it. It's meant to give fouling from the previous round someplace to go so as not to destroy boolits bearing surface. I've made a few designs up like that for HV loads.

[45 2.1]

Doesn't Lyman make some bore-riding rifle bullet molds that have grease grooves on the front end? I don't have any so I'm just looking at the pictures. Maybe somebody here has used one with a LLA dipped nose and regular lube and might chime in here.

Yes, Lyman did. They have a good reputation for accuracy provided they fit correctly also.


Those are likely a dirt groove. The 311440 for instance has a dirt groove on it. It's meant to give fouling from the previous round someplace to go so as not to destroy boolits bearing surface. I've made a few designs up like that for HV loads.

Not the same as a dirt groove, which BTW was a provision for collecting fouling on some of Barlows original design boolits in the early smokeless powder era. Those powders were basically bulk powders and were very dirty along with being hot burning. Trail Boss is a cleaned up example of what the early bulk semi smokelss powders were like. That dirt groove isn't a bad idea even now.

[turbo1889]

Well look what just showed up in the mail today, haven’t cast with it yet or done any test firing but it's a coming:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4127/5041806329_a668695e50.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5041806329/)
36-cal Hybrid Mold 1 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5041806329/) by turbo1889 (http://www.flickr.com/people/54455625@N04/), on Flickr

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4127/5041745875_7c08cbfdcd.jpg
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5041745875/)
36-cal Hybrid Mold 2 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5041745875/) by turbo1889 (http://www.flickr.com/people/54455625@N04/), on Flickr

[Charlie Two Tracks]

Please keep us posted. I'd like to see those boolits before they are loaded.

[excess650]

The mold looks rather nicely crafted. Your design looks like a hybrid wadcutter, and I would expect it to fly like a wadcutter. I'll be curious to see your results on paper.

What velocity are you trying for? Maximum range?




edit: I read your other thread, and see that you have plans for this in the 357mag/max. Your other thread shows a design with a considerably longer TC nose that I would expect to fly better at longer distances.

[Eutectic]

I think one can reap some benefits from a 'duplex' lubed boolit.

As I experiment, I find rifle loads, particularly those with higher velocity, seem lube sensitive in several different ways. At one time, I thought the more lube the better for these hotter numbers! But I discovered shooting 'slick'... My terminology for accuracy falling off as more and more loads are fired with large lube volume.

On boolits with multiple grooves, I have left some groove(s) empty of lube with improvement at times as has been recommended many times here. As I shoot in very cold weather several months during the year I prefer NOT to use lubes requiring heaters to apply. Sticky isn't necessarily a factor as far as the bore is concerned. The first few inches of travel down a cold bore on an even colder day is, however. Lubricant melting points is well worth consideration shooting in cold weather.

Those same first few inches of travel may bite you as well as we leave multiple forward grooves un-lubed in quest of accuracy.. Or in my case, use a boolit with very minimum lube capacity by design to begin with. It is here I learned the benefits of what I tag 'duplex' lube. (as this thread addresses) Here... I've found a thin film of thinned liquid Alox beneficial when applied to the forward area of initial bore contact on the boolit of a loaded round. Whether a bore rider or a front band with a tighter ogive; I find this a beneficial extra step when very minimal lube is present in available lube grooves. I find BAC in the grooves and thinned Lee Alox on the nose a good combination that stays stable for 50 rounds plus (as in accuracy) with no leading and works down to 15 degrees or so for me.

Eutectic

[rintinglen]

Lyman's 311-644 works extremely well when done up just like that. I have used them in my old 1895 30-40 Winchester to over 2400 FPS and still got excellent groups. I have also done the same with 311-291s for use in a sporterized 03 Springfield. Were I not such a Neandertal Luddite, I would post some pics, sigh. Since my daughters grew up and moved out, my computer fairies don't seem to come around and magically do stuff for me anymore.

[turbo1889]

The mold looks rather nicely crafted. Your design looks like a hybrid wadcutter, and I would expect it to fly like a wadcutter. I'll be curious to see your results on paper.

What velocity are you trying for? Maximum range?




edit: I read your other thread, and see that you have plans for this in the 357mag/max. Your other thread shows a design with a considerably longer TC nose that I would expect to fly better at longer distances.

This is primarily a revolver boolit for 38-spl. and 357-mag. with an expected velocity range to match the top end capabilities of both of those platforms. Expected useful range will vary between 25 and 75 yards depending on whether they are loaded in the more powerful 357-mag and the barrel length of the revolver in which the loads are fired. It incorporates the basic revolver boolit design principles of "fill up the cylinder throat", "heavier is better", and "hammer head nose shape" (short squatty 45 degree angle TC nose tip shape on top of a long, heavy, full-bore diameter front driving band, in this case consisting of the entire tumble lube groove forward section of the boolit) all of which are design principles which have been satisfactory proven in my previous experience. The new "hybrid lubrication" method I am now experimenting with is simply an addition to a basic boolit shape profile already well established in my mind for wheel gun applications.

Yes, it will also be put to use in carbine guns up to and including 357-max as well but such is not the primary intended use of this boolit design and at least initially such use will be primarily to test the "hybrid lubrication" in longer length barrels before I proceed to the second step of having a pure rifle caliber boolit mold made. I consider that to be a “second stage” of testing the idea of designing a boolit mold specifically for hybrid lubrication and does involve other factors more common to rifle boolits such as a bore riding nose profile. I have a separate but connected, newer, second discussion thread up about applying this hybrid lubrication design to such a rifle boolit. If you notice the OP date on this thread you will see I explored the idea and used this thread to get others input and bounce the idea off them as a sounding board months before going the step of having a custom mold cut. I will be proceeding in a similar manner with the second step of a pure rifle boolit but do have the additional advantage of using this boolit in carbine rifles as a test bed before doing so and will certainly take advantage of that.

I should be able to get to casting some boolits with the new mold this evening but unfortunately won't be able to lubra-size them for a while since I'm all out of lube sticks and already used up the last of the 50/50 stick I had in the lubra-sizer so I am going to have to order some sticks of BAC from White Label and will have to wait for them to get here.

[turbo1889]

Mold casts right on with all diameter dimensions on all the driving bands for all three cavities all within a 0.359” - 0.360” range with no detectible out of round at all that I could find using a manual micro-meter that reads in 0.0005” increments. You ain’t going to get that out of a current production Lyman mold !!!

The only negative thing I can say about the mold is that I’m going to need to add a fender washer under the tension washer on the sprue plate hold down bolt since it wanted to ride up on me on a couple sprue cuts and leave a little protruding bump on the base of the boolit where the sprue was cut.

And here are some pictures:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4146/5066225385_fdb81203da_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5066225385/)
First Boolits from My 36-cal Hybrid Mold Fresh from the Water Drop Bucket (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5066225385/) by turbo1889 (http://www.flickr.com/people/54455625@N04/), on Flickr

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4107/5066226239_2f1d05807a_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5066226239/)
First Boolits from My 36-cal Hybrid Mold Tumble Lubed (50/50 JPW/Lox) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5066226239/) by turbo1889 (http://www.flickr.com/people/54455625@N04/), on Flickr

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4151/5066836222_5cc846df9d_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5066836222/)
38-spl Dummy Shell Using Boolit from My 36-cal Hybrid Mold 1 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5066836222/) by turbo1889 (http://www.flickr.com/people/54455625@N04/), on Flickr

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4088/5066225751_888bda3ec0_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5066225751/)
38-spl Dummy Shell Using Boolit from My 36-cal Hybrid Mold 2 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5066225751/) by turbo1889 (http://www.flickr.com/people/54455625@N04/), on Flickr

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4150/5066225503_fe8f2754bf_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5066225503/)
38-spl Dummy Shell Using Boolit from My 36-cal Hybrid Mold Flanked by Conventional 38-spl. Loads (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5066225503/) by turbo1889 (http://www.flickr.com/people/54455625@N04/), on Flickr

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4146/5066836760_021caa562e_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5066836760/)
Not Much Cylinder Capacity Wasted (38-spl Dummy Shell Using Boolits from My 36-cal Hybrid Mold) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5066836760/) by turbo1889 (http://www.flickr.com/people/54455625@N04/), on Flickr

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4125/5066836604_5acc01f28a_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5066836604/)
38-spl Dummy Shell Using Boolits from My 36-cal Hybrid Mold in the Cylinder Flanked by Conventional 38-spl. Loads (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5066836604/) by turbo1889 (http://www.flickr.com/people/54455625@N04/), on Flickr

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4147/5066225257_2740863115_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5066225257/)
38-spl Dummy Shell Using Boolits from My 36-cal Hybrid Mold in the Cylinder with 150gr. Jacketed RN Load Below (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5066225257/) by turbo1889 (http://www.flickr.com/people/54455625@N04/), on Flickr

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4132/5066225871_fae874be65_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5066225871/)
38-spl Dummy Shell Using Boolits from My 36-cal Hybrid Mold in the Cylinder with 158gr. SWC Load Below (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5066225871/) by turbo1889 (http://www.flickr.com/people/54455625@N04/), on Flickr

[excess650]

Excellent! Load some samples for that 357 Max carbine and see how it works.

I have a Ruger #1 that is begging for a rebore/rechamber, but I'm thinking 357 Herrett or 35 Remington rimmed(30-40 case). Of course, I would have to think hard about not making it a 30-40 Krag.

[turbo1889]

I'm going to wait until I get some BAC lube from white label before I try it in the 357-max carbine. Found a couple really, really old sticks of NRA 50/50 from "The Traditions Lube Co." in the back of one of my drawers. They came with my old as the hills Lyman lubra-sizer when I bought it used and neglected. I'm guessing they are probably 30 years old, I'm going to try to see if I can get them to work for some loads for the 38-spl. but wouldn't consider it a fair test if I used them in loads for the 357-max carbine.

[MT Gianni]

I got my best accuracy with wadcutters by only lubing one groove. You might need to lube differently for the revolver and the max.

[bhn22]

What do they weigh?

[turbo1889]

What do they weigh?

With my alloy 205.3 grains +/-0.2 grains for my first handful of castings.

[catmandu]

So how do they shoot?
I'm looking for a Max boolit and this could work.

Please post your results. Curious minds want to know!

Paul in WNY

[Boolseye]

I love the idea. Look forward to seeing the accuracy results.

[turbo1889]

Well, this thread is over a year old and I havn't posted on it in that long and never did post me results on this particular thread. I have posted about my results with this particular mold in bits and pieces on other threads:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showpost.php?p=1336048&postcount=15
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showpost.php?p=1339233&postcount=25
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showpost.php?p=1153791&postcount=9
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showpost.php?p=1156312&postcount=19
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showpost.php?p=1157682&postcount=22
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showpost.php?p=1346971&postcount=14
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showpost.php?p=1309853&postcount=30

Long story short, it shoots just as accurately as any other full wad cutter boolit load I've tried out of most of my guns although I do have a 38-spl derringer that didn't stabilize it and it keyholed out of it and that gun does fine with shorter more conventional full wad cutter boolits. On the other hand my 357-max carbine rifle shoots it tighter then regular shorter lighter full wad cutter boolits and I have printed 3” to 4” groups with it in that gun at 100 yards range.

I specifically designed the boolit to fully fill up the throat on a revolver and put as much of the boolit mass outside the case mouth as possible to minimize how much of the powder space was taken up by the boolit. This works great in a revolver but in a gun that is not a revolver the depth of the throat on the gun become rather critical. A revolver has a very long throat free bore in the cylinder compared to most other guns and I find that in my 357-max carbine at least the front half of the nose that is covered with the small TL grooves is engraved into the guns rifling. The smaller more fragile TL grooves do engrave fairly easily but if it weren’t for the cam like action of the single shot break action of the gun it wouldn’t be possible to chamber the boolit and it would be necessary to seat the boolit fairly deeply in the cartridge taking up considerably more valuable powder space then when the boolit is seated to a normal depth and the crimp is made in the very bottom tumble lube groove right above the regular lube grooves.

The revolver velocities I was able to obtain were 600 to 700 fps for the 38-spl. and 900 to 1,100 fps for the 357-mag with my AM#36-210C depending on the exact load and gun they were used in and I have been able to obtain up to 1,500 fps out of the 357-max carbine with the boolit.

There is some changes I would make the design if I were to do it again. If I were to do a second generation mold of this same type of design this is how it would look and the changes I would make (original for comparison to the right):

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5057/5434899198_9f151cd2af.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54455625@N04/5434899198/)

Changes/Reasons:

1. ~ 200gr. lead boolit load data is far more common and available then 210 grain boolit load data so reducing the weight by just a smidgen to get it down to an even 200gr. or slightly less when cast from WW alloy would be beneficial.
----- a. ~ The nose length is just right for a revolver, so I would lighten it on the base end rather then the nose end which also results in a slight increase in internal case capacity with the resulting reduction in seating depth.
----- b. ~ The top drive band just below the micro groove nose above the upper of the two main lube grooves could stand to be beefed up when crimping in the bottom micro groove on the nose which is where I usually set me seating depth and crimp for most loads so I would borrow 0.02” of bearing band length from the drive band between the lube grooves and move it up to that band making them both 0.05” long drive bands.
----- c. ~ The design holds plenty of lube so I would shorten it up in the lube grooves shrinking both of their width from 0.10” to 0.07” which brings me back down to a 200gr. weight or just slightly below depending on exact alloy density.

2. ~ I have also found that when pushing this boolit hard in the 357-mag. & 357-max. I do wish I had made it a gas check design instead of a plain base so changing the base to a gas check shank would be beneficial. PB is fine for 38-spl. loads or softer loads in the bigger cartridges. I have been using a hard card or two from circlyfly.com loaded under the boolit over the powder to protect the PB boolit base from the heavier loads with good results but a regular gas check set-up would be a lot simpler.

[grouch]

Take a look at CBE's .309180 and .314190 - they seem to be ahead of this discussion, and work well for me, although I haven't found it necessary to tumble lube the nose.
Grouch

[afish4570]

Looks like a thumper in 100 yrds. or less 35 Rem or 356 Win??? Just a neat idea to try.afish4570:?:?

[turbo1889]

Take a look at CBE's .309180 and .314190 - they seem to be ahead of this discussion, and work well for me, although I haven't found it necessary to tumble lube the nose.
Grouch

Took a look at what you are taking about over in Cast Bullet Engineering’s catalog. Took me a while to find them but it does indeed look like they have a few bore riding rifle boolit designs with micro grooves on the bore riding part like my AM#31-180B and AM#31-216T designs have on them on pages 11,13, & 14 of their catalog including their design numbers 285-145GC, 309-150GC, 309-168GC, 309-180GC, 309-225GC, 313-174GC, & 314-190GC. Basically a range of boolits to fit all the 30-cal and “fat” 30-cal rifle cartridges with one for the 7mm cartridges as well (which I am personally interested in since AM don't cut anything smaller then 30-cal and I do have several 7mm rifles). Don’t see one listed for any of the revolver cartridges like my AM#36-210C is designed for but I do certainly agree that both CBE and I both seem to have hit upon the same basic idea and it appears that previously unbeknownst to me CBE did proceed me by a few years.

I would be interested if you or anyone else has any better pictures of the CBE boolits in question you would be willing to share since the pictures in the CBE catalog are a little rough to say the least. For anyone else that is interest in them here is a link to the CBE catalog pages in question that include the designs in question:

http://www.castbulletengineering.com/page0051.html

I do agree that even without tumble lubing the nose the micro-groove profile on the nose either a full diameter nose for a revolver boolit or a bore diameter nose for a bore rider rifle boolit is helpful especially if the micro-bands on a bore rider nose are just a couple thousandths of an inch larger then the bore diameter so they engrave slightly in the guns rifling.


Looks like a thumper in 100 yrds. or less 35 Rem or 356 Win??? Just a neat idea to try.afish4570:?:?

No, I haven’t tried used the AM#36-210 in any bottle-neck rifle cartridges only my 357-max carbine rifle. Truth be told my only real desire for a 35-caliber rifle cartridge beyond my carbine would be a 35-30 lever action gun (30-30 necked up to 35-cal). Now I have used my AM#31-180B & AM#31-216T in bottle neck rifle cartridges (as they were designed for) and had excellent results with them but they are both bore-riding boolit designs and are designed to fit a rifle throat not a revolver throat like the AM#36-210C that is the subject of this thread.