45-45-10 lube?

[gunsablazin]

I cast up my first batch of boolits last night with a new Lee 6 cavity TL mold, .45 230gr RN. It took a few tries to get the mold hot and making nice boolits, but it went well, no sticking in the mold etc. I'm cooking up my first batch of the 45-45-10 lube to try out tonight, and I am going to try to load and shoot them without sizing, (they mike .451-2) as cast. Should one coat of lube be enough or should I double coat them anyway. I know I can shoot them and see, but would like to avoid scrubbing lead out of my barrel if possible.

[geargnasher]

Is the second coat necessary if not sizing? Depends. Probably not, but only you gun and load will tell you for sure.

Gear

[mdi]

One dip and shoot 'em! Alox lubes aren't meant to be put on thick. But then, I only have used plane alox w/mineral spirits...

[gunsablazin]

I shot 60 rds. out of my first batch on Saturday, they were shot as cast out of a Lee TL mold and 45-45-10 lube. The good news is they were accurate (by my standards) and I had no malfunctions with the pistol, but I did get more leading than I would like to see. Most of the leading was at the breech end and it did not affect accuracy, my last 4 rds. went into 4" offhand at 20 yds. Some of the bullets were VERY frosted, to the point of being pitted, I suspect this would cause some leading as well so I culled them out and relubed the rest of the batch. I am going to cast some more tonight with an emphasis on shiny to lightly frosted and see if I get better results. The leading was not hard to scrub out of my gun, but I would like to improve some anyway, I have never shot cast bullets that did not lead some. I did chronograph the load and was running an average velocity of 744fps (729 low-760 high) The pistol was a Springfield GI 1911-A1 .45ACP

[geargnasher]

Guns, I've had mixed results with that TL boolit in .45 acp. Typically I get leading for the first inch of the bore, mostly throat area, and maybe some fine streaks following the lands from gas-cutting. My solution was to use a plain-based boolit with no bevel, and use real lube on the boolit. Interestingly, I DID have pretty good luck using 45/45/10 on REGULAR boolits in the .45, though, and the TL boolits do pretty well with conventional lube IF the mould is hot enough for good microband fillout.

When casting, watch your mould temp. If you are using WW-based alloy, you want the boolits to develop a light frost all over after a few minutes, if they are still shiny in spots when cool you can bet the bands didn't fill out all the way. Lead tends to "shy" away from sharp corners when the mould is too cool, but can do the same thing in effect when the mould is too hot. Aluminum needs to run hotter in my experience than steel moulds do, so keep the alloy on the cooler side and cast as fast as you can to keep the mould blocks very hot, assuming you get four pours a minute and run the pot at about 650*. Others may have different opinions, perhaps recommending much higher alloy temp and cast slower to avoid OVERheating the mould, but I'm just relating what works for me.

The main thing is to get those microbands filled out well and up to size or you will get gas-cutting and leading no matter what else you do.

Gear

[gunsablazin]

Geargnasher,

Thanks for the input. I cast 250 or so last night and really had to slow down to keep that Lee mold just right, I could run two of them with no problem. The good part about that is I have time to inspect each bullet while waiting to refill. I played with the pot temp., but found it is a fine balance of pot and mold temp to get the small grooves on the TL boolit to fill out nicely, this batch has a nice even satin look. I'm going to lube 'em up tonight and shoot more this weekend, I had forgotten how much fun it is to melt stuff!

[geargnasher]

Geargnasher,

Thanks for the input. I cast 250 or so last night and really had to slow down to keep that Lee mold just right, I could run two of them with no problem. The good part about that is I have time to inspect each bullet while waiting to refill. I played with the pot temp., but found it is a fine balance of pot and mold temp to get the small grooves on the TL boolit to fill out nicely, this batch has a nice even satin look. I'm going to lube 'em up tonight and shoot more this weekend, I had forgotten how much fun it is to melt stuff!

I think you gots it! The "even, satin look" is perfect. Casting with ANY mould is a delicate balance of pot temp vs. mould temp, you regulate one with a knob and the other with your pace.

You might want to make notes on pour pace, pot setting, alloy, time before cutting the sprue, etc. I make notes on all my moulds to save time finding the "sweet spot" later, even though it can be a moving target with weather changes.

If you have a good, c-clamp style 0-1" micrometer check to see if the front and base bands are the same as the microbands, should be about .453" as cast in that mould.

Gear