lubing cast bullets

[dunkel]

Er, boolits, whatever...still getting used to that.

Ok, saw this over at Lee and wondered if it's necessary/waste of time/decent stuff, whatever. For $5 for "thousands of bullets", if it works, it seems like it'd be a decent investment.

http://www.leeprecision.com/html/catalog/lubesize.html

Lee Liquid Alox

LEE LIQUID ALOX® gives better accuracy because it eliminates leading. The lube coats the entire bullet just like a thin jacket. It dries to a soft, varnish-like finish that really clings. The dried coating does not degrade gunpowder. Easy to apply and eliminates the need for sizing of most cast bullets. While it works well with all cast or swaged bullets, it works best with the micro band bullets, which are designed for tumble lubing. These bullets are marked with a TL on the Bullets page.

[44man]

Er, boolits, whatever...still getting used to that.

Ok, saw this over at Lee and wondered if it's necessary/waste of time/decent stuff, whatever. For $5 for "thousands of bullets", if it works, it seems like it'd be a decent investment.

http://www.leeprecision.com/html/catalog/lubesize.html

Lee Liquid Alox

LEE LIQUID ALOX® gives better accuracy because it eliminates leading. The lube coats the entire bullet just like a thin jacket. It dries to a soft, varnish-like finish that really clings. The dried coating does not degrade gunpowder. Easy to apply and eliminates the need for sizing of most cast bullets. While it works well with all cast or swaged bullets, it works best with the micro band bullets, which are designed for tumble lubing. These bullets are marked with a TL on the Bullets page.
It works for some applications and maybe in very short barrels but the stuff leads my guns. I bought so many Lee size dies that I had a pile of bottles and I gave the stuff away.
I use Felix when I use Lee dies, I just force it into the grooves with my fingers and run through the die. Even TL boolits work better with it.
When I need my lube sizer I use Lar's lubes.

[mooman76]

It works for some and others not so good. I used it with success but got tierd of the mess. Oh yes you pay for the use of a cheap(inexpensive) product. I still do use it at times. You will get people here on both sides of the fence for this product. It's good for people starting out because in gives them a inexpensive way to get started in casting.

[Recluse]

On one hand, I think everyone new to casting should go through the initiation of using LLA and all that typically, almost always goes with one's maiden voyage with "mule snot" as many here call it.

I personally think that Lee's claims regarding straight LLA are a bunch of bovine excrement. "No leading" and "actually cleans lead out of the bore" and other fairy tales like that actually kind of irritate another kind of "snot" out of me.

Now, with that said, I AM a fan of liquid alox--just NOT in the sole methods and capacities offered by Lee. And this is not a knock on Lee. Anyone who's been around here a while is very familiar with my fondness for the company--and I'm also the oddball caster around here who actually LIKES Lee's two-cavity molds far more than I like their six-cavity molds. In fact, I like most of their two-cavity molds just fine and after I've Lee-mented them, they cast just as good of boolits as any of my steel or iron molds.

But the lubing. Check this out as it will save you the typical angst and frustration that comes with that initial "rite of passage" that one experiences with their first outing using LLA.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=67654

:coffee:

[Doc Highwall]

Recluse, nice posting on the Tumbling Lubing I have just one question on the 45-45-10 mix is it by volume or by weight?

[mdi]

I'm on the positive side of the fence w/alox. I use is successfully with my .44s; some mag loads with WC820. The original instructions say to use the alox straight, very little, and swirl and dump. In the stickies in the Boolit Lube section there are alternative ways to make alox even better (45-45-10, alox + mineral spirits, etc) and with a little common sense and care it is not any messier than a lubersizer (especially one of those "leakers" you read a lot about here :razz:). Lars has larger containers and is great to deal with; see vendor's section. I would recommend you give it a try...

[sqlbullet]

I have used and still will use LLA. It is simple and fast. It does leave a residue in your seating die, and if you want pretty and clean bullets, you will have to wipe the nose off.

I am a fan of the 45/45/10. I don't get really worked up on the actual amounts. I just eyeball it.

I also use a lot of Felix lube, and a variation of felix that has a bunch of paraffin wax as my medium hard lube.

[fredj338]

I've never liked ALOX based lubes as much, too stickie & in some calibers, leading. I use the LAr's CR in my Star. I have used the bottles of Alox to add to my homemade lubes, but spareingly.

[Recluse]

Recluse, nice posting on the Tumbling Lubing I have just one question on the 45-45-10 mix is it by volume or by weight?

By volume.


I've never liked ALOX based lubes as much, too stickie & in some calibers, leading. I use the LAr's CR in my Star. I have used the bottles of Alox to add to my homemade lubes, but spareingly.

Likewise. I have a couple of home recipes in which I take an LLA bottle and give it a squirt into the brew while it's cooking.

I have found that when you dilute it or blend other things in with it, like JPW, you can absolutely eliminate the stickiness and tackiness. I never bought Richard Lee's claims of absolutely no leading and "it will actually remove lead from your barrel."

I consider Alox an ingredient to a workable lube--but not a lube in and of itself.

:coffee:

[buck1]

dunkel what are you shooting? cal,vel , boolit,and wt, ??

[dunkel]

Well...I'm just getting started. Trying to figure out a good load to start with and what all I'll need.

Going to be casting .38/.357, mostly heavier weights (158 or 180gr).

I'm a supernoob but have at least started accumulating equipment, and want to start off right.

[Centaur 1]

The .38 is one caliber that I have good luck with when tumble lubing. Use Recluse's recipe, it works much better than straight LLA and without all the stickiness. It has also worked for me using 9mm's in a 16" carbine but my 30-30 leaded the last 4" of the barrel.

[turbo1889]

I use 2 parts JPW (Johnson's Paste Wax) to 1 part LLA or X-lox (bulk cheap generic LLA). I don't add any mineral spirits or anything of the sort to thin it down.

I tumble lube hot boolits that I heat up to about 300 degrees. I take my wet boolits out of the bucket (I always water drop cast) and put them on the cookie tray that came with my convection oven that I picked up at second hand shop and dry them off and heat them up for lubing at the same time. I then put a goober of lube mix equivalent to about the size of two or three peas (as in the little round green vegetables) stuck together in a big glass half-gallon, ultra-wide mouth pickle jar. I then dump in enough hot boolits to fill up the jar almost but not quite half full. Screw the lid on and then both roll it along the shop bench and swirl it by hand until they are all nice and coated and the jar is filled with a dense white cloud you can’t see through. I then dump them out on waxed paper. They dry to touch in about five minutes and are completely dry and you can load them in less then half an hour.

I don’t size the boolits I lube this way; I load them as cast. So far it has worked well for most but not all boolits I use. Some boolits, for some applications, with some loads do better with conventional lube grooves filled with a lubra-sizer; I have yet to find any rhyme, reason, or pattern to it with the exception that top end (for cast boolits) rifle loads are almost always at their best with conventional lube in grooves for the primary lubrication then tumble lube dipping the exposed nose of the finished cartridge.

Conventional straight wall semi-automatic pistol cartridges are one application where I wouldn’t ever dream of using anything other then as cast, un-sized tumble lubed boolits.

[XWrench3]

well, it does work, kind of. in some guns/loads, it works very well. in others, not so hot. the sizers themselves are just fine. i have several. the l.l.a, however, is pretty close to marginal. for most applications, i end up adding moly powder to the lla in order to keep the leading at bay. in rifle rounds, with the moly, it will work as long as you keep the velocity modest. if you want to push them up in the range, you had better look for something else. personally, i hand lube all bullets with various techniques, then run them through the lee sizer, then, add a coat or sometimes 2 coats of lla. i HATE scrubbing lead out of a rifle!

[Three44s]

For boolits just lubed with LLA, I'd stick with handguns and just with lighter loads and just the microband bullets touted by Lee.

For loadings, I'd consider LLA as an ADDED lube to a traditional lubed boolit. Ie ........ treating a lubed and sized bullet with LLA over the top and in addition to the conventional lube.

I am very fond of LLA when I have thinned it with mineral spirits and added moly powder to it and apply it to non-sized microband bullets and fire them in handguns that are conditioned to lead.

Any gun that leads will most certainly lead with LLA. It's not a silver bullet ...... no pun intended .......... well, maybe a little!

Three 44s

[timkelley]

For what it is worth (about 0), I like to dribble a few drops of 50/50 ALOX/Paint Thinner over perhaps 150 boolits in a butter tub and shake/roll them until I get an even goldy color all over them. I then spread them around on a paper plate, overnight, to dry.
Next morning, if they are dry, I put them into a different butter tub and add a teaspoon of Johnsons Paste Wax (JPW) to them. Once again shake/roll until the boolits are evenly covered and set aside to dry.
The amounts of ALOX and JPW will need to be adjusted a bit until you get a light and even coating and the setup time can be shortened with a blowdryer or heatgun.
If your boolits fit your barrel the ALOX/JPW mix will do for much of your shooting for the forseeable future until you 'just gotta' try a lubrasizer.

[ihmsakiwi]

Er, boolits, whatever...still getting used to that.

Ok, saw this over at Lee and wondered if it's necessary/waste of time/decent stuff, whatever. For $5 for "thousands of bullets", if it works, it seems like it'd be a decent investment.

http://www.leeprecision.com/html/catalog/lubesize.html

Lee Liquid Alox

LEE LIQUID ALOX® gives better accuracy because it eliminates leading. The lube coats the entire bullet just like a thin jacket. It dries to a soft, varnish-like finish that really clings. The dried coating does not degrade gunpowder. Easy to apply and eliminates the need for sizing of most cast bullets. While it works well with all cast or swaged bullets, it works best with the micro band bullets, which are designed for tumble lubing. These bullets are marked with a TL on the Bullets page.

I use it 100% of the time on my sub-sonic (whisper) loads out of my 10" T/C barell with nil leading for 45 shot matches. I use FWFBL for all other calibers.