that would also explain why my finished lube got so much better after the second heating and blending.
did something right without even knowing it [for once]
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that would also explain why my finished lube got so much better after the second heating and blending.
did something right without even knowing it [for once]
another thing i have noticed with these synthetics is that the b-wax is drastically reduced.
instead of adding a table spoon full of this or that to a lb of wax.
you add the wax as an ingredient to firm up the final result.
i am going 50-50 on the engineer yellow, and will end up around 30% b-wax and 3 ish % on the atf with the j-lube, for them to have the same final viscosity.
the viscosity is the same as my other lubes made with 60-70% b-wax and soy wax carriers even with modifiers under 5%.
so the alcohol chains in the b-wax have to be influencing the outcome.
i am pretty curious if i upped the al stearate to 10% in the lith grease if i could lower the b-wax even further.
i should have enough of it to make another 5 oz's at that percentage.
Ok, here's a fun one to ponder: I decided to make more of the "Zombie" lube, but with the Breox 1000 PAG instead of the AC stuff with the tracer dye. I melted the beeswax gently and added the same percentage as the castor/mineral/lanolin in Felix lube, or about 7/8 tablespoon per 2 Oz. wax. the Breox didn't want to blend, forming little droplets all over. After a few minutes of stirring, the stuff I presume to be the Breox flowed together under the beeswax and started turning brown. I wasn't going over 180F with this, so it wasn't burning. I added 1/2 tsp stearic acid to try to bind it, but no dice. I gave up and poured it into an angled glass to concentrate the oil near the bottom and let it cool completely. When I popped the chunk out, I had an almost white, very purified-looking wax cake with a pure white, crystalline core (the stearic acid, I believe), and this mushy, dark yellow-brown stuff on the bottom that looked and felt exactly like earwax. There was a clean separation line between the wax cake with the white core and the other goop. Something weird happened for sure, I'm guessing the Breox precipitated some of the "stuff" from the beeswax, and the stearic acid wouldn't dissolve in what was left of either so it clumped to itself in the center of what was left of the wax while it cooled. What really fascinated me was that the beeswax cake isn't really beeswax anymore. It smells like honey still, but is more like a plastic. It's hard, shiny, pliable, will bend quite a bit without cracking, but isn't very stretchy. Whatever it is, it isn't what I was trying to make. When I used the AC PAG oil I had zero separation issues, even sliced a muffin in two with a razor blade to look, and it's very much homogenized.
I also made some Lithi-bee with the Mobil 1 grease, 50/50 by weight, finally got it to blend into a lump-free, creamy gravy and poured it on a plate to cool. I put some in the freezer and it got hard as a freakin-rock, like shattered when I hit it with a hammer kind of hard. At room temp it's ok, but still a bit firmer than I like, looks like you're right about the synthetics needing much less wax than conventional greases and oils. I should have listened to you when you said 10% or whatever it was, you've been playing with the wax and synthetics more than me!
So while waiting for the beeswax/Breox to cool, I went back over all the stuff I've made and tried, and started analyzing the failures. The Ivory soap/Permatex Hi-temp brake caliper slide grease stuff made wonderful, greasy, firm, stretchy, temp-stable lube with no real melting point, no first-shot flyer, but leaded. The synthetic ATF/Ivory stuff made a nice pliable, waxy, slick lube that would crack slightly when kneaded (compared to the slide grease version), and it leaded worse, but again, no first shot flyer. The clay lube, with and without graphite, leaded even worse than that, but the first two shots were touching and in the group subtracting the subsequent flyers every 3-4 shots. The beeswax/BG PAG oil had a first-shot flyer, but a really tight group with no surprises, the slight bore leading not withstanding. I'm not drawing any conclusions about the bore leading because the barrel has been through a lot lately and hasn't been completely stripped clean at any point. What do I think at this point? I have one big question now for everyone to ponder: What if the lube has to melt to work? Think about an ice skate for a minute. The blade of the skated doesn't glide over the ice, it glides on water. Pressure against the ice from the weight of the skater instantly melts a microscopic layer of ice as it touches it, allowing the skate to float on a slippery layer of water, which acts as a film lubricant between the frozen skate and the frozen water. Following that concept, and observing that lubes with non-melting bases lead, I'm starting to consider that if the base doesn't let the lube in contact with the bore thin out a great deal in proportion to the speed of the boolit, then the boolit over-runs the lube and just rips through the bore leaving lead debris and lube residue in it's wake, hence the awful fouling I've been experiencing.
I have labored to achieve a temp-stable carrier, and have come up with a couple that are superbly consistent from uncomfortably-hot-to-hold to my deep freeze temp of 5 below, but they don't work in the barrel. Mission accomplished, experiment a success, conclusion is that that was the WRONG approach. I'm thinking the whole reason for the cold-barrel and cold-weather flyers for the first few shots is entirely due to the extra calories it takes to get that lube film just right for the dynamic and brief near-instant that the boolit zips across it. IOW, the only thing that really matters to the boolit is how the lube is reacting to the bore at any given instant from launch to muzzle, and I think there's a very large friction difference between an inch into the barrel and the muzzle end due to the speed and pressure of the boolit acting on the lube film. The non-melting lubes just can't handle the speed it seems because the carriers are preventing the liquid sliding surface from happening. The deeper I go into this, the stupid-er I'm getting.
Gear
Has anyone talked to the folks at Blended Waxes about making a lube (unfortunately, it looks like the minimum order is a ton)?
Nevertheless, BW-431 is listed as a "Lubricant for PVC Extrusion" and is available as a retail item through BW's webstore. Scroll down to the Building & Construction section:
http://www.blendedwaxes.com/index.ph...tries-we-serve
MJ
I think the ice skate reference is aout dead on. The lube that fills the entire groove doesn't need to melt but a thin film in contact with the bore needs to be fluid enough to provide a slick layer for the bullet to pass smoothly thru the bore.
I don't know if the cold weather flyers are because the lube dries out like Run has mentioned or if it is because the lube in the barrel is cold enough to provide a bit of resistance, almost like a bitof leading. Warm the barrel just a bit and the lubrisizer thin enough to flow. Any of us who use a heater for our lubrisizer understand that even a. 5 degree difference can make a huge impact on the flow properties of some of our lubes.
I don't think it is getting stupid-er Gear, you are just learning what doesn't work. Along the way you may be gaining more insight into how lubes work and what properties they need in order to be effective. If you got it right on the first try it wouldn't be as fun, would it? I always tell my daughter that anything in life worth accomplishing is difficult because the easy to do stuff is easy, anyone can do it.
I would say you are learning something not getting stuuuupider errr. :kidding:
Now you know and understand the mechanics behind the "why" when I added soft microcrystalline wax to the standard lithi-bee recipe to make MML. Unfortunately when the "cold start flyer" was erased using the microwax it also caused the lube to become instant goose poop when pressurized and warmed in certain lubesizers and under certain temperature situations (HOT). This trait did fill my goal of a good HUNTING LUBE for cool weather and it does fill the bill for 99% of my shooting here in MICHIGAN....If I lived somewhere south of here where it is warmer another approach/recipe would have been neded.
The "lube" takes a second seat waaaay back after the carrier as the carrier is the most important part in my opinion.
I wish you luck, but I do not feel your goal can be realized....sometimes in life you simply need to compromise....boolit lube is proably one of them times. I ended up compromising the the carriers ...beeswax/microwax in MML, but the "lube"..A.K.A lithium grease never changed. The man that originally melted beeswax and lithium grease together was either very informed or very lucky as I believe he hit the pinnacle of lube pretty close to dead on. The rest of us have simply been copying and modifying ever since......but it works.
If I were still to continue chasing my tail on the lube front and lived south of here somewhere......I would look into a higher melt point microwax and lithium grease and nix the beeswax altogether. You WILL be happy when you find the right microwax for your location.
***the proceeding has been one man's opinion and is likely worth exactly what you paid for it. *****
A lithium grease is approximately lithium stearate at 7 percent within a vaseline type base. Then, that is mixed 50-50 with beeswax provides the lithium lube talked about. Using an appropriate microwax instead of beeswax can be adjusted per 357maximum for the application. There is an article in Handloader back in the late 80's - early 90's that discusses using the beeswax carrier. ... felix
You aren't kidding aout MML turning to goose poop with just a tiny bit too much heat. I haven't shot it enough in the heat of summer to see how it behaves for me but I like it in the cold.
You should have seen the version that was made using micro/paraffin/lithium grease......... or the version with just micro/lithium grease....both had ZERO plastic range....lube went from a solid and turned into milk.......right now.:holysheep The affectionate name for that lube was boolit semen.
That is the reason all 3 waxes ended up in their final proportions. Myself and Babore were trying to "balance" the carrier and it took multiple tries. In the end it worked real well for our uses.
I have been across Nebraska several times and if it bothers in "THE HEAT" add some beeswax in place of some of the parraffin and you should be good to go. You are not that much warmer than Michigan but our summer air is a bit thicker thanks to the wind dumping moisture from the Great Lakes onto us. I am not even going to think about what humidity does to a lube.[smilie=b: I will leave that to them edumacated folks.:p
You might be right, Michael. I thought I could get away from the performance limits of conventional lube by making it have the most constant temperature/velocity possible, and I made four very nice concoctions that to me just "felt right", but for some reason none of them shoot without leading in an otherwise known-good combination. I'm going to keep plugging at it until I figure out why that's happening. It's important to know for sure whether a non-melting base is the problem, or if it's just clay-based lube that can't handle it when thickened too much.
Things I haven't tried are super-thickened aluminum stearate grease, bentone and PAO oils, and Ivory soap/PAG oils, although like you said, the "lube" part probably factors in a lot less than we think. Maybe even a conventional oil with a lower VI and a non-melting base would work, something to "thin out" the sliding layer near the muzzle but a temp-stable carrier to dispense it.
What ever is going on, I'll bet the crux of it involves the dynamic change in lube film from throat to muzzle as the boolit goes from zero to 2K fps in less than two feet. Studying the "speed rating" of the base oil in many greases is an eye-opener, according to some standardized formulas we're routinely exceeding the rated mechanical speed of any auto or industrial grease we use by dozens of times. When the entire system is operating in a 100+ degree temp window, the lube condition at the muzzle is drastically different at either temp extreme, and that seems to be causing our problems.
Temp-stable base lubes like what Speed Green uses seem to be a little less finicky in the temp extremes, and I think that's because the base, which is doing the real work, does the appropriate amount of surface-liquifying under friction and pressure whether the "system" starts out at 150 degrees below its melt point or 40 degrees.
Gear
Felix
I have been using Motor Mica to coat normal grease grooved boolits lubed with MML after seeing it improve accuracy of lee snot coated "plinker" boolits. It seems to make the bore condition even more consistant and the loads are definately more accurate even at 2400+ velocities.
Is there a way Gear could incorporate such a thing into his obsession without fancy equipment?
I have thought about adding some directly into MML as it cooled to keep it suspended, but I melt and pour to fill the sizer and mentally nixed the idea. I simply put a small amount of Motor Mica into a baggie to coat the already lubed/sized boolits and it works so I did not fuss with it.
Any application to this "quest"??????????
back to the ice skate thing.
ski's work the same way, but they are waxed.
here's where the lube analogy comes in.
they use a thickened miicro-wax [parrafin maybe] to do this, but the waxes come in three different colors airc green,yellow, and red
for different conditions on the snow [temp]
i feel pretty good about only having two lubes [okay, one with a modifier] and now the engineer yellow to work with.
but i have only tried it in about a 35-40 degree window.
like i mentioned n the other post i am pretty dang sure lube does have a fluid stage.
brought on by friction and powder heat.
it's melt point influences when this happens and for how long in the bbl.
and is why some lubes are better in the cold and some in the heat.
we are looking at big windows -40 to 350/500 with some of this stuff.
and i believe the trick is to narrow that window, b-wax works because of it's 180f melt temp, but it also has a go soft stage somewhere in the 120f area.
the white lith i am using has the flow stage at room temp, it doesn't change at 100 and is only slightly thicker at the cold end and is why i add the atf for the cold.
the atf version works at the hot end too, but i have that first shot thing at both ends.
it wouldn't really matter for deer hunting out to 150 yds or so, as it's not a wild shot, it's just not in the group.
if i can put a lube between my thumb and side of my finger [with firm pressure] and glide it along and get a bit of softening and a residual glide,without any grittyness it is usually a good shooter.
the separation and cleaning of the wax is perplexing and i'm glad you posted it because i was gonna give that a try.
i may try some pao and the soft candle wax [soy] and see if it takes the oil.
to get a grease to go into the b-wax don't melt the b-wax
just get it to the soft mushy stage [like peanut butter] and then blend the two together,you may have to re-heat and blend as you go walking that mush stage.
Looks like we're on the same page, R5R. I like your concept of adding three things together to cover the bases, like a multi-viscocity engine oil. Thin base oil for low temps, a soap-matrix grease for midrange, and let the wax handle the high end and "bear" the whole enchilada down the barrel. Depending on how the oil/thickened oil/wax all interact with each other, you might be on the right track. The problem I see arising is that when you dissolve grease into wax, they both change in structure. When you dissolve oil into grease, it changes too. It's almost like we need a base oil that won't blend with the oil in the grease, and a grease and base oil that won't blend too well with the carrier wax, so each can do it's own thing.
Bruce and I discussed how castor bean oil has a really lousy VI, although it has some amazing properties as a natural lube. Where it falls on its face is in the cold. The beeswax doesn't seem to be the limiting factor here, it's the base oil. Keeping with a two-part lube, I'm going to keep pursuing the PAG/beeswax lube for now and see where that leads me, then maybe pursue the Mobil 1/beeswax lube with some ATF added, basically Junior's formula but with synthetic grease and ATF.
Gear
motor mica sublimates when subjected to heat, it will firm up some wax mixtures too.
trewax and jpw 50-50 and reduced with motor mica melted in shows a definate thickening.
and very little of it is needed.
1/8th teaspoon and 4 oz's reduced jpw showed some good thickening ability.
that and 2 tbs grated ivory is my o.d. green lube.
a tumble lube or dry coating is a direction i am looking at to alleviate fighting the viscosity issue. ;heck, that paint stuff is beginning to look attractive.
i have even thought about just soaking the naked boolits [or dropping from the mold] in a zddp additive.
The ZDDP impregnation would solve your lube problems, but what would it do for obturation? Paper-patching looks better every day, doesn't it? :kidding:
When threads come up about how somebody spent days out of their life to copper-plate a single boolit when paper-patching and heat-cure powdered paints have already been proven (not to mention swaging jacketed "boolits"), I just shake my head. That's ok, lots of folks are probably shaking their heads at us!
Gear
with this synthetic stuff i have started thinking of the b-wax as a modifyer/binder and not as the carrier.
i figured the boolit diameter would take care of that.
you would have to have a good bbl though.
if it didn't gall in the bbl i think it would do the job
something along the lines of lla or recluse lube just 1,000 times thinner.
There is some lazy guy in a polymer ivory tower somewhere looking for something interesting and different. You can bet on it. He might be burried somewhere in a Monsanto, GE, DuPont, Hercules, Mobile, BP, Bristol, Bayer, etc. You know, the folks with full blown shareable databases containing thousands of chemical expansions with attributes. What we are looking for is a coating consisting of cellulose properties, type applicable by luber machine, tumble lubing, or pan lubing. ... felix
What about guar gum?
The funny thing about paper-jacketed boolits is that they need some lube to work best at really high speed and twist rate, but it doesn't seem to matter much what that lube is. Tumble-lubing the dried boolits in Recluse lube does as well as a soft mix of beeswax and Vaseline, straight JPW, FWFL, etc...... It must work because the paper is the "carrier" and any sort of slickum at all does the trick. No fliers, no fouling to speak of, a cold clean barrel is as good as a hot, seasoned one.
Don't get me thinking about the cellulose fiber/wax/oil lube thing again :veryconfu
Gear
Ok, Mike, but just this once, and I'm not going to inhale!
Gear
If I was stirring a cauldron full of the stuff you have been using I would not inhale either.:kidding: Basic Brown Lithium grease is bad enough. The vroom vroom red racing grease is even worse......whewwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeee.
try mixing only a few things like 20% AL stearte, PAG and maybe some micro wax heat to 200f or so till mixed then set over night
Bruce, that's one of the things I did tonight. I mixed 15 grains of alumimum stearate, 85 grains of PAG, heated until the oil just started to smoke and pulled off the heat, mixed well and poured out to set up. So far it's still runny. I'm thinking the way to go with the aluminum stearate is to buy a tube of grease and add to it until firm.
I did try the shredded paper and some Felix lube, believe it or not it actually looks like it might work, but I have no idea if it would be an improvement or not temp-wise. I honestly have zero experience shooting paper jackets in really cold weather, so as far as I know the drawbacks might be the same using the same lube base.
I also gave the Mobil 1 grease another go, this time going one ounce each grease and beeswax, then adding a teaspoon of synthetic ATF and a half-teaspoon of carnauba wax. I lubed and loaded 20 just to see what it will do, although I really don't like it much. When it cools it forms a very solid, brittle mass, but once you start to "work" it it turns to a sticky putty, and when it sets again it firms back up. The idea was to have a low-viscosity base oil, whatever is in the grease + the lithium complex binder, suspend the whole mess in a beeswax matrix, and add a little carnauba for stiffness and to lower the tack. So far the Mobil 1 has been really ornery to work with, much more so than any other lithium grease I've experimented with.
I messed with the "zombie" lube again, and I'm thinking it is showing the best promise so far, but it still needs something to make it a tad more pliable without adding any stickiness. It's sort of crumbly, but sticks together under pressure. I think it would work fine in a lube-sizer, and I like that it doen't cling to the boolit too well. Perhaps Bruce's Microwax would be just the right thing......
Thinking of the clay thickener more, I think I know why it failed. The lead is simply too soft for it. Clay grease is designed for EP, high-temp applications where microfinished, hardened steel alloy parts are crushing together. The clay will lubricate these things and track the oil to them too, but I don't think the lead boolit can stand up to it when smearing down the bore.
On to burn more powder tomorrow....
Gear
PS While I was digging around this evening, I found a stick of Javalina Alox and a can of the same that I melted out of my sizer some time ago. Even though it has proven to me more than once to not be nearly as good accuracy-wise as a properly-made batch of Felix lube, I can sure see how and why it works as well as it does: It has a microwax base (beeswax) and EP calcium soap grease made from a viscous oil.
on the grease thing.
the directions i gave does not really mix the grease "into" the wax, so the wax is a carrier, it blends them together.
you have to heat and blend a couple of times for the wax to get the grease into equal proportions throughout it.
i will fill my stars up and let the lube i am going to use next extrude through the bleed hole.
just to give it one more fold over before it gets applied to the boolit.
bruce:
will give that a try.
what do you think of the recipe i posted in post #150?
your mobil-1 did the same thing my j-lube did.
add more grease to the mix [the same amount you did at the beginning and work it like bread]
Hmmm, I'll give that a go. I've been digging through the NRA cast bullet book and refreshing my memory on the lube tests that came up with the 50/50 formula. Looking through the list of things they tried, there really isn't anything new under the sun except for some synthetics. They even tried PAG and moly together! Bentone grease was mentioned in the text, but I'm not sure they tested it. I thought I remembered the best thing they found was straight, lithium soap grease but abandoned it due to it being impractical to apply, a re-read confirmed that. Another interesting tidbit, the straight lithium soap grease did well at all temperature extremes.
Gear
Caution: Aluminium stearate can lower ph of the lube. I have not tried various petro/natural lube mixes to see which ones do NOT create the acid condition referred to. So, assume they DO without doubt. Clean the guns. Once a good mix is found accuracy wise, place that lube on a clean section of steel for 3 months. If no discoloration of the steel, that lube is NOT too acidic for THAT steel. However, BP applications APPRECIATE a low ph lube, but then BP guns are cleaned pronto. Another downside of aluminium stearate: excessive surface tension when remelting boolits still having some lube. But, that can be good when beagling a mold which would stop finning, plus adding INstability to the lead for a wider slush stage to aid BHN increase during water dropping. Pros and cons, always! ... felix
Yeah, I manually mix motor mica into lubes on purpose, to keep revolters which are out of time shooting OK all day. I have several guns like that, and most neighborhood guns fit that description too. Motor mica sinks when mixing the lube on the stove, so must manually mix via finger flow for 15 minutes or so when the lube is body temperature. ... felix
Thanks for the warning, Felix! As with any unknown mix, anything found to work in shooting must also be tested for long-term effect of lube integrity (bleed, etc.), compatibility with gunpowder, (fumes and residue), reaction to combustion (does it break down into harmful metal salts or such), health risks, association with cartridge brass, barrel steel, and probably a few key points I missed here. One nice thing about natural oils and waxes, you pretty much know what you have!
I wonder if Aluminum Stearate powder would make a good model rocket fuel?
Gear
Where's the grade 5 block grease? :bigsmyl2:
MJ
P.S. Seems to me since temperature doesn't have that much of an effect on the way gunpowder burns (at least under normal hunting conditions) perhaps we should be concerned more about pressure levels. If a lube (stiff grease) goes fluid with pressure, that is not a bad thing assuming it happens after the boolit starts engraving. Besides, it's a lot easier to control chamber pressure than it is to control the weather.
Mike... what BW mirco wax did you settle on? Did you do much experimenting with BW-431?
Mike,
Has the MML actually been tested in 100F weather? I think I'm going to start gathering the ingredients to concoct a batch this summer.
MJ
P.S....
Is this the recipe:
1 14 oz tube of MAG1 multipurpose lithium grease (no substitutions here)
2 lbs Microcrystalline wax BW-430
1 lb Paraffin wax
1 block Yaley solid candle dye
?
...Thank you.
The formula I used, MML (Mike's Micro-Lithi) is simply amber lithium wheel bearing grease and (I forget which) micro-crystalline wax. Beeswax can be blended in as a percentage, and I've played with just straight micro-wax/grease and also with adding different concentrations of beeswax to the mix. It is an abolutely outstanding cold-weather lube, but once the temps get much above 40-50F, the beeswax is essential. Even with 50/50 bees/microwax mixed and then added to an equal amount of the grease, the stuff is too slick at 80F and up. Shooting long strings in hot weather will thin it to the point that purge flyers start to be a problem. I found, in my guns and loads, that lubing only one or two grooves in an attempt to eliminate the over-lubing and purge flyer thing, that I started getting leading at higher velocities. The stuff just isn't suited to hot weather in my opinion, although I think eliminating the micro-wax would help greatly. Problem is, if you do that, it trades off the cold-weather performance.
Gear
i think i have some insight as to how lubes works.
the lube has a wet stage that is works it's best at just like an alloy.
it also has a solid and a mush stage.
mu three part lubes have been working because there is a wet stage for the whole bbl.
the hydraulic fluid is wet at the throat chamber end, the lith takes over shortly there after and the wax is doing the work at the end once it gets enough friction heat built up to flow near the muzzle.
this is desirable also so that it is soft enough to jettison at the muzzle.
it works the same as felix lube where the castor oil starts out the wet.
we know that viscosity is the key here to a lube working.
but it is essential because of the wet stage.
look at mml winter use right?
it's because it is that close to a wet stage right now.
and why others are good in heat or hot bbls it's thier wet stage being reached.
i don't think the ingredients are as important as when they have thier wet/flowing temperature.
we know pressure also influences temperature and that harder lubes "flow" better under these conditions i think it is because they have enough pressure/heat to go into thier liquid stage and maintain it.
in the cold the lubes are doing thier part it is the last part of the bbl that the lube is failing [to go into the wet] for us
throwing off the timing of ejection in the bbl node causing the flyer.
paper and copper don't always have these issues because of the constant friction down the bbl and the pressure from the powder is all the way to the muzzle.
i think that raising the wet in step one and two might cover the third part that little bit longer giving it time to flow further down the bbl.
part of our proplem arises from the pressure behind the boolit is only helping to wet the lube for some of it's trip down the bbl then is falling off.
this is often why we see leading at the muzzle, and the cure is to make the lube softer.
it's not to add more lube to "get down there" it's to decrease the temp at which the lube will stay wet longer.
this would clearly explain why gears lubes were leaving behind the gunk and causing leading.
they never had a wet stage, only a mush stage at best.
we aren't looking for a wonder lube so much as temp stability and enough wet to carry the bbl.
i know that viscosity seems to be the most important ingredient in lube, but this is not as important as when the lube[s] components go into [or are] the wet stage.
R5R, your post is correct. Only some unknown polymer will cover our wet needs all the way through start to finish. The cellulose component of that synthetic, as mentioned in a previous post, will keep any excess wet purged on a per shot basis. These are the requirements for the guru having access to the world's polymer databases in preparing a lube suitable for all calibers, all ambients, etc. ... felix
So, R5R, I guess you confirm my thoughts that a lube has to melt as it goes? I like you explanation, it makes a lot of sense. Lube must be dynamic to perform the multiple job descriptions from ignition to the time it says "Geronimo". Now, why didn't you stop me from using the bentone? :kidding:
Now that I've proved what I think is beyond any doubt that the non-melting lubes don't work, what's next? Beeswax seems to do a fine job of "wetting" the last half to third if the barrel, so we need either a multi-viscosity base oil, or a base oil and a thicker oil, or even grease. Starting to sound like 4-1-1 lube to me. I think FWFL works so well partly because the castor oil has a pretty low viscosity index, and thins quickly with temperture. Plasticizing it tends to improve the VI, at least in the "feel" test at different feel-able tempertures, and then there's the mineral oil to provide that initial "wet". Lanolin probably helps the whole process along as a built-in "fudge factor" to cover any viscosity "holes" that may arise in the system. A good trick might be to experiment with substitutes for the mineral oil that keep a lower viscosity in cold weather and see if that doesn't improve winter performance some. A midrange lube might help the Zombie lube not lead through the middle and to the end.
I got back from the range a while ago, sending ten of the Mobil grease/beeswax/carnauba/ATF mix boolits into almost the same hole, even better than the Zombie lube because the group was a tad tighter and there was NO first-shot flyer. I cleaned and prepped the bore with straight grease and patched it out before shooting, so at least that part worked. Dadgum thing washed some patches of lead down toward the muzzle, though, I can see it for about the last eight inches of barrel, not a heavy buildup, but definitely too much. The FWFL doesn't do this with this same batch of boolits and powder charge, worst leading I ever got with it in this gun is a fine line in the trailing edge crease that was the same after one shot as after two hundred.
Still some work to do here, and maintain the muzzle jettison thing and do what it takes to "keep any excess wet purged on a per shot basis", which is as critical to accuracy as any of this.
Gear
Vaseline?
Perhaps the configuration of the lube grooves and the amount of lube held should vary with season? It might be beneficial to design a hot weather vs. cold weather boolit to compliment a couple different lube viscosities.Quote:
...Still some work to do here, and maintain the muzzle jettison thing and do what it takes to "keep any excess wet purged on a per shot basis", which is as critical to accuracy as any of this.
Gear
MJ
I think ya'll got it figured out well. Vaseline is very good, like you say, MJ. Think custom polymers, though, for the ultimate. If anyone should meet a bone-fide lube designer for real, tell him the specs needed, or shoot him to this board/thread. ... felix
Ok I am still new to this have done allot of reading but what about Liquid floor wax for boolit lube?