Any detrimental effects of Alox lubed bullets in ammo loaded for several months? I'm about to start casting and I'm trying to work out where I want to start with bullet lube.
Printable View
Any detrimental effects of Alox lubed bullets in ammo loaded for several months? I'm about to start casting and I'm trying to work out where I want to start with bullet lube.
None I have experienced and I live in sunny Florida.
Thank you, heat and humidity are always a concern on the third coast.Quote:
Originally Posted by No_1
Months...no
Decades...yes.
Thanks Don, I appreciate that. I'm feeling much better about leaning towards low tech coating.Quote:
Originally Posted by dverna
I guess my biggest concerns was the coating getting warm and becoming tacky enough to hold powder on the bullet base or seeping down into the powder.
Im interested in the decades issue. Could you elaborate or offer a link to a thread discussing it?Quote:
Originally Posted by dverna
I tend to load cast rifle ammo as needed. I don't play around with handguns as much. I find the load I like and load several hundred rounds so it lays around longer. It is carried around more and exposed to hot conditions in a car.
I have never had any problems, but I change carry ammo out on a regular basis for this very reason. This is also the reason I have been tinkering around with powder coating. There is no lube to leak or collect dust.
I use tumble lube, and generally store my ammo in boxes with the bullets facing up. Don't know if that matters but it does minimize the contact between the lube and the powder.
Wipe the bullet bases on a piece of denim before you load 'em. I do it right after I've dried the LLA after tumbling, then stand the wiped bullets on their noses in 9mm ammo trays until it's time to assemble them.
Be more concerned about the junk that sticks to the exposed bullet -- that goes down your barrel. Your powder is coated with stuff anyway, won't make any difference -- and you DON'T use that much LLA to begin with.Quote:
tacky enough to hold powder on the bullet base or seeping down into the powder.
I had some .45ACP lubed with crayons and disc brake grease from the mid-90s that I came across and shot last year.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bazoo
It had been stored in a .50 cal. ammo can in a Dallas, Texas garage with no climate control.
Out of a few hundred, I had one that 'fizzled'.
Some of the Unique was contaminated, and several of the individual grains flew out like burning sparks.
The boolit came out of the barrel a little faster than you could see, and it hit the ground in front of the target.
Never had any problems even after years of storage.
LLA has a petroleum product in it. But it should be good with smokeless. I have kept mine for months with no problem, in a cool dry place.
Alox as it dries becomes almost an enamel finish. Tough, non sticky.
What I have noticed is that boolits without BLL or 45/45/10 will if exposed to air start oxydising, turning white.
Cast boolits lubed and stored in airtight food grade containers come out of 5 years of storage looking exactly as they went in.
Same is true of loaded boolits that got 2 or 3 thin coats of BLL. Heck they are still shiny. Cartridges loaded with Ben's Red in the grooves and no liquid lube have gone very dark. First step on the oxydation rung.
I have a few boxes of ammo that once loaded I "wiped" the noses with a few drops of BLL on an old towel. Then polished the noses, removing any excess lube. Leaving a very thin very uniform coat of BLL that years later still looks just like I just made them.
Just my experience, but for long term storage of cast I really like either airtight snap lid boxes for unloaded boolits. Or a thin coat of BLL for long term storage of loaded rounds.
Both protect my loaded ammo from Oxydation. IMO that is a good thing.