5 years for straight lee alox lube? Or a wonderful accidental experiment

[nagantguy]

Found 5 boxes of 45 Acp ammo loaded by me almost exactly 5 years ago, it was in my go bag. Load, alloy primer, brass and firearm are exactly what and how I load today except for the increased and enhanced knowledge from the good folks here! So I've wondered how long the alox would last as a lube , applied the old fashioned tumble way. So on today's range trip those two old boxes of 230 lee round nose went and were fired in my everyday carry kimber 1911, that eats hundreds of thousands of this same load(bullseye) every year. All to nds fired and fed and accuracy was stellar considering the nit behind the bang switch! When I got home .....leading like I've never seen, I mean ever, spaghetti strands of lead, this pistol would have trace amounts of lead after a long day of idpa or the plate plinking until I learned about pc, but just a little that one or3 passes of a chore boy would get ride of! This leading took a pot of my secret formula and two whole chore boy pads! The secret formula by the way is hot, near boiling water with simple green cleaner, an amazing non toxic gun cleaning solution! So I guess five years is the shelf life of straight alox lube at stable indoor temps. I did notice that the boolits looked kind of crusty brown and crackly, by the amount of leading I'm guessing it offered no lubrication at all? Anyone else have similar findings? Is there a variable I may be over looking! Also my expectations of my pc boolits lasting indefinitely; fact or folly?

[runfiverun]

it's probably stuck inside your cases.
Alox is a great undercoating, and sealant.

[sutherpride59]

I shot some wad cutters the other day that I cast and aloxed about 6 months ago and got stellar groups with no leading. So the shelf life is somewhere between 6months and 5 years.

[nagantguy]

it's probably stuck inside your cases.
Alox is a great undercoating, and sealant.

Explain please? You mean it leached off the lead and into the brass? At least it did not effect the powder!

[nagantguy]

I shot some wad cutters the other day that I cast and aloxed about 6 months ago and got stellar groups with no leading. So the shelf life is somewhere between 6months and 5 years.

Yes it seem somewhere in that window, cast some of the exact same boolits and lube them exactly the same and contact me in 5 years, then we will have the foundation of a principle time like to work from(insert mad scientist laugh here)

[runfiverun]

alox will act like a glue and increase neck tension over time.
grab your hammer whacker bullet puller and try to pull one of those boolits.

last spring I shot some boolits I cast about 40 years ago and lubed with the old alox.
they sat around and sat around I finally loaded and shot them without trouble.
I still have some I cast in 1973 saved in a glass baby food jar.
give me a few more years and i'll give you a 50 year report.
the key is to not let the alox finish drying in the case.

[tazman]

I have alox coated boolits loaded from 3 years ago and shot some of them a couple of weeks ago with no problems.
I shot a bunch of other ammo too so I am not certain if the old ammo leaded and the newer cleaned it out or what since I didn't check the barrel in between batches of ammo. The end result was a clean barrel when I finished.

[hutch18414]

I just shot some 2 year old 230 grain Lee round nose over 6.5 grains of Unique. Absolutely flawless as far as feeding and no leading. Not as accurate in my pistol since they were sized at .452. It seems my favorite 1911 prefers boolits size 453 and the difference is about an inch and a half off the group size at 25 yds. But the lube performed flawlessly. Straight alox. So I would guess the life of the lube to be somewhere between 2 years and 5 years.

[Elkins45]

I had a 50 cal ammo can of 45 act loaded with straight alox coated 200 TL that were loaded in 1989 and had been dragged around and left in unheated garages/sheds since then. I shot up the last of those loads last fall and they performed exactly like they did when I loaded them 27 years earlier.

Just a data point.

[243winxb]

There is the old and then the new, Alox. Not the same? Or am i wrong?

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...8F-Replacement

[hutch18414]

I really don't know what the variables are, but I would sure like to. RFR, if drying inside the case was the problem then why were the ones posted above not affected after 20+ years? I agree with the alox turning into a glue, I have seen this. Is the difference in new vs old alox the difference? Dang you people, throwing out a puzzle and making me burn up the few brain cells I had, LOL

[nagantguy]

Thank you all for your posts; I'd like to figure this out as well, it's a puzzler for sure, and the alox may not be at fault or not souly so anyhow but all other variables are fairly constant, gun load lube never saw leading like this not even in my dark early days with no guidance and only the lee leaflet sold with the mold as my only reference.
I do remember and it's the reason I date everything and write everything down is that back that long ago I did use the lee fcd and I now know that that can sways down the boolit and can cause leading and to some degree it did but like I said a pass or 3 with chore boy and all the as well.

[runfiverun]

Hutch I dunno.
I have seen jacketed ammo lose it's grouping ability over time too.
sometimes the brass gets hard and loses neck tension, sometimes the jacket and bullet start bonding together.
I needed to seat some 7mauser ammo deeper since I no longer had the rifle I loaded it for and I could feel the bullet pop loose and suddenly slide about like normal when doing it.

but it's not uncommon for alox to act like this over time.

the old alox and the new alox are different it's the percentage of paraffin they contain.
the old version had about 7% more.
alox itself is basically a burnt Vaseline with calcium stearate added to make a thin grease.
it's then cut with a small amount of naphtha and mineral oil to allow it to flow.
mineral oil is used to cut paraffin waxes all the time since it is the same thing, and Vaseline is just a version of the two mixed together.

the new version of Vaseline is also not the same as the old stuff it is highly refined now and is missing many of the hydrocarbons the old stuff had.

[tomme boy]

It is undercoating. You are just using a thinned version of it. I worked at a Paint supply house for auto body repair businesses right out of high school. We did under coating for the dealerships and anyone that wanted it done. We had 55 gal barrels of it. But it was a lot thicker than what we use for bullets. I was not into casting back then, if I had known I would have grabbed a couple gallons of it.

[hutch18414]

And it is just such puzzles that keep this learning game so much fun. I would think the older version of alox would make a much stronger bond with the brass. Without breaking every variable down completely this is probably going to remain one of those question mark scenarios. What were the differences when loaded, alloy, did age softening of the alloy play a role? Just too many possibilities to ponder without enough evidence.

[Outpost75]

FYI the original Alox 350 was mixed into diesel fuel, sprayed on and used as a rust preventive on deck mounted ship's equipment, winches, deck guns, etc. subjected to direct salt spray. Use dates back to WW2 Liberty Ships and Gato-class submarines!

[flint45]

I loaded and shot some .30 cal boolits in my 1903a3 and my .30-40 Krag about 1500 fps no leading in both rifles boolits are about 20 years old so is the lube never had any Alox go bad yet.

[nagantguy]

After carful examination of the spent brass I don't see any coating of alox on it, I'll put some pics up tonight, this morning I grabbed a box of 50, made last June and fired all of them, not a trace of leading to be found! Wish I'd have saved some of the old ones, could have pulled them for closer examination!