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Thread: Conventional lube succes in .357 mag

  1. #1
    Boolit Master
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    Conventional lube succes in .357 mag

    After having leading with tumble lubed boolits in my revolvers I started powder coating. This worked well but it irked me that I needed to take that extra step. Enter the RCBS LAM II, a bit softer alloy and a batch of fiveriverfive's simple lube. Also sizing to the throats instead of one or two thousandths over groove diameter.

    My load was an Accurate Molds 36-160H boolit over 7.5 gr. of HS 6. These are going over 1,100 fps so it's a solid medium load. Accurate and a nice satisfying thump in my 686+, 3" Model 60 and 5" 27. Some smoke but it was dead calm. Quite a joy to have reached this benchmark with cast boolits. I size to .357" for the 686 and 27 and .358 for the 60.
    "If everyone is thinking the same thing it means someone is not thinking"

    "A rat became the unit of currency"

  2. #2
    Boolit Buddy Sam Sackett's Avatar
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    Yep. I know what you mean. I started out with Lee liquid lube, tried BLL and liked it better, but it just didn’t feel right. I had the bullet sized to the throats, so wasn’t having an issue with leading except for the 9mm. 38/357 was working OK.
    Enter the LAM 2 and made up some Ben’s Red. Wow! I kept it quite soft, so it’s a little sticky to handle the bullets during loading, but they shoot great. Progress.

    Sam Sackett

  3. #3
    Boolit Master
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    sticky to handle is better that powder coating

  4. #4
    Boolit Master


    Finster101's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by porthos View Post
    sticky to handle is better that powder coating
    It would not be to me but if the OP is happy I'm happy. I'll stay with powder coating.

  5. #5
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by Finster101 View Post
    It would not be to me but if the OP is happy I'm happy. I'll stay with powder coating.
    I'm still powder coating 9mm. I use a Lee 358 -124R. Don't shoot too many of those though. And I tumble lube my gas checked 30-30 and .308 boolits. Got nothing against PC, just wanted to go the old timer route with the wheel guns.

  6. #6
    Boolit Master
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    I am another who likes Ben's formula. And I keep it around for those 'just in case' days. And, especially in bore ride bullet designs, the Ben's Red combined with BLL makes a great combination. If I had a lubesizer I'd probably use it a lot more.

    But, since I don't, I powder coat.

  7. #7
    Boolit Master
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    Earlier in the game before powder coating became a "thing", cast bullets and 9 MM were most often followed by leaded barrels. Unless the bullet was seriously undersized by excessive crimp, undersized castings, or TL style bullets, the use of a conventionally lubricated bullet seemed to resolve the leading issue.

    I am sure that many are perfectly happy with their present methods, and I am happy with mine. There does not seem to be anything wrong with lubricated bullets except perhaps smoke. That could be a result of excessive lube. Accuracy and reliability are higher on the list of factors for me.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check