lithium grease and JPW

[Kosh75287]

THIS thread has been FASCINATING reading for someone whose bullet-casting skills and experience are at the lower end of the spectrum! The recipes for bullet lube fascinate me.
I'm guessing there's not really a common nor economical substitute for beeswax, right? I'm in an area where beeswax is neither very common, nor inexpensive to obtain. Conversely, a great many "man made" lubricants for different applications are available to me in sample-size quantities, almost on demand.

[john.k]

Black MoS2 has long been a magic ingredient in lubes ,but many shun it because of the black stains on clothing .......however there are similar white lubes such as planar boron nitride ....anyone tried them?

[405grain]

The OP doesn't give enough information to comment on things like powder charge and powder choice, or cartridge velocity, but he did point out one thing that's more than likely contributing to his barrel leading. He said that his bullets wouldn't fit in the magazine, so he is seating them deeper, and he also said that his gas checks are coming off. Just in general, it's not always a good idea to seat a cast bullet with the gas check below the case neck. Not always, but quite often, if the gas check is extending into the cartridge case body, when the cartridge is fired hot high pressure gas will flow around the sides of the bullet eroding the bullets base. At this moment the gas check cannot possibly seal the bore because it is just hanging out in mid air, and the lead vapor rich combustion gases are going to flow past the bullet.

The OP didn't tell us his load, but gas blow-by can occur if the velocity is above that recommended for most plain based bullets. Once the bullet leaves the muzzle the combustion gases are going to cool, and the lead vapor is going to plate out on the inside of the barrel. As soon as there's enough lead deposited on the inside of the barrel it will begin galling and smearing more lead from the surface of passing bullets and make the leading much worse. If the barrel leading is occurring near the muzzle end of the barrel it usually indicates that the bullet lube is either running out, or just not doing a good enough job. If the barrel leading is occurring on the breech end of the barrel it usually indicates that gas is blowing past the bullet. Gas blow-by can be caused by bullets that are too small in diameter, alloys that are too hard and don't obdurate properly to seal the bore, or by having too much of the cast bullet extending back into the case body.

Remedies in this situation require you to first remove the lead fouling from the bore. A generally good method to do this has been to wrap a wad of Choir-boy copper scrubbing pad around a bore brush and use that along with barrel cleaning fluid to scrub the lead out of the bore. Make sure to use only copper pads, and it will take lots of scrubbing and cleaning. Once the barrel is clean slug your bore so you'll know what the land and groove diameter is. You'll want to use cast bullets that are around .001" or so larger than the groove diameter of the barrel in your firearm. Some folks will tell you that you should size your bullets to fit the throat - that's good advise, but you need to get an engine running before you can hotrod it, so having the bullets .001" over groove is a good starting point. Next, when you load your ammo, do not seat the gas check below the case neck. If the gas check is at the case shoulder or above it, that's fine. If it's seated low enough that powder gases can get around it it's going to cause problems. This is especially true if the cartridge is loaded to higher velocities and pressures. Not all, but most cast bullet rifle loads shoot their best at under 2000 fps. If you're trying for higher velocities and have the gas check extended back inside the case it's probably going to cause problems. Not only will the gas erode the bullet's base and cause leading, but a bullet damaged in this way wouldn't likely be very accurate.

[405grain]

magnumuser: You sent me a PM, but I cannot respond. Here's why:
"magnumuser has chosen not to receive private messages or may not be allowed to receive private messages. Therefore you may not send your message to him/her."
Go to your settings and see if you have this feature turned off. I'm not sure, but maybe you need to have a higher post count or something. Either way, I have the answer to the question that you were asking. Send me another PM once you've got it sorted out.

[delftshooter]

magnumuser: You sent me a PM, but I cannot respond. Here's why:
"magnumuser has chosen not to receive private messages or may not be allowed to receive private messages. Therefore you may not send your message to him/her."
Go to your settings and see if you have this feature turned off. I'm not sure, but maybe you need to have a higher post count or something. Either way, I have the answer to the question that you were asking. Send me another PM once you've got it sorted out.

read the profile icons on the side..

If huge amounts of pump grease worked fine for Elmer and Skelton... why do we seem to have such issue finding "high tech" lubes that struggle due to insufficient lubricant volume per bullet?

[rockrat]

Wasn't there a lube called Lith-Bee? Lithium grease and Beeswax. I don't make my own lubes anymore as White label lube works well and the price is spot on

John.k----Hexagonal Boron Nitride has been used on Jacketed bullets, but as far as I know, not boolits

[BLAHUT]

Leading at the breach is poor bullet fit, not upsetting, not plumping up to fill barrel, gas cutting; leading at muzzle is running out of lube;

[john.k]

Lithium grease (can it still be bought ?......everything I see now is 'microspheriods').........anyhoo ,I ve found a NLG2 Lithium soap grease to be second from the bottom ......white Al soap food grade grease is absolute worst...I used masses of grease on the old dragline ....a drum a week at times ,greased every 4 hours according to the manual...........anyhoo,I sold the land ,and left the dragline there ,as well as a shipping container full of army surplus grease.