the paper/cotton thing is a sideline just me looking for a paper patch shortcut.
but also as an answer to lube "alternatives".
ivory soap is mostly a stearate [sodium stearate], it is used to harden [change the viscosity] parrafin/beeswax lubes, and is also a good binder to keep a lube in the carrier.
i was out in the garage till 3 a.m. last night adding ivory to a couple of other things.
it will change the viscosity and add lubricity to some oils [castor,two stroke,and even lucas oil additive]
i think that stearic acid might do a better job mixing in with the oils [lubes] themselves.
and i am beginning to think that there is a big difference between direct heat and the microwave for heating some of this stuff up.
There is a difference in direct heat and microwave heat on melting lubes, I've discovered. Idon't know what it is, but I have noticed that even re-melting Felix lube to pour in the sizer. Takes a lot longer it seems in the microwave than stovetop.
Cast Boolits, Where lead balloons go over....
"Liquid O-ring" sounds like a good boolit lube!
Longbow, that's an interesting approach, one I'm sort of messing with anyway with soap-based lube. Part of the problem with Ivory soap is that it isn't pure sodium stearate, it has a bunch of other stuff in it we don't want like water and table salt. It also has a very high melt point, around 450F. Pure SS has a melt point closer to 500F. This stuff is tough to melt without scorching, and its melt point is well above the smoke point of most automotive lubricants. Stearic acid, from which sodium stearate is made, has a melt point slightly lower than beeswax, not ideal for what I'm trying to do. Sodium stearate and stearic acid are emusifiers also, capable of absorbing both hydrocarbon oils and water. I don't want the water absorption part. Most regular chassis grease is bad about absorbing water, so it's important to look at the water washout rating when considering grease for boolit lube. Bentonite is also super-absorbent, but when grease is made out of it I've seen very good water-repellent ratings.
R5R, I agree about using straight SS rather than the soap, would probably work better. I messed with stearic acid and all kinds of stuff in the past, it's no good with #2greases and liquid oils for sure.
I have a feeling the hard industrial greases will get us where we're trying to go, especially if we can get a good understanding of what's in a particular formula and how to manipulate the tack or lubricity with compatible substances if we need to.
Gear
well, i can see we are making some progress.
we have moved into using #'s that i didn't know even existed just a short while back.
we are also now debating the make up of what we want.
we still have a way's to go.
we have even come close in what number grease we think is needed, with no surprise that i picked a number lower then gear
i still don't have a clear picture in my head of the viscosity of each number.
and exactly what would do what [good or bad] in each different recipe.
Ivory (lye soap) creates little micro-bubbles around grease (fats) and water. The micro bubbles stiffen the lube and will leak water easier than the fats. Glycerol type compounds are used to soften the soap. Lanolin was aded to be milder to the skin. Gramma used to make it from fat and wood ashes. I've used amsoil 80 wt axle lube with the 45/45/10, makes it 40/40/10/10, smokes like the dickens. Takes a long time to dry but doesn't get tacky winter or summer. I don't see any more or less leading with it. It's a long chain high presure molecule, like marvel mystery oil of old. Wife has a cousin that made a fortune from designing aircraft lubes and then went into the auto additive market, maybe I can pump him for info.
I think we're making progress for sure. This is one of those things where some research and ejumication are needed as much as 'spearmintin'. I sure appreciate all the input and help. So we're speaking the same language, here's a somewhat objective NLGI consistency number explanation from Wikipedia:
NLGI number...ASTM worked (60 strokes)....Appearance....Consistency food analog.
......................penetration at 25 °C
......................tenths of a millimetre.
000................445-475......................fluid.................... .cooking oil
00..................400-430......................semi-fluid.............applesauce
0....................355-385.....................very soft..............brown mustard
1....................310-340.....................soft.....................t omato paste
2....................265-295...................."normal" grease.....peanut butter
3....................220-250.................... firm.....................vegetable shortening
4....................175-205.....................very firm..............frozen yogurt
5....................130-160.....................hard....................sm ooth pate
6.....................85-115......................very hard.............cheddar cheese
I had to look up "pate". I suppose it's about like Philadelphia cream cheese at room temp.
Gear
Many years back, I had a mobile power wash business. I was always looking for a better & cheaper soap supplier. I bypassed the middle suppliers and contacted the manufactures requesting small samples with MSDS sheets. I offered to pay for the samples but received all free of charge. I received so many samples that I did'nt buy any soap for several weeks.
I am thinking that if one contacted the grease manufacturers and requested samples & MSDS sheets it may speed up this process. However, unless the manufactures think there may be a good market they may not be interested. I would not suggest telling lies but we are boolit manufactures and as such could use a good quanity of material purchased from suppliers.
The purpose of the MSDS sheets is to tell us what is in the grease and if it is harmful to health.
Larry
i know pate, but now i have to go buy some frozen yogurt.
iv'e thought about playing the sample angle.
i don't know if i could tell them about 20k potential customers though.
but #5 sounds like what i am using now.
it's the modifying it i gotta work on..
and do i do it with white lith,atf,or some type of oil.
if it needed tack i would try lucas oil supplement.
atf sounds the most temp stable right now and would hopefully give me what i want.
it will also help with boolit release.
a 4-1/2 like consistency should flow through a lubrisizer easily. [with a little heat]
it will soften too as it's put under pressure.
so a 5 or 6 will be good.
i don't think i want metal solids, and a low calcium content would maybe be best.
Run5,
Are we still talking about a grade 5 block grease? If it's mostly mineral oil based, why couldn't the viscosity be lowered by cooking it with a little mineral oil? Seems to me though, a grade 5 is just about right and readily available. Am I overlooking something? The product I'm looking at contains 18-22% Lithium 12 Hydrostearate and I'm not sure I like the sound of "Hydro" for carbon steel applications.
MJ
Well, my turn for range time finally.
I loaded some for the .30-'06 test mule, 10 with FWFL and 10 with the Ivory/ATF stuff I made. I even hand-lubed the FWFL on these and shoved them through the push-through, same as with the soap-lubed boolits to ensure they were identical.
The first target in the pic is of a 50-yard target I shot the other day with Permatex Ultra disc brake lube, I mentioned this earlier in the thread but didn't post a target. The second pic should have all the vital data on it.
Notice the chronograph numbers on the second target. I shot the ten FWFL boolits first out of the cold, clean barrel and got the expected slight flyers, although it usually only flings one, maybe two after a cleaning, then it settled down for a normal sub-1.5 MOA group. This gun, boolit, lube, and shooter are very good at printing 1.25-1.5" ten-shot groups at 100 yards in just about any conditions you'd ever want to hunt in in Texas. Not a target rifle, but a meatgetter for sure. There was zero leading, zero muzzle lube star. I patched out the hot barrel, put a haze of oil on it, and fired the next two with the soap lube. Wow! gained 60 fps! Both went into the same hole! Then the third one flew low and left, and the fourth low and right, way out of the group. I checked the muzzle end of the bore and found some light leading (and some antimony wash). I patched out and most of the wash went away, but some streaks in the middle of the grooves and both sides of the lands remained. I went ahead and shot the remainder of them, and the last three went right back where the first two did, and the leading didn't get any worse although it moves around and I don't like it at all.
This is a perfect example of "lube matters to accuracy" for those who are still wondering why we bother to get so deep into this. Still haven't found an equal to FWFL, even counting the clean-barrel flyers.
Gear
The only problem I have with that block grease is the base oil is a mineral with a huge viscosity swing. If we could get #5 block grease with a synthetic oil base and the lithium complex soap thickener (or even straight lithium stearate), I'd like to be first in line to try it.
OH MY! Look at this stuff: http://www.chemola.com/product-detai...d=1&sid=5&i=77
Gear
Last edited by geargnasher; 03-30-2012 at 06:42 PM. Reason: add link
mj:
mineral oil based suggests parrafinic, the hydro stearate does mean it's waterbased.
there are quite a few greases that contain water.
it is usually less than 0.25% though.
bam, you got it right there
synthetic based and lithium [i like the complex it's a longer chain]
it's simple.
it would be fairly easy to manipulate to the thinner side [with brown lith #2]
if it could be gotten to a viscosity of a number 3 with some heat.
talk about high pressure stuff, that is for packing high pressure pumps.
it goes behind the supply side of a fluid around a spinning shaft to seal it.
but 10k pressure application... man.
to put this into perspective the "j" sticks i am using takes only 3k pressure to pump.
i can however apply it by hand to a boolit.
that synthetic fiber thing has my attention though, that could insure that lube [all the lube] comes off instantly, as long as the viscosity were low enough at the muzzle.
you could just about get away with a boolit thats too small and use the grease as a piston ring.
k. after a little test the lithium might need a rethink.
i wanted to reduce the tack in my j-stick.
and debated the lithium v.s atf for a bit and went with white lithium.
so i broke off a chunk about 4" long and mushed into a taco shape.
i then run a bead of 105 white lith down the middle and kneaded it in, at first i wasn't sure but then it started to toughen back up.
the tacky come back so i added a little more getting up to about 20% by volume.
the lube took it,but the tackyness seemed to increase as did the hardness.
not at all what i expected.
i think i increased the molecular chain.
this grease thing is reminding me more of an alloy than a lube.
we are going to have to start looking at additive percentages.
You gots to be careful when mixing greases with different thickener formulations. I was reading that most of the time when you intermix greases the resulting viscosity and film strength decreases because the thickener/base-oil bond unravels. But this is not always the case, sometimes it gets HARD.
I'm really intriqued by that packing compound, my ears perked up too when I read the part about fibers in the base thickener. The temp range is ridiculous, too. It doesn't appear to have a lower limit. I don't know how you'd get it in the sizer, but once you did, you could shoot medium-pressure .45 ACP, .38, or .45 Colt with boolits probably a thousandth undersized and not have leading. Ballistic stop-leak on steroids. Now, if it would do the rest of the chore we need boolit lube to do, we might have a winner.
Gear
depending on what the valve compound is used in they are made from vegetable or hydrocarbon or wax bases
block grease depending on soap type is just a higher percent of soap thickener as in
a #2 may take 7-10% soap a number 5 may take 20% or 25% soap.
From Chemola's website:
"Pumpable with a high pressure (10,000 psi) lubrication handgun."
It's neither going to melt in my microwave nor flow through my Lyman 450. I suppose I could try it as a pan lube melted on my hot plate.
MJ
P.S. The problem with it's high melting point is that it'll anneal HT'd Pb alloys; therefore, pan lubing is out as well.
Last edited by Marlin Junky; 03-30-2012 at 10:30 PM.
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 |