I'm not allergic to lanolin but now that I do everything by hand I just find pure lanolin just a bit to thick and sticky on the fingers, I find a thinner mixture uses less and I have less a chance to get lube dents in the ogive.
I'm not allergic to lanolin but now that I do everything by hand I just find pure lanolin just a bit to thick and sticky on the fingers, I find a thinner mixture uses less and I have less a chance to get lube dents in the ogive.
................I've used Imperial case sizing lube (which I believe contains lanolin), RCBS pad type case lube, and that supplied as a sample by RCE when I got my press and dies. They each seemed to work and I couldn't tell if one was better then the other or not. And just a tiny bit of any of them worked.
I'd bought some Castrol Safety Draw 722X when Enco first advertised it. It was recommended for deep heavy duty drawing, and as an extreme pressure taping lube. It's a wax oil and will seperate over time. I plan on giving it a try when I have a chance to do some swaging and see what/how it does.
.............Buckshot
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My secret for bright brass bullets is to grab a handfull and squirt a pump of simple orange hand cleaner on them and roll them in my hands over an icecream bucket full of hot water. When they slip out of my hand into the bucket I grab the next handful. Then rinse them real well and repeat the process with a dab of Crest whitening tooth paste. Dry them in an old t shirt.
"let's go. He ain't hittin' nothin'.".... "You IDIOT, he's hit everything he's aimed at!"
What do you mean by " bright brass bullet" Are you talking about a jacketed bullet. If so I clean my swaged jacketed bullets with a stuff called CLR it's sulfamic acid it's a bathroom cleaner. You mix 1 cup of CLR with a pint or two of warm water. It cleans them up perfect within a few seconds.
It is also good for cleaning the jackets before swaging and cartridge casese.
After you rinse the bullets in Shellite and it drives off the water. Then the shellite drys real quick. You have to make sure that any hollow points are dry.
I have 100gm of A...lanolin, and 50ml of castor oil. Silly question.....would a 50/50 mix be 50ml with 50gm?? Both the same weight, but semi-solid and liquid.
Tia!
THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN HIT THE CENTRE OF THE TARGET IS WITH A CENTREFIRE!!!
Bullbarrel, I mixed mine 50/50 by volume, works fine, add more lanolin if you want it thicker. No rocket science involved or I'd have been lost!!
GONRA uses Corbin's Swage Lube when using Corbin CSP-2 Mega-Mite ™ press,
Corbin Boolit Forming Dies / equipment. (Verks PERFECTLY so would be nuts to "switch".)
Otherwise, like any other Deplorable Card Carrying Redneck -
use STP Oil Treatment for everything - reloading, custom case forming / cupping drawing etc....
Tallow, used in industry as a release, works well for swaging (and reloading)
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I bought the pure lanolin in block form and made the 50/50 mix with castor oil. It is a bit stiff. How can it be more fluid. I don't know if adding more liquid lanolin be the answer.
Bill
Bill you can up the castor oil to thin it out some.
Ron Reed
Oklahoma City, OK
I have been using Lee Case Lube but I only swage lead. I heard that it has lanolin in it so I bought some lanolin. Haven't thinned it yet but I would like to get it to the same consistency of the Lee Case Lube. It seems like it has been hydrolyzed. Which is the process that they use to whip water into oil to make shortening for cooking. Doesn't take much water but it makes a big difference in the finished product. I am not sure how the process works. Will have to look it up.
Here are a couple of interesting reads if you are so inclined. Apparently hydrolysis is not merely whipping water into an oil at all:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrolysis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanolin
You can also thin it out temporary using alcohol. I cut mine with 90% strength rubbing alcohol for lubing large volume of jackets. It helps spread out the lube much more evenly and evaporates quite quickly (that's why the 90%; you can get stronger 95% and 99% but it's really cheap for 90% at Walmart, 1Qt runs about 2.00)
Ron Reed
Oklahoma City, OK
For 25 years ive used 100% Lanolin And Castor Oil.... 500 gm of Lanolin in a pot, melt it , add 700 ml of castor Oil... Stir in and let set..
I stirred mine together at room temperature with a kitchen aid mixer that has the scraping spatula.
It was pretty homogenous at that time, but a little on the stiff side and an opaque off white color.
I then placed that metal bowl in the oven and turned it up to a little above the melting point of lanolin (I looked it up in a Merck Index from my chemistry days. That book is packed in a box somewhere). I checked it every fifteen minutes, and in an hour it looked like a clear, Vaseline colored homogenous liquid.
I poured the liquid into containers for storage and allowed them to cool. They then looked and felt very much like Vaseline, nearly identical to what Dr. Blackmon sent me, and just a little thinner than the Corbin lube.
Now that they have sit for a year, sometimes some liquid will rise to the top like peanut oil does in natural peanut butter. I just stir it in prior to use.
I buy my anhydrous Lanolin from Randy Rat, here on the forum. I mix 80% lanolin with 20% Militec 1 synthetic oil. I put em both in a small jar, and have made a small mixing propeller from a wirecoat hanger. I mix until the lanolin looks a bit more yellow. After it sits, the air will come out, and the lube will be perfect for swaging.
I cleaning with Walmart brakecleaner. Maybe not good for the environment, but it works great.
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