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bullet lube?

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tiger955

40 Cal.
Joined
Aug 1, 2009
Messages
232
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I want to experiment with some cast bullets in my 1-48 barreled TC and am looking for a good lube recipe that will prevent leading with heavy loads. I also prefer something that will keep fouling to a minimum. I am looking for a formula that only uses common household products that can be purchased anywhere. In my searching pretty much any recipe I have found uses beeswax. Real beeswax is getting hard to find in the stores, haven't been able to find any in the state capital of NV anyway. I would prefer to use products I don't have to mail order. Was thinking of Crisco and parafin mix?
I am really worried about lead buildup. I bought a used TC years ago that was leaded so bad I finally gave up and bought a GM barrel. I have been shooting PRB's for a long time but want to use heavier bullets in my coyote/ lion gun.
Other than being messy, would plain Crisco work ok? Any advise from anyone who has experience in this would be greatly appreciated.
 
I owned a lot of T/C's in the past. From 1-48, 1-38 and 1-20 twists and never ever had a problem with any of them with lead build up, shooting more than one kind of conical too. Most just used T/C's wonder lube.
 
You might want to think about paper patched bullets. I use a paper patched 50 cal bullet I make with a Lee C-501-440-RF mould. This bullet is 460 gr but it needs a 1-38 or faster twist to shoot good. My gun's have a 1-28 twist and they shoot fantastic. I use 80 gr of Pyrodex P, and a over powder wad. I get 1753 foot pounds of energy at the muzzle and it still carries over 1000 FPE past 250 yards. I saw two bucks SMOKED with this load this year. Both were pass throughs with one broad side, and the other was through the shoulder and out the flank at the hind quarter. Both shots were over 100 yards. The shoulder shot droped in his tracks like he was shot with a cannon. If a guy needs horse power this load is it. Ron

458gr501-1.jpg

500SW3-22-08small.jpg
 
If you cann't find beeswax. Crisco will work I myself use a lard and beeswax mixture. Treewax is a good substitute for beeswax it is primarily carnuba wax. Look for it in your hardware furniture wax section.
 
I think the best conical bullet that you can use in that rifle is the T/C Maxi Ball or the T/C Maxi Hunter. Plenty of weight and they were designed specifically for the T/C rifles. That's my opinion anyway.

You can buy beeswax online. I bought some a few months ago and I can't remember the name of the company. Just do a Googls search for "beeswax" and you will find several places to buy it. You do not need the real good stuff that is used in food and medications. There is a grade that they call "industrial grade" that will work just fine for making bullet lube. The difference is color and how clean it is. The industrial grade is darker and has not been as thoroughly filtered. The tiny particles are unsightly but not harmful if used in bullet lube. I have made a few different bullet lubes using beeswax. One I made by melting the beeswax in a can that I sat in a pan of boiling water. I melted about 6 OZ. of wax. Let it cool and stir it as it cools until it starts to thicken just a bit. Then I added a couple of ounces of Ballistol and kept stirring. Next, I added about a tablespoon of Murphy's Oil Soap and kept stirring. At first the oil soap will make the wax/Ballistol mixture curdle but keep stirring rapidly as it cools until it forms a nice smooth paste. Put this into your final container (I buy cans for this purpose but you can use short jars or Altoid tins if you wish). This makes a nice smooth paste. By varying the amount of beeswax, you can control how stiff it gets. You want a stiffer mixture for summer and a softer one for winter.

I also make overpowder wads by punching them out of scrap 6 to 8 oz leather. That is about the same weight as belts are made from. In fact, an old belt is a good source of scrap leather. I use hollow punches that I bought from Harbor Freight. I soak the leather wads in Ballistol a medicine bottle for a couple days. Then I lay the wads out on some rags to drain for another couple days, pat them a bit dryer and they are ready to go. I load these on top of the powder before seating my bullet. They greatly improve the shot to shot consistancy of the muzzle velocity and serve to keep the fouling in the bore to a minimum.

This is certainly not the only way and I would hesitate to say it was the best way but it is one of the ways that I do it and it works for me. :thumbsup:
 
Look for a store that has candle making supplies, here we have Hobby Lobby. The sell it ( bees wax) in bricks. 50-50 with Crisco makes a pretty good bullet lube.
 
Beeswax is quite a bit more expensive if you buy it in a craft store as compared to the industrial grade from an online source. If I were you, I'd do the google search and order it online. You will save a lot of money if you do.

Check this site before going to Hobby Lobby, you may find that this is a much better way to go:
http://www.bee-outside.com/blackpowderspecial12lb-beeswaxcakesindustrialgrade.aspx

This is just the opinion of a tightwad old fart. My opinion's free and may be over priced at that. :haha:
 
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Every county has a Agricultural Extension Services office in it. If you contact them, they can give you the name and addresses of local beekeepers. Some IGA stores buy honey from local beekeepers. A check of the honey brands on their store shelves will often give you the name of a local source. If you have a farmer's market, there seem to be dealers selling honey at every one of them I have attended. Sometimes they have beeswax( raw) in their trucks, if you ask. Or they will take some to the next market for you, to save you the trip out to their farms.

Beekeepers have Beeswax, and are usually quite generous in giving or selling it to you, particularly if you will buy the raw stuff, and clean it yourself.

Cleaning it only requires the wax to be melted and then poured through several layers of cheesecloth. Go to the Auto center of your local discount stores, and buy the Cheesecloth they sell for waxing auto finishes. The cheesecloth sold there is usually less than 1/3 what they charge for the same stuff over in the Notions and fabrics sections of the same STORE!

The Cheesecloth will remove the dirt, wings, and bug parts that are in the wax well enough that the filtered product can be stored and/or melted down to use for a patch lube mix. You can also use an old, Clean T-shirt layed in a strainer, to filter out all the dirt and crud. I have used coffee filters for this purpose, but it will tend to lighten the color of the wax because it removes a lot more suspended particulate matter, than the looser weaved T-shirt, or cheesecloth.

The cheesecloth and T-shirt can be laundered to remove remaining wax, and re-used. I throw out the coffee filters, however.
 
I want to experiment with some cast bullets in my 1-48 barreled TC and am looking for a good lube recipe that will prevent leading with heavy loads. I also prefer something that will keep fouling to a minimum.

A good black powder cartridge lube is also a good ml conical lube. You can check out some recipes at this site:

BPCR.net

I have tried a few of these and found them to work well in my 45-70.

On the matter of lead build up, I think it's something to be concerned about. It's easy to see in a BPC rifle but not so easy to see in an ml. My TC .50 had some lead in it from years of shooting maxi balls. I removed it electronically.

On the subject of leading, I'll go once again to using BPC as an example. The load must create enough pressure to immediately bump the bullet up and seal the bore. If it does not you will get leading.

I used plain crisco for a long time but it's a problem in warmer weather. Tends to melt out of the grooves. :shocked2: Also used Wonder Lube with success. Used the harder stuff in the plastic jar, not the softer stuff in the tube for lubing patches.

There is a theory of lube performance that says the lube grooves must be completely filled. That way when the bullet upsets obturates the bore and the bullet shortens due to pressure, the lube becomes somewhat pressurized in the grooves and that pressure helps force the lube between the bullet and the barrel. I got no idea if this theory is correct :)
 
It's been a long time since I've lubed bullets, but I do remember not having any luck with any concretion using paraffin base.
If you have a Michael's around, they carry it 1# blocks. $17.99 :shocked2: , however they run bi-monthly 40% off coupons in the local paper and usually 50% off every month or so. :v
 
f you recover spent bullets on the range, you can see the obturation of the bullet, and the lands cutting through the grease grooves. It is obvious that the grease in the grooves of the bullet is being forced sideways into the lands of grooves of the barrel as the bullet passes down and out the muzzle.

The amount of obturation of the bullet will depend, of course, on the hardness of the bullet alloy, the fit of the bullet to the bore diameter, and the velocity and choice of powder used to fire the bullet. This is the same whether shooting Black Powder, Substitutes, or even smokeless powder charges behind lead bullets, in a cartridge, or MLer.

I have fired very hard, Wheelweight bullets out of revolvers that barely showed any rifling grooves on the spent bullets at all! I have recovered lead bullets on rifle ranges that came out of MLers that also were very hard, and showed very little of the lands of the rifling of the gun that fired them.
 
...you can see the obturation of the bullet...

The amount of obturation of the bullet will depend, of course, on....

Just for clarity sake, the bullet itself does not "obturate". The bullet upsets or expands under pressure to fill the bore. It "obturates" or fills to the walls of or obstructs the bore.

Here is the definition of obturate:

obstruct: block passage through; "obstruct the path"

This is the same whether shooting Black Powder, Substitutes, or even smokeless powder charges behind lead bullets, in a cartridge, or MLer.

I thought the same thing but an incident had me rethinking it and seeking more info. I was shooting soft 1/40 500 grain Govt bullets in a 45-70. I had loads using 68 grainsof fff goex and loads using an amount of 5744 that achieved the same velocity and peak pressure. The bp loads upset the bullet immediately and the bullets obturated the bore leaving behind a clean unleaded bore. The same bullets with modern powder, same pressure failed to upset and leaded the bore horrendously. A little research and questioning of knowledeable BPC shooters showed that the BP pressure curve leaps to it's max point immediately whereas the smokeless has a more gradual rise in the pressure curve. So, the bp caused an immediate upset and obturation of the bore preventing blowby and leading. The smokeless did not upset the bullet quickly enough and resulted in blow by and leading. This would have been moot, I suppose, if the bullet diameter had exceeded the depth of the grooves, but it didn't as is typical when 45-70 ammo is loaded to the specs of the origninal 45-70 ammo.

This becomes even more important in an ml where the loading of the bullet will not always result in the bullet being a tight fit in the bore. It needs an immediate pressure spike to bump the bullet up to obturate the bore. Light loads in an ml shooting conicals can fail to bump the bullet and result in blow by and leading.
 
Hey Ron.
What's the bore diameter in the Renegade barrel that you're using the paper patched Lee in? Are you sizing to bore diameter after patching?
Thanks.
 
GoodCheer said:
Hey Ron.
What's the bore diameter in the Renegade barrel that you're using the paper patched Lee in? Are you sizing to bore diameter after patching?
Thanks.

PM sent. Ron
 
I disagree. Try using Unique, or 3031, or other powders in that .45-70, and you will see the bullet UPSET - as you insist on referring to obturation. 5744 powder is made specifically to be one of the slowest, low pressure powders being used. It may be slower than Black Powder. I have not tested it. But, BP does not burn with a with a Ski Jump spike as you suggest( perhaps FFFFg powder will, but that would be the exception.) BP burns slowly and has a bell curve shape to its pressure lines. That is why you need a minimum length of barrel for BP to burn efficiently.

The Bullet does Obturate. It does so in revolvers, and in rifles. I have seen this with pure lead balls, and lead conicals. With hard cast bullets in revolvers, the throat at the back of the barrel where the bullet enters the barrel will cause a slight delay causing the base of the bullet to upset in diameter due to the push of the BP gases behind it. The rest of the bullet remains its original sized shape. The back 1/10-1/18" will "bell" out a bit, and show the scoring of the lands as it passes into and through the barrel. The Belling of that base is what little "Obturation" you see using a hard cast bullet in a revolver. Even then, its rare to see that the lead is wide enough to fill the grooves in the barrel, as shallow as they may be.

The only reason you seem to disagree with my language is my use of the word, " Of " [the bullet] when describing obturation. My check of both my dictionary and my grammar book indicates I am using the preposition correctly. :hatsoff:
 
The only reason you seem to disagree with my language is my use of the word, " Of " [the bullet] when describing obturation. My check of both my dictionary and my grammar book indicates I am using the preposition correctly.

My careful reading of your entire post indicates that you are being "obdurate". :rotf: :rotf:
 
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