Lubing bullets

[paulvallandigham]

A friend told me that if you take a square toothpick, and scrape out some of the lube you put in the grooves of bullets- say on 3 sides of each groove in a bullet, you leave room for the grease to expand in the groove, rather than put hydraulic pressure on the rings of lead on either side of each groove, which, he claims, destroys the accuracy of the bullet. By removing some of the grease from the grooves, he said his groups were reduced to half the size of the usual groups.

Does anyone have any experience with this phenomena ? This is a lead conical for a BP MLer,with grease grooves, just like you see on cast bullets in modern pistols and rifles.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

I've shot Lee mold conical slugs in my ROA and '58 Rem that I dipped into hot grease to fill the grooves, and shot the same without grease that I lubed by sealing the chamber w/grease after pressing the slug. can't tell any diff myself? :hmm:

 

[jtmattison]

I have found that Maxi-Balls are MUCH more accurate without the grooves full of lube. I used to pan lube them so the grooves were packet with lube. Accuracy was mediocre at best. Now I coat them with liquid Alox and don't put anything in the grooves. They are tack drivers out of the same rifle, same charge...etc.

HD

 

[MercerLake]

:v Paul Masters wrote about using a lube with too much lubricity as causing problems. Personally I have seen with a piezeo pressure transducer that the pressure curves are more consistant when using low lubricity lubes. Never tried it with reduced amounts of lube. Could be the bullet is allowed to upset into the grooves better with less lube. Minie's seem to shoot better with no lube in the grooves. :v

 

[mike alexandre]

I know of a succesful Enfield shooter who swears by leaving the top groove unlubed. He says it picks up the fouling in the bore on its way out.

 

[paulvallandigham]

I am sure that can work. There are a number of pistol bullet designs that have a smaller than bore diameter driving band up front, for the same purpose. The damage I was told about would be to the last band, destroying the flat bottom of a bullet for that important separation from the barrel at the crown of the muzzle.