Brownie
36 Cl.
I there an easy way of lubing mini and maxi balls looking for some ideas.
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Lubing ,immie balls
- Thread starter Brownie
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I find the easiest way is to use a Lyman Lubrisizer. It sizes and lubricates in one go. It's a bit messy as it tends to ooze lube out the bottom and under the bullet, but it fully packs the lube grooves full of lube and leaves no excess on them.
Another option is to dip-lube them, and then push them through a sizing die.
Another option is to dip-lube them, and then push them through a sizing die.
Why not just dip-lube them? The excess will be removed by the muzzle when you ram them. Just keep a rag handy. I don't know why you'd need a sizing die to lube Minie balls.
The Lubrisizer die I use does not size the minie ball but applies the right amount of lube so none is wasted, same with what he called a sizing die is actually a snug fitting die that I use to extract the minie's from the pan of lube. I use a shallow baking pan to set the minies base down then heat the lube to liquid, remove the heat and let it cool. Then push the die over the bullet and go to the next repeat when you have enough bullets in the die they start popping out the top, depending on the length of the die, when the last bullet is out of the pan, just push the remaining bullets out of the die with a dowel.
Lots of moulds cast larger than the stated size. A ".575" mould that casts at .577 isn't going to work in a .577 bore.
ADK Bigfoot
54 Cal.
My Lubrisizer distorted the bases of my hollow based bullets. The pressure of the lube being injected into the grooves of a pure lead bullet was too much, causing "flats" at the injection site.
ADK Bigfoot
ADK Bigfoot
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You don't need a sizing die to lube Minie balls.
However, if you are sizing your Minie balls, then the Lubrisizer is a convenient way to size and lubricate in one step.
It also makes sure that only the required amount of lube is on the bullet.
I only size-lube hollow-based bullets, which I mostly avoid now as they are tedious to cast. My go-to competition bullets now are the Flees Sharps bullet and the Moose Wilkinson. Both of these have to be dip-lubed.
I "pan lube" my minies and I made a set of nylon "dies" that remove the lubed minies from the pan and also forms the skirts round when the minies are pushed through the female form die. This removes the excess lube and trues up the skirts if they are out of round.
Zug, you brought back memories of 1960-62, when I was 14-16. Our NSSA group would meet on Friday nights to cast and lube Minie's. then make up cardboard tube cartridges for the weekend target shoots around the greater Washington DC area.
We lubed with a beeswax mix, which, when firing, got all around our mouths, allowing the black powder smoke to adhere to our faces!
We lubed with a beeswax mix, which, when firing, got all around our mouths, allowing the black powder smoke to adhere to our faces!
Howdy,
When I bought a box of hand cast .58 Minies they came with a piece of steel tube that had been made into a hand luber/sizer die. Works great.
hanshi
Cannon
I've only owned one .58 rifle but sold it after several years. I've never had much use for the .58 and much prefer the .54. When I cast and fired minies for it I used a lube concoction I mixed for it. Then I took one ply of bathroom tissue and wrapped the lubed minie. They no longer slid out the muzzle when it pointed toward the ground. They shot okay but I just liked round ball much better.
I pan lube myself
IMHO, minies are best suited to rifle muskets designed to shoot them. That means a slow twist with progressive depth rifling and moderate powder charges that are suited to bullet weight and rifling. I could never understand why people want to shoot them out of round ball barrels. The same for those who want to shoot round balls out of a rifle musket.
No, I tried it once just for laughs, and it doesn't work too well.
Isn't that painful with the hot lube on ya?
Bpd303,
Great minds think alike and so do ours!
Great minds think alike and so do ours!
