Lubricating a Maxi Ball

[TraderVic]

Greetings,
Awhile back I purchased three bags of generic Maxi Balls that are bare, no lube.
What is a good, cost effective lubricant to apply to this bullet?
It's an exact copy of the T/C Maxi Ball, which has been discontinued for awhile now. I'm about out of my factory conicals and will need to transition to the generic version.
Thanks

 

[Maven]

The easiest way is to stand them up in a metal dish with your favorite lube and then melt it and allow the lube to cool. (You can speed this up by placing the whole thing in a refrigerator.) You then contrive to cut them out of that now hardened lube with a tube-like cutter. Lee used to offer such a thing, btw. If you already have a Lyman or RCBS lube sizer, you can do the same, but you'll need a sizing ( H & I die in Lyman-speak) that is large enough so it doesn't size the front band of your Maxi-Balls and that is likely a custom proposition. Option #3 is to make something like Stumpy's Moose Snot and smear it on with your fingers and/or a popsicle stick: It's a bit messy, but it works.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

The easiest way is to stand them up in a metal dish with your favorite lube and then melt it and allow the lube to cool.

Like this

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

50/50 beeswax to olive oil mix (or cheaper veggie oil of choice, if you must ... ) works for me!

 

[dave951]

beeswax/lard/olive oil

pan lube. Make sure the base is clean or any lube can contaminate the powder charge.

 

[TraderVic]

Thanks for your replies. A neighbor keeps bees, so I'll talk to him about buying some beeswax.

 

[LeonardC]

TC sells BoreButter in a tube that screwed into a plastic devise. You push the Maxi Ball into a tube and the BoreButter is feed into the side to fill the grooves.

 

[Old Hawkeye]

Just smear any lube you prefer into the grooves with your fingers. This is not rocket surgery! Melting lube & filling a pie pan is a waste of time & ten times slower. May look prettier, but it don't work any better. If you are one of those with an obsessive compulsive disorder & have time to waste, by all means fill that pie pan up.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

Greetings,
Awhile back I purchased three bags of generic Maxi Balls that are bare, no lube.
What is a good, cost effective lubricant to apply to this bullet?
It's an exact copy of the T/C Maxi Ball, which has been discontinued for awhile now. I'm about out of my factory conicals and will need to transition to the generic version.
Thanks

I shoot Maxi-Balls out of my 1:66 gun…they don’t tend to stabilize very well in Round Ball Barrels with deep rifling, they do better with shallow rifling.

So I wrap the Maxi-Ball in Teflon Tape. It seems to tame it right down, solid groups, great for hunting.

 

[SDSmlf]

TC sells BoreButter in a tube that screwed into a plastic devise. You push the Maxi Ball into a tube and the BoreButter is feed into the side to fill the grooves.

That plastic device probably hasn’t been made by TC in well over 20 years.

 

[stikshooter]

I shoot Maxi-Balls out of my 1:66 gun…they don’t tend to stabilize very well in Round Ball Barrels with deep rifling, they do better with shallow rifling.

So I wrap the Maxi-Ball in Teflon Tape. It seems to tame it right down, solid groups, great for hunting.

Next time lube the bottom ring only , top ring only destabilizes the conical and is over kill on lube (says one who knows) thanks Lewis

 

[SDSmlf]

I shoot Maxi-Balls out of my 1:66 gun…they don’t tend to stabilize very well in Round Ball Barrels with deep rifling, they do better with shallow rifling.

So I wrap the Maxi-Ball in Teflon Tape. It seems to tame it right down, solid groups, great for hunting.

Next time lube the bottom ring only , top ring only destabilizes the conical and is over kill on lube (says one who knows) thanks Lewis

We did some experiments with lubing top vs bottom vs both rings of Maxi-Balls quite a while back, and remember lubing just the bottom ring performed better than both, while lubing just the top ring performed the worst, at least in the tests I was involved with. But found the Maxi-Ball a really poor performer on game unless bone was hit, otherwise they just didn’t expand….

In testing done years ago (before everyone had a phone with a camera, so no photographs), found that the top band or ring on the maxi-ball collapsed back into the large lube ring just under it, creating what could almost be called a spire point when shot into soft tissue. Conicals with a wide flat nose or a hollow point expand reliably in soft tissue. Believe this is the major reason TC came out with their Maxi-Hunter design after their Max-Ball had over penetration and poor expansion issues. My testing was done with 54 caliber Maxi-Balls and Maxi-Hunters cast from TC molds using ‘pure’ lead (believe I still have both molds). Using the same gun and powder charge, the expansion difference was dramatic.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

We did some experiments with lubing top vs bottom vs both rings of Maxi-Balls quite a while back, and remember lubing just the bottom ring performed better than both, while lubing just the top ring performed the worst, at least in the tests I was involved with. But found the Maxi-Ball a really poor performer on game unless bone was hit, otherwise they just didn’t expand….

In testing done years ago (before everyone had a phone with a camera, so no photographs), found that the top band or ring on the maxi-ball collapsed back into the large lube ring just under it, creating what could almost be called a spire point when shot into soft tissue. Conicals with a wide flat nose or a hollow point expand reliably in soft tissue. Believe this is the major reason TC came out with their Maxi-Hunter design after their Max-Ball had over penetration and poor expansion issues. My testing was done with 54 caliber Maxi-Balls and Maxi-Hunters cast from TC molds using ‘pure’ lead (believe I still have both molds). Using the same gun and powder charge, the expansion difference was dramatic.

I had the same experience when I first started using Maxi-Balls…I was getting Shoot-Throughs on massive bull elk, with very little to no expansion. So I started aiming for the front shoulder bone to force expansion on broadside shots. Then I had a brilliant idea, and I took an 1/8“ drill bit and started hollow pointing the Maxi-Balls…problem solved…wonderful expansion even on soft tissue hits.

I’d never heard of only lubing the bottom ring…I’ll try that. I’m messing around with my .40 calibre now, and it will shoot the first conical shot perfectly, but follow up shots are all over the place…but the cold bore shot is always dead on. Frustrating….

I know that once I started wrapping the projectiles with Teflon tape, 100 yrd groups shrank down to 2” to 3” from 8” to 10”…this was back in the day when I could actually shoot those groups at 100 yrds…eyes not as solid as they once were.

Lubing the bottom ring, wow, I’ll try that and post my findings. It may take awhile, but yeah…once I have the data, I’ll post my findings.

 

[morehops52]

After reading here I started lubing bottom ring only. Groups have been good but I can't say that they're that much better. Less lube used is good but I did find that loading became harder than fully lubed ones.

 

[LeonardC]

I better start putting my PreLoader in the safe. Handy item that can't be replaced. It seems like just yesterday I bought it.

Thanks for the information on lubing. Lots of good ideas I'll have to try some of them.

 

[nhmoose]

https://rmcoxyoke.com/product/rmc-maxi-luber/

 

[tom_in_vt]

That plastic device probably hasn’t been made by TC in well over 20 years.

RMC oxyoke sells them for around $10.

 

[SDSmlf]

RMC oxyoke sells them for around $10.

Are they different than the ones @nhmoose posted a link to in the post just before yours back in July? Quite different than original T/Cs, but serve the same purpose.

 

[stikshooter]

Are they different than the ones @nhmoose posted a link to in the post just before yours back in July? Quite different than original T/Cs, but serve the same purpose.

Irrelevant if you lube by hand (BOTTOM GROOVE ONLY)