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homemade bullet lude

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2016 8:01 am
by ballkeeper
do you make your own bullet lube if so whats works for you,

Re: homemade bullet lude

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2016 8:54 am
by dodgyrog
I use some fully synthetic 2 stroke oil in mine along with beeswax and other secret constituents!

Re: homemade bullet lude

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2016 10:53 am
by bewildered
I've tried all sorts over the years from mixtures of beeswax and water pump grease with added vaseline and molybdenum grease. To be honest all seemed to be OK compared with commercial stuff. Mind you I wasn't sending bullets down barrels at great speeds and still don't. My latest is a mix of beeswax and lithium grease with a bit of red oil soluble food colour (to make it more interesting), as I recall 60% beeswax and 40% lithium grease, melt it all together and pour it into pots. It's quite hard so doesn't melt in summer. I've used this on lead bullets through my 357 Marlin at 750fps with no leading. Because I'm a lazy sod I mostly use Lee Alox though, squirt a bit on the cast bullets, shake them up, size them through a Lee die, another squirt and shake, then leave them to dry. There is though nothing like a shiney, nicely lubed bullet.
I also find a blob of this lube does a good fluxing job when melting lead for casting.
Every caster and luber seem to have their own recipe and most seem to work. I'm sure there are loads on this web site. Dromia would certainly know.

Re: homemade bullet lude

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2016 4:43 pm
by dromia
I gave up making lube for smokeless ammunition when the White Label range of lubes came out, cheap and effective, I use 2500 exclusively. Life is too short to make lube when such good stuff is available.

FWFL ( Felix's World Famous Lube) is a very good recipe but takes some making. Bullshop's Speed Green, what dodgyrog is using, is a lot easier to make and very good.

I still make my own BP lube, tallow beeswax and lanacote. Emmerts and Gatefos No1 are a bit more sophisticated but I have never needed the benefits they claim. Over the past year I have been trialling Randyrat's BlackTac and I am getting more and more impressed so I am thinking of getting a couple of stone in so I won't have to make my own BP lube either.

Re: homemade bullet lude

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2016 5:49 pm
by ballkeeper
parafin wax ,
petroleum jelly ,
redex teaspoon
crayons 5 to colour

what iam doing,but feel it could be a tny bit more firmer

Re: homemade bullet lude

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2016 6:06 pm
by dromia
Be careful adding crayons they can have abrasives in them, never use them myself as they don't add anything but colour which is rarely seen when loaded. Adding more paraffin will stiffen the mix.

I like simple mixes the less ingredients the better the lube in my experience.

Re: homemade bullet lude

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2016 6:15 pm
by ballkeeper
food colouring instead ? yup gonna add more paraffin thanks,its all fun

Re: homemade bullet lude

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2016 11:24 pm
by Dark Skies
I've not tried this but it seems to me a tin of old fashioned motorcycle chain lube would work pretty well.
In ye old days we'd lube mo'bike chains by putting them in a factory supplied tin of grease and gently heat the lot until it melted and saturated the links.

Re: homemade bullet lude

Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2016 7:32 am
by dromia
The thing about bullet lube is that its lubricating quality is its least important attribute.

Lubricating in the normal sense of use isn't why we "lubricate" our bullets. So what works for normal lubrication "tween metal and metal is not necessarily what we need for our bullets.

Re: homemade bullet lude

Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2016 7:54 am
by ballkeeper
i pan lube 50 or so at atime, seen other mixes in a roll, could they be used for pan lubing to