Bullet Lube?

[dennie]

I have been loading lead bullets in most of my reloads. Lead shoots good for me and I like the cost savings. Recently I was getting inconsistent OALs when loading some lead .45ACPs. After some investigating I found that the inside of my seating die was gummed up badly with bullet lube. I took the die apart and after some serious cleaning it is again working fine. Then I checked the rest of my die sets, and while they were not nearly as bad, they all had some lube in them. I went ahead and cleaned them all. Good to go.
While I was cleaning these dies I remembered finding several of the fired bullets around my target backstops. Most of these bullets look to have nearly all the lube still in the grooves. These bullets are from a couple different companies, but appear to have the same medium to dark blue waxy lube. Now my questions.
How does this lube actually work when the round is fired?
Why is most of the lube still on the bullet?
Thanx for the help.
dennie

[Don McDowell]

Bullet lube is supposed to "pump" out of the lube grooves in the bullet as the bullet travels down the barrel, leaving thin coat of lube on the barrel walls to prevent the lead from "tinning" to the barrel from the heat of the burning gunpowder.
Most commercial outfits use a lube that is hard enough to stay in the lube grooves during shipment, and while it does that for the most part, it does not do an exceptional job of coating the barrel.
Most folks that cast their own use a softer lube.
Cleaning the seating die is just a good thing to get in the habit of doing when loading mostly cast bullets.

[J Miller]

Dennie,

A lot of us call that crayola lube because it's as hard as crayon. Maybe made from them too.
This lube is put in under heat and pressure and works best, if it works at all, at higher pressures such as seen in magnum pistol cartridges and rifles.
It's used because it's cleaner when packaged and (usually) stays in the lube grooves of the bullets.
For most of the loads you'll shoot a softer lube (such as, but not limited to the old NRA 50/50 beeswax/alox mixture will work great. There are many other brands and formulas that will work, some better than others.

As for your dies they are just like your guns. They need cleaning occasionally. And the gunkier the lube, the more often they need cleaned.

Joe

[dennie]

Thanx Don. I do need to keep a better "eye" on my dies. This type of lube is very messy. I do not plan to cast my own, so will have to put up with what I have.
Recently I found that I can buy plated bullets from a dealer five minutes from my house. I have already bought some in .358 and 9mm, but they were out of .452. These are not much more expensive than the lead and they shoot fine. Plus, I can help support a neighbor!
dennie

[dennie]

J Miller, is there an easy way to clean the dies, like using Hoppe's? I just gently scraped most of it out with a wood dowel, then ran tight cloth patches thru them. That seemed to work OK.
dennie

[Chas.]

Some companies such as Chey-Cast offer bullets lubed for black powder. This is much better lube than the blue crayon lube and you can use it for smokeless powder. The converse is not true - don't use black powder with the the bullets lubed for smokeless.

As far as cleaning, I scrape the excess out of the die and then clean the residue with brake cleaner aerosol.

[Charles]

I agree about the worthless blue hard wax lube used by most commercial bullet casters.

to clean dies, I use plain old rubbing alcohol on an over sized bore brush. It evaporates off and doesn't leave any toxic residu around the shop for the cats to walk through.

[Sixgun]

After each session of loading cast bullets, I unscrew the seater die and put it in a pair of Channel Locks. I fire up the propane torch and let the flame go inside for about 5 seconds. A couple of cleaning patches pushed around by a set of needle nose pliers cleans 'em up like new.

[Blaine]

Alox seems to go where it's wanted without leaving a mess. I've been known to lube pre-lubed cast with it spareingly.

[Chuck 100 yd]

I use alox for most bullets I cast and shoot.
I do use SPG on any bullets that need to be pan lubed due to me not having dies to size them with.
The SPG is soft but shoots really well with Black or smokeless.

I do shoot a lot of commercial bullets for CAS and have no issues with leading from the hard blue lube that they come with.

[mikld]

I keep a coffee can of "soak" on my bench. It's mineral spirits, Marvel's Mystery Oil, and Kroil (about 1 qt., 4 oz., and 4 oz.). After a few loading sessions I'll drop my dies in the soak and leave them for a while (usually a day or two, until I remember them, but won't hurt if I don't remember for a week!). I take them out and drain on a rag, wipe them down and put them away. On some really gunked up dies I'll run a patch or two through, but usually just a "slosh and soak" will do. My Lee turrets fit w/o a prob. too...

How lube works; http://www.lasc.us/FryxellLubeCastBullets.htm Good article on bullet lube and what it does.

[dennie]

Thanx mikld, I did ask! Interesting the job of lube. Seems I have most of the lube left because most of my loads are well under 1000fps. Maybe I should step them up some! Perhaps I need to shoot my .45C lever guns more with some warm loads and see if I am using more lube. Maybe some 1200-1400fps .357 loads also.
Thanks to all for the info. I will clean my dies more often. Will also load more plated bullets.
dennie

[Moondawg]

Hoppes #9 works for me in cleaning old lube out of seating dies.

[J Miller]

J Miller, is there an easy way to clean the dies, like using Hoppe's? I just gently scraped most of it out with a wood dowel, then ran tight cloth patches thru them. That seemed to work OK.
dennie

Dennie,

I've used Hoppe's, break cleaner, carb cleaner, gas, and Simple Green. I can't say that any of it works better. You need to pull the seating stem out weather it's a large or small diameter stem and get in there with a brush or a patch and something to cut the lube.
I use an over sized fiber brush on mine then rags.

After cleaning I lightly lube them till the next time.

Joe

[kimwcook]

That was quite informational, mikld, about the bullet lube. Thanks.