I'm looking for good, tried lube recipes. I'm thinking about trying the old high lithium grease and beeswax routine, as well as others. I've heard of other recipes involving toilet wax rings, and even vaseline based recipes. What have you tried? What did you like/dislike about it? What kind of velocities are you looking for? I'm looking for about 2200-2300 fps max. myself. Does anyone make their own hard lubes? What do you use? I'm tired of buying lube, I make almost everything else, so why not lube?
Bullet lubes
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3,366 Posts
Bob,
Although many things here at Beartooth have been put on the back burner due to my health issues this spring, I still have a Tech Note in the works on bullet lubes. We spent two entire months testing and evaluating bullet lubes this winter, every commercial bullet lube available as well as a whole host of other lube recipes, some rather well known, some generated in-house here at Beartooth. The upcoming Tech Note will have a whole host of bullet lube recipes, some good, some very good, some very poor, and the testing results and outcomes for each. It won't be too long in the future and we'll put it up, I still have some formatting of the data to do and some photographs to get before it's ready for the web, but you'll find the information most useful I'm sure!
God Bless,
Marshall
Although many things here at Beartooth have been put on the back burner due to my health issues this spring, I still have a Tech Note in the works on bullet lubes. We spent two entire months testing and evaluating bullet lubes this winter, every commercial bullet lube available as well as a whole host of other lube recipes, some rather well known, some generated in-house here at Beartooth. The upcoming Tech Note will have a whole host of bullet lube recipes, some good, some very good, some very poor, and the testing results and outcomes for each. It won't be too long in the future and we'll put it up, I still have some formatting of the data to do and some photographs to get before it's ready for the web, but you'll find the information most useful I'm sure!
God Bless,
Marshall
Marshall- I'm delighted to see you on the board again! I look forward to your Tech notes on bullet lubes. Being a caster, I'm kind of an independent cuss, I don't like to "have" to buy components. Quality lubes aren't difficult to make, and I'm always looking for new ideas.
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51 Posts
I've cooked up quite a few batches of my own. Some were from other recipes posted by others, some were my own inspiration. Here are a few tidbits I've learned:
- buy used saucepans at a thriftstore for 25 or 50 cents
- a used wire whisk is a must
- melt everything outside, the stink from cooking lube can be horrendous
- beeswax can usually bee (hah) found from honey distributors, I use the natural colored stuff versus the whitenend stuff
Alox and beeswax is pretty good. buy a pound of beeswax and dump some Lee liquid alox in, stir around and you've got a good serviceable lube. I've also used moly-graphite grease with beeswax and liked it but some who test these things seem to think solids (moly, graphite powder) hurt your accuracy.
One that I've been monkeying with lately has 1 lb. of boat trailer wheel bearing grease, 1 lb. of candlewax, 3/4 lb. of beeswax, 1/3 rd pound of vaseline, and some grated Ivory soap to hold it all together. Melt everything in a big saucepan and stir-stir-stir. Adjust wax levels till you have the consistency about like peanut butter (not chunky). I like lubes that are on the soft side.
This one has been better than I had hoped for. The stearate in the soap really binds everything so if you have some lube that is runny or too greasy add some ivory soap grated fine.
I too look forward to Marshall's technote. Once you start cooking up lube you look at greases and waxes in a different light. I've been tempted to try bacon grease in a lube but that might make me and the bears hungry when I shoot. <!--emo&
--><img src="http://beartoothbullets.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=''><!--endemo-->
- buy used saucepans at a thriftstore for 25 or 50 cents
- a used wire whisk is a must
- melt everything outside, the stink from cooking lube can be horrendous
- beeswax can usually bee (hah) found from honey distributors, I use the natural colored stuff versus the whitenend stuff
Alox and beeswax is pretty good. buy a pound of beeswax and dump some Lee liquid alox in, stir around and you've got a good serviceable lube. I've also used moly-graphite grease with beeswax and liked it but some who test these things seem to think solids (moly, graphite powder) hurt your accuracy.
One that I've been monkeying with lately has 1 lb. of boat trailer wheel bearing grease, 1 lb. of candlewax, 3/4 lb. of beeswax, 1/3 rd pound of vaseline, and some grated Ivory soap to hold it all together. Melt everything in a big saucepan and stir-stir-stir. Adjust wax levels till you have the consistency about like peanut butter (not chunky). I like lubes that are on the soft side.
This one has been better than I had hoped for. The stearate in the soap really binds everything so if you have some lube that is runny or too greasy add some ivory soap grated fine.
I too look forward to Marshall's technote. Once you start cooking up lube you look at greases and waxes in a different light. I've been tempted to try bacon grease in a lube but that might make me and the bears hungry when I shoot. <!--emo&
--><img src="http://beartoothbullets.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=''><!--endemo-->
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