Bullet Lube question

[huntaway]

My understanding is that "traditional" bullet lube is used to help keep the fouling soft. A bit of a mute point if you swab after every shot though.

HA

[MikePal]

My understanding is that "traditional" bullet lube is used to help keep the fouling soft. A bit of a mute point if you swab after every shot though. HA

That was my take as well.....the barrel is scraped and cleaned with every load.

[line052]

Hmmm. I am swabbing and cleaning every 5 shots...wonder if should up the times of cleaning...

[MikePal]

Hmmm. I am swabbing and cleaning every 5 shots...wonder if should up the times of cleaning...

I used to do it only when I could feel the crud ring...then I figured if I waited till it was so bad that I could feel it, then the 3-4 shots prior to the clean wouldn't be as accurate as the 3-4 shots after the clean.....so I got in the habit of swabbing between each shot....consistency

I'm sure some 'keener' will pipe in now and expound on how if we switch to BH209 we wouldn't have that problem....yea yea...I like my T7 and have another 2lbs of it to use before I go shopping

[huntaway]

I swab after every shot as part of my routine. Do you have too, no but it's what "I" do. Even when hunting I always have a few cleaning patches in my pocket for after shot swabbing. My theory is that I want to have consistentcy from one shot to the next. One way to get that consistency is to keep as few variables as possible in my loading process. I start with a clean barrel and if I keep a semi clean barrel through out my shoot I reduce one of those variables.

HA

[line052]

Makes sense to me, change is wonderful thing. It might improve the consistency with shooting as well. Love this forum for ideas and counter points of view, it’s how I learn and expand my knowledge.

[Marker]

I used to swab every shot then switched to every 3rd or 5th shot, that was with PRB. I will get back into swabbing after every shot when I start shooting the minies to duplicate the hunting scenario.

I did some (a lot) of research on the internet for the best lube and the consensus seems to use forms of the following:

At least 50% beeswax and then other forms of lube such as Crisco/ tallow/ Alox/ SCJ car wax (carnauba wax)/ STP oil treatment/ olive oil.

No BP shooters I found in what I read used just Alox alone, the closest I found was the NRA formula of beeswax and Alox.

In doing this research I found only one guy applying the lube by hand (hickock45 - his vids are quite good), all others used a 'pan' method. Hickock45 used BoreButter buts stated he preferred WonderLube (I assume the paste not the liquid that I bought in error), I would also prefer to lube by hand for now just to get started so does anyone else have any experience on what lubes and how to apply the lube by hand?

[huntaway]

Hey there Marker,

If you go the bee wax / whatever method, what you can do is stand all your bullets upright. Melt your lube and fill the pan with the bullets. Set aside to cool then just push them out of the cooled lube.

Speaking from experience, it's a messy job to lube by hand as your body temp tends to make the lube runny.

HA

[Marker]

Here is a pic of the target using a 45 Hawkens, we both took turns on the same gun that day as I forgot the 58 ammo at home and only had the 45 in operation. I was using minies and PRB with some test loads, my son fired the 6 tightest grouping. Below that is our setup on a different day with the three different sizes of minies and some PRBs we use in the musketoon:

Attachment 25716Attachment 25717

[Huntsman]

I use the LLA quite a bit. I cut the Alox with mineral spirits about 80/20 sometimes a little thinner (LL/spirits) for two reasons. 1) Get more out of a bottle 2) I pour into spray bottle, line up boolits in a row a spray entire surface.
This methods works for me with all my cast boolits, 170gr 30-30, 200gr .308, 250gr 375, 405gr 45/70, REAL bullet's;50,54 & 58.