Danged Pinholes

RBHarter

RBHarter

West Central AR
I cast my first bullet in 2007 and lubed it with Darrs lube. By 2008 I was regularly shooting about 1" per 10 yd off hand Weaver stance with the 6" 357 Sec6 and 7.5" RBH 45 Colts . With full tilt loads , 1200 fps 158s and 1050 fps 255s and a little Marlin carbine in 357 that would run 1550 + .
Some may remember my difficulties with an 06' that had 4" with both ends clean and a generous lube star with 11" of lead from doom in the middle . Short version the rifle had a lifetime of super heavyweight jackets and the bbl was swollen where the powder charge really came to life . No big deal now ,then dispare and depression . A few lapping rounds and that problem was solved. The chamber will take .314 but it's .309 when it leaves the muzzle .
Anyway Darrs lube 18 paraffin, 14 Vaseline, 3 tbsp STP rather that the 16/16/2. Oz plz.

Fast forward same lube end of the batch actually still kills hogs dead out of an unleaded 20" Colts carbine pushing 1425 and it works fine in 2400 fps 27&28 cal and over 2500 in 222/223 . I suppose I should try something else but 5 hogs and a mulie with jacketed velocities in some cases with 1.5" groups is pretty to hard to argue a need to change things especially in rifles that offer 2+" groups with factory ammo.

"KISS" , big sign over the benches .
 
Ian

Ian

Notorious member
Darr lube is very very good for accuracy within its limits. It would also be excellent for Chris' project.

The stuff works by doing liquid NOW under pressure (paraffin wax is good at doing that, no heat required, just squish it and it goes runny) so there is no varying solid/liquid transition. The STP is a big load of zinc EP additives and polybutene tackifier in a paraffin oil base, which is what does all the work. The rest is just a transparent delivery system. Notice how little of the slickum component there is relative to the carrier and middle modifier....that is no accident.
 
RBHarter

RBHarter

West Central AR
So I got lucky with the stuff I had laying around and it happens to work even when I go fast.....
Dumb luck is as good as any.
 
I

Intheshop

Banned
Looked up the word enigma/enigmatic this a.m. ,to my complete amazement...and a bit of frustration there was not one definition with cast bullet LUBE mentioned.

Who's got one of those big honkin English Oxford dictionaries?You know,the one that looks like auto parts store catalogs' from back in the 60's.....150,000 pages.
 
KHornet

KHornet

Well-Known Member
My two cents at this point: I cast fast and hot, am a firm believer in Bullplate, or substute, no timing,
I cut as soon as sprew starts to change color. I tend to cast a harder alloy than most on this forum, w/
emphasis on small cal bullets. For pistol, I use mostly range scrap, with addition of handful of monotype.
for a BH of 12-14. I don't necessarily recommend what I do for anyone else, it is just that I am quite
satisfied with what I do.
 
Chris C

Chris C

Active Member
Ian said:
Darr lube is very very good for accuracy within its limits. It would also be excellent for Chris' project.

The stuff works by doing liquid NOW under pressure (paraffin wax is good at doing that, no heat required, just squish it and it goes runny) so there is no varying solid/liquid transition. The STP is a big load of zinc EP additives and polybutene tackifier in a paraffin oil base, which is what does all the work. The rest is just a transparent delivery system. Notice how little of the slickum component there is relative to the carrier and middle modifier....that is no accident.
Click to expand...

So what's the formula for Darr lube?
 
RBHarter

RBHarter

West Central AR
My shooting is all built around the hunt . A typical deer season can run from 80 degrees to sub freezing .
At the time more wax was all I had at my disposal for keeping the lube in the grooves ( you know the expression just enough knowledge to be dangerous , that's what I had) . I was working pistol loads with 80 degrees at 7 am pushing 90 by 9 and the lube was literally oozing out of the cases .
Keeping in mind all of the above and my pm, I figured take away 12% of the softener and add stiffener it should have some more slickum' make up the difference.

It worked and still does up to about 105° and full sun and down to about 40° for sure . I can't say it is a magic elixir but it does what I need it to do.
 
Chris C

Chris C

Active Member
Makes sense if you can "tune" it to your needs. So the actual formula is 16oz paraffin, 16oz Vaseline and 2 Tblsp STP?
 
fiver

fiver

Well-Known Member
temperature affects lube performance.
your looking for a certain viscosity.
that viscosity can change when the temperature does.
so tweaking a popular lube to suit your particular environment is one way to get there.

I started out my lube experiments by re-working BAC with lanolin and some Vaseline.
and by re-working some ozokerite lube into just being a partial base component.
8 lbs of 4895 and 4 months later... siiigh.
 
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