"Four Quarters" bullet lube

[Ian]

This was Pete's latest concoction following 666+2, and I'll be danged if I can remember what it was. The site where I know it was documented has been cleared out, and I don't think I posted exactly what it was here back when I remembered.

So Brad, Fiver, anyone hear from Pete anymore or remember me sending you a PM about the lube?

I THINK it was Beeswax, Vaseline, Paraffin, and Ivory soap, equal parts by weight.

 

[Brad]

I do not recall that one. I will check some messages and see.

 

[Brad]

What you mention as the "four quarters" would certainly handle heat well.

 

[Ian]

And cold. Pete had figured out that ATF was a no-go in extreme cold and started working on Mike's version of the soap lube. After working with SL-68 variants I think he ended up pretty much starting over with an oil-less base that included paraffin, sort of the same thing Barn and I were fooling with last. I thought it interesting that between Four Quarters, SL-71, and SL-68B (Jon's lube) we were all having good results at a variety of temperatures. Seems that beeswax is what was missing from most of my SL experiments to finally calm it down and at least in Pete's case made any additional oils unnecessary. I want to see if Four Quarters will work at high velocity and in the heat, though the heat is about done here for the year.

 

[yodogsandman]

Eutectics version of 6 oz of beeswax, paraffin and Vaseline, 1 oz ivory soap and 1% castor oil + 1% jojoba oil?

 

[yodogsandman]

Eutectics version of 6 oz of beeswax, paraffin and Vaseline, 1 oz ivory soap and 1% castor oil + 1% jojoba oil?

Do you guys remember helping me out on the other forum?
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?267799-First-attempt-at-making-666-1-frustration

 

[Brad]

Man that seems like a lifetime ago.

 

[fiver]

I sent Ian a PM with some updated information from Pete about the 4 quarters lube.

the 666 lube got modified to 666-1 lube with the soap addition.
I think Mike finally broke down on the soap addition after some discussion and thought on the matter, airc it helped the warmer weather end without any sacrifice on the cold end.
he was showing a lot of trepidation after we had the vertical stringing issues with the [61 series] that's when we found the stearates were necessary as a detergent with the higher soap lubes.

 

[Ian]

I hope Pete doesn't mind me dropping this here, it's great info. Miss you Pete, and thanks for responding to the "APB" so soon. hope you can drop by sometime for some virtual coffee!

"I glanced at the other site and saw Ian mention my 4Q lube I had told him about a while back..... I don't post much anymore and can't post over there. Could you post this over there or see that Ian gets it? Thanks.

I started 4Q one day on a whim by melting 25% Beeswax, 25% Paraffin, 25% 180* Microwax, and 25% Vaseline together. It was a little soft but was accurate in everything I tried it in! I added another 2% Beeswax and liked how it handled... finger lubed much better. Used it in three guns on ground squirrel one day almost 300 rounds No problems, no loss of accuracy! One gun was a .22 Hornet using the NOE 37gr at 2850fps! Boy did that 'blow' squirrels! I got a little heavier antimony 'wash' in full bore .30-30 but accuracy was good and it wiped out easy.

I modified it to 4Q green + 3.2 and it is still a simple lube but one of my best lubes ever for cold starts! I use a lot of this! It is by weight:
27.2% Beeswax
23.5% Paraffin
23.5% MW 180 melt
20.8% Vaseline
1.7% Green Assembly Goo
3.2 % ISO 100 Polyolester (AC oil)
The Assembly Goo is for color.
This is my go to 4Q variation and is a great lube for me and simple to make. I've also increased Vaseline to 22.5% and used 3.2% Motul 2T POE 2 stroke oil with the same exact excellent results. I've gone to -5* below zero without any signs it wouldn't go colder....

Keep those ester oils low like you were mixing 2 stroke fuel. (30 or 40 to 1) My secret to using them without getting slippery or causing cold start problems.

Pete"

 

[fiver]

I think if someone didn't have the assembly goo they could just bump the Vaseline that extra percentage point or leave it out altogether.
or just replace the Vaseline with it if that's all they had.

 

[Ian]

Eutectics version of 6 oz of beeswax, paraffin and Vaseline, 1 oz ivory soap and 1% castor oil + 1% jojoba oil?

I remember that one, it showed a lot of promise.

It has become apparent that a thorough blend of waxes from soft to hard, micro and macro, is the best solution for a carrier. Simple lube and many other highly successful recipes prove that within a certain temperature range, no metal soaps are necessary even for extremely high velocity, and in a lot of instances can be a detriment. However, there's the high-temperature range that some of us deal with, and making an essentially melt-proof lube that is soft, not too sticky, and has a superior boundary lubrication quality is the ticket. I still think that a multi-wax, multi-stearate base blend with a pinch of synthetic ester or castor blend is going to be the ticket for that.

Pete, you said a mouthful with the comment about mixing ratio with the POE oil, same goes for castor bean oil and the PAO synthetics. Brad and I have talked and worked with that a bunch, and every time we go past 2% in any recipe we have purge flyers. I think we even talked about that on the Extreme Lube thread too, deciding that if 50:1 was good enough to keep pistons from seizing at 15k rpm, it was plenty for bullets.

 

[Ian]

I think if someone didn't have the assembly goo they could just bump the Vaseline that extra percentage point or leave it out altogether.
or just replace the Vaseline with it if that's all they had.

I think stick with Vaseline. Some of the 2-cycle oils like the Motul, Red Line, and K2 all have dye in them if you need the color.

I tried and tried and tried to make AG work with soap lube, and the only time it did was when beeswax was the only wax and I made the lube "backwards" by adding the wax below the gel point of the soda grease to prevent scorching. That made a sort of "creme" lube, not fully homogenized, but after it sits for a while it does ok. The AG and soap tended to make the mother of all purge flyers when BW wasn't used. I sent Brad some of the paraffin/AG/soap lube (SL-61) and IIRC he called it "Flubber", it was really neat stuff and the best I could do before Jon figured out how to get beeswax into the matrix at 450° without scorching the hell out of it. However, I shot several 3/8" groups at 100 yards with the SL-61, finding that I had to shoot five shots of something else first and then shoot five with the SL-61. I was still working on variants of that which included the separate additions of ATF, ester, and PAO oils @2-5%, somewhere around SL-63 and conversing with Felix (even sent some samples to him for his sons to try) when he passed. If the SL-61-63 wasn't a lesson in CORE I don't know what was. Well, maybe the plastic lube I made which would shoot two tiny groups an inch apart from the same string at 100 yards, putting two into one and the third into another over and over.

 

[fiver]

that mirrors what I was getting with the 61 lube.
I was using my 22-250 with a slower twist barrel and 22.5grs of 4895 for about 2500 fps.
the first 4-5 were tiny little 1 hole groups then zoop the next one would go up about 1-1/2"s then I would get up down up down and never could get it to settle down until I completely let the barrel cool off or pushed a patch down the barrel. [while it was still hot]
I sent a group of weight sorted boolits down to southern Utah and warned the user of the tendency and had him take notes.
he encountered the same thing, tiny groups then vertical dispersion.
I still have a cup full 8mm, and some 223 boolits lubed with the 61 that I need to clean the lube out of the grooves or mix in with some other lubed ones.

 

[freebullet]

Very interesting info. Thanks for sharing it. I would imagine 2850 would really tear up squirrels. Like summersalt in the air fun.

-5 will learn ya something. Saving formula for future testing.

 

[gman]

I had convinced myself I didn't need to make anymore lube. Then this thread showed up! I tried the 666+1 but cold barrel shots continued to be a problem in my 1895 Marlin. Might need to tweak it and try again. This is a good place to continue the learning curve with the people on this board.

 

[Grump]

Been poking around again trying to get updated again and thought I saw something about these soap lubes being "cleanable" (in so many words) with just hot water. Can't melt them out at reasonable temperatures, but...a large portion of it is SOAP.

I'm now considering:
SL-71 if it really delivers good accuracy, no cold-start flyers, no high-temp flyers, no hard deposits in the bore, no mysteries and nothing is noticeably more accurate...without that troublesome beeswax.
or
Barn’s SL-68 variant, (same requirements as above, applies to all I'm gathering reports on)
or
SL-68B (back to the beeswax)
or
4Q green + 3.2 but leaving out the assembly goo. Don't care that much about color and I DO like shorter ingredients lists IF they work well.
or
SL-68B.2 (another one from Barn)

But I can't remember just what "magic" the beeswax adds that makes the later developments better than SL-68.1...

AND if soap lubes can be hot watered out of a lubri-sizer with some judicious brushing or whatever, one of these soap lubes just might be my boolit lube for as long as I am still casting.

But I gotta have accuracy.

 

[fiver]

the beeswax brings in ester alcohols, and larger pores to the mix.
it also has a friction value and flex that,,,,,, well,,,, isn't plastic like, and doesn't go to an instant full flow under pressure.

one other thing I have noticed it does is it leaves a slight amount of foam on the top of the lube.
this is [IMO] extra water [and some impurity's] being pulled out of the mix as it cools.
no big deal to just scrape that bit off.

 

[Eutectic]

4Q green + 3.2 but leaving out the assembly goo. Don't care that much about color and I DO like shorter ingredients lists IF they work well.

Might want to read here (post #37) before you sell Assembly Goo down the river.... Re-formulating lube from the rocking chair vs. testing is sometimes a slippery slope!

http://www.artfulbullet.com/index.php?threads/bullet-diameter-vs-lube-amount.1933/page-2

 

[Brad]

I have a feeling that if Pete included the AG in the lube then it is a good thing. Making a change just because is never a good thing. Think it thru, make a batch, and see what really happens.

If you "gotta have accuracy" then stay with a lube that has been shown to give accuracy. Pete is testing for cold weather, first shot, accuracy.

 

[Ian]

I sent AG down the river back somewhere around SL-63. Made some with a very small percentage ATF as the slickifier, some with castor oil, some with ISO-100 polyolester oil, compared all three and they all had problems. Sent a bit of each to Felix for Brandon to test, never heard back from Brandon. That stuff was all running about 1/3 AG as the whole middle modifier, that could have been the reason all formulas demonstrating a terrific cold-start problem. Back then I was testing "gross" ingredients, as in trying to use a lot of a particular kind of something in a formula, wring it out and see what it had to offer and what side-effects it had. I was also testing two different kinds of transmission assembly lube, the AG and the TransJel. The AG was paraffin-based and the Transjel was more...whatever it is (I forget, it's the same class of molecule as group II base stocks and microwaxes).

I'm leaning toward Barn's B.2 as the go-to for hot weather at this point. It's splitting hairs, really, lots of very good soda soap recipes to choose from at this point.