Oils

[358156 hp]

Brads thread would be incomplete without someone asking the same question regarding the oils used in lube making. I won't list the ones I know because there are a lot more used than I'm aware of. I keep some of the basics around here, but am still working diligently to use up my last ten sticks of LBT Blue.

 

[Pistolero]

Ben uses the Red Hitack grease, Glen uses a black molybdenum disulphide grease in his
lube, and the one I am about to make uses a simple, no frills lithium grease, I will be using Walmart
store brand SuperTech, which is the same as MAG1 by Warren Industries.

The lube gurus with the big hats, I believe (please correct me, if wrong!), call these "oils" along with actual oils like ATF, AC ester
oils, etc.

Right on the edge of saying more than I know, so stopping!

I would like to know if anyone has a clue what is in LBT soft blue. It is a really good one,
in my experience.

Bill

 

[Ian]

I have a pretty good idea what's in LBT Blue as well as the proportions, but out of respect for Veral and Paco Kelly who developed the basic recipe (ApacheBlu) I'll keep mum on that for a few more years. The "soft" is one of the best all-around bullet lubes I've ever used.

Oils. Well, not much to discuss. Oil is oil and grease is oil gelled with (usually) some sort of metal salt. For bullet lube there are many kinds of oil to use, and I divide them into two classes: Plasticizers and friction modifiers.

Plasticizers soften the hard waxes to a usable consistency. Those that tend to work best are paraffin oils with low viscosity indices because they soften wax to a workable consistency at room temperature without making the lube functionally more slippery. You want your lube to have some "friction" to it in the gun barrel.

Friction modifying oils as I refer to them in bullet lube are things like castor bean oil, ester two-cycle engine oil, Canola oil, and other high-powered, polar oils. These are only really necessary to fulfill boundary lubrication needs at very high velocity and pressure, usually in long rifle barrels, where the lube is under high pressure and very high speed shear forces for enough time that the wax thins past it's ability to meed the dynamic film strength needs of the system. Castor bean oil and ISO-100 polyolester oils are superb for boosting the film strength of molten waxes that last little bit under extreme conditions. The caveats with these oils is LOW TREATMENT PERCENTAGES if you do actually require them, and, well, 95% of the cast bullet shooters out there won't require them because they just aren't stressing their lube very much. Just like in a two-cycle engine requiring a pre-mixed lubricant for the crankshaft bearings and piston rings, you need a very special oil at only around 2-3% of the fuel volume to do the job. Anything more makes an engine smoke, fouls plugs, and in a rifle will make the bore too slippery and make groups very erratic.

 

[Brad]

I have come to believe the same as Ian. The oils really aren't needed until we get into extreme conditions.
Ester oil, like the AC 100 I used, is scary good. It doesn't take much to cause more trouble than it helps. I would bet that even 1/2 percent in the lube is enough. It isn't going to burn up or gum up in the bore. It does make a good sprue lube too, it is all I use.
Castor oil is good but requires some help to stay in the mix. Bleed out has been a bit of an issue, this is why Felix lube has the hearing with mineral oil first.

I think many lubes are heavy on the grease or oil. Having seen lube purging first hand I try to avoid that type of lube. I have modified some recipes by adding far more beeswax and microwax just to calm the oils down.

One place the oils, or grease, can make a difference is in cold weather. Here a wetter lube can help to reduce first shot, cold bore flyers. Microwax can get kinda sticky in the cold and some oils help alleviate the issue.

Temperature is the big issue with all this. A lube that does great at 20 degrees may become miserable at 90 degrees. The reserve can be even more true. Want to get even more extreme? Ask Pete about cold bore testing at 15 below.

 

[Eutectic]

Ester oil, like the AC 100 I used, is scary good. It doesn't take much to cause more trouble than it helps. I would bet that even 1/2 percent in the lube is enough.

Yep...... And you'd win that bet Brad!

Good post with good information.

Pete

 

[358156 hp]

Okay, so what about the engine assembly lubes? I still have a bottle of Clevite Assy Lube, and am curious where this sort of lube could fit into the picture. It is tacky & stringy like Lucas treated oils.

 

[Ian]

Depending on which kind of Clevite lube you have (bearing guard or cam lube), it could be a fortified NLGI #0 or #1 lithium EP grease or it could be an oil mixed with extreme-pressure zinc compounds (either alkyl or dithiophosphate) and thickened with lots of polybutene or butylene. Some of the newer stuff has polyethylene as an EP modifier, I've actually made really neat grease with plain oils and melted PP. HDPE also makes a pretty good lubricating grease thickener. I think Fuchs oil of Europe has been toying with polypropylene EP engine oil additives for years to replace zinc and sulfur compounds in engine oils, that's where I got the idea to compound this stuff myself. That and the odd gentleman from Sweden who formulated high-speed coupling grease that has a polymer thickener formulated to be the exact molecular weight of the base oil and thus immune to centrifugal separation.....

The "liquid", honey-like assembly lubes can be considered high-powered, concentrated, improved STP for all intents and purposes. They are also pretty toxic and shouldn't be allowed on the skin.

 

[Brad]

Then there is tranny lube......

 

[358156 hp]

Caitlin?

 

[Brad]

Luckily, no.

 

[Pistolero]

Lets not get too creepy.

 

[Brad]

Bill, that stuff was actually used in a few runs of lube. It was something Ian wanted to try as a potential wax modifier. It wasn't bad but it wasn't the answer either.

At least I have some on hand in case I decide to rebuild my transmission?

 

[Ian]

SL-61 through 63 I believe. The stuff you called "flubber" was simply equal parts paraffin, AG, and soap. Shot the best groups ever in my 336, BUT I had to season the bore beforehand with five shots using something else first, then got a ringer of a 5-shot group with the flubber, then it went to hell. Every time. But to shoot an "impress your friends" hole in the "threes", that's one way to do it, and it taught me a LOT about the importance of lube to groups, and about CORE.

 

[Pistolero]

Ian, that is amazing.

I did a short test of SL68, Felix and what I call RedMax, based on a recipe Brad has for a lube I bought
a number of years back from 357 Maximum on the old site, which had worked well for me.

In any case, I shot four 5 shot groups from prone with my Kimber 1911 with each lube.....and proved that it will shoot a 2.5 to 3 inch
group with 4.0 TG, new R-P brass and CCI-300 primers, under H&G 130s with any of them, although it seemed
like the first group with a new lube....expecting it to be bad, was often better than the subsequent 3 with the same
lube. But still statistically a small sample.

Also, I think that I need to be doing this with my most accurate 1911, the Pointman 7 from Dan Wesson, which has
shot a number of 1 inch groups at 25 yds. The Kimber isn't really any more accurate than that, and at least it shows
that none of those lubes screw it up. It does seem like PERHAPS the RedMax was a bit better. Will make up another
batch and run them thru the PM7.

"Curiouser and curiouser", said Alice.

Who knew she was into cast bullets?

Bill

 

[Ian]

The only issue with that test is that Uncle Bubba's tobacco spit will work in a 1911 as well as anything.

They just aren't that picky. Try 100 yards minimum, and a 16" barrel minimum and you will begin to be able to separate the goop from the good lubes.

 

[Brad]

TNT is an awesome handgun lube, one of the best I have used. Low odor, low smoke, leaves little residue on the gun. I say handgun because it is horrible in a rifle.

Flubber was what I called it because it had a rubbery feel to it.

Many of those lubes weren't failures, they taught us what didn't work and helped lead us in new directions. Things like learning that wet lube stars often mean lube purging is likely. A scant, dry lube star is what I want, nothing more than that.

Ian is right. Use a good, accurate rifle. Shoot a few 10 shot groups and plot the shots, in order, and see what patterns develop. Let the rifle sit for 20 min between groups, or longer, and see where that first shot goes.

 

[Reed]

... Many of those lubes weren't failures, they taught us what didn't work and helped lead us in new directions. Things like learning that wet lube stars often mean lube purging is likely. A scant, dry lube star is what I want, nothing more than that.

I learn something with every trip to this forum. Brad, is the wet lube thing what's going on in my avatar, or do you mean "dripping wet"? This is after maybe 20 rounds coated with Recluse Lube. The lube star was pretty moist, but not liquid. I know we're talking about solid lubes, but possibly the same thing applies to tumble lube recipes?

 

[fiver]

your lube star is from the dry tumble lube going wet under pressure then resuming it's natural state only now mixed with carbon deposits.

god I remember the SL-61 groups.
I still have some 223 and 8mm bullets lubed with it.
it was the same thing Ian described here and in the samples I sent out.
everybody reported awesome 5 shot cold barrel groups then things quickly went down hill from there.
I seen it first hand and was super worried about getting it back out of the barrel.
I/we theorized that it was the excess soap in the lube laying down a coating that actually melted in the heat/pressure and allowed the bullets to 'float' over it taking away barrel contact.
I seen it happen to the soap itself when I subjected it to direct heat.
it acted like a wax at first then it went glassy-clear with some carbon on the fringes and just floated around on the surface.
it never dripped off, just more and more of the soap kept doing it.

but man the groups.
my 22-250 with 22.5grs of 4895 won't hardly shoot jacketed bullets that good.
and it didn't matter if it was sub-zero or hot it continued that same pattern.
it was pretty funny to shoot a 5 shot group, then have someone else shoot one and give them a bunch of crap about their shooting skills.
then let the rifle cool down and say I better see what you done to my rifle then shoot another tiny group and have them shoot another pattern.

 

[Ian]

Damn, that's funny! Created a monster with that recipe. I think the whole issue with Flubber was it didn't have a substantial wax in it, just canning paraffin, and I was relying on the soap to hold it together. It worked until either the barrel got just a little warm, or the last traces of the previous lube shot in the barrel get soaked out. Good news is you could make it from stuff you can buy at the grocery store, which IIRC was part of the point.

TNT was me trying to make a stiff enough grease to use by itself, with no wax. I had this crazy idea that all we needed was an ester oil for lube and a sponge to deliver it, that way we could patch our guns out with a patch soaked in Maxima K2 ester oil and be ready to rock with the first shot under any conditions. But there's a flaw in every plan....the soap cooked out above 30K psi and made a nasty varnish in the bore. The fix? Add 10% beeswax or microwax....and then you go straight to purge flyer city. Cut the oil back to 1% from 60% before that stops, then you have other problems cuz the wax needs tweaking to work in the cold, and I just threw in the towel and went back to paraffin plasticizers and micro/macro wax base blends stiffened with a little soap.

 

[Brad]

I learn something with every trip to this forum. Brad, is the wet lube thing what's going on in my avatar, or do you mean "dripping wet"? This is after maybe 20 rounds coated with Recluse Lube. The lube star was pretty moist, but not liquid. I know we're talking about solid lubes, but possibly the same thing applies to tumble lube recipes?

That is what it should look like.
Get a wet, drippy lube star and you will know it. By wet I mean oily and greasy. It often coincides with goo and grunge all over the gun.

A good, dry shooting lube generally leaves the gun cleaner too.