Another bullet lube tangent...

[Ian]

I've been riding the lube-quest recovery wagon for a while now, but I fell completely off and bounced off a cliff again. That's what I get for hanging out with a bunch of enablers like all you bullet cranks.

So, here's what I did: First thing, make polymer grease. I've done this with polyethylene of various densities before, but more recent research points to homo-polymers of propene being a better choice. Having the information that one part high MW PP, 19 parts low MW PP, and 80 parts ISO 68 lubricating oil (of any type) is a good ballpark for a basic NLGI #2 grease, I set about working on that. Apparently "crash cooling" is critical to the proper formation of microscopic polymer chains. In practice, I don't have a "soft" enough polypropylene to work with, so around 10% ended up being the max I could use without the mix wanting to crumble. This made about an NLGI #3 grease with a medium-density polypropylene and Maxima K2 two-cycle engine oil and it has a drop point of around 150F. The Maxima has something like 20% polybutene, another interesting polymer. Anyway, grease done, will need to research some more proper ingredients to make a heavy-enough polymer grease to use on its own.

Since I had a good grease base, the obvious thing to do was add wax. So I made a 50/50 mix of the ester/polybutene/polypropylene and 180F micro-crystalline wax, and also a small sample using beeswax. Guess what? Beeswax will melt in fully with the pre-made polymer grease without scorching! The results of melting the grease together with either wax is something that could be considered bullet lube of a most ideal consistency, tack, flow, and "smearability". It isn't too slippery, either. I took some to my bullet-lube wear tester (after cleaning the dust and cat hair off of it, it's been under the drill press bench for a couple of years now) and it easily matches the best soap lube for film strength.

Next I made a mix using five grains beeswax, five grains 180 microwax, two grains polypropylene, and around 12 grains of K2. This is pushing just past the limit of how much PP can be used, it makes a firm, very tacky putty that almost wants to crumble, but not quite. Cool thing is the gel point is about 220F. I think adding just enough PP to a basic wax/oil lube formula to make the gel point about 180-200F will be about right. I'm already thinking of adding about 5-8% PP to a basic NRA beeswax/paraffin/Vaseline formula and seeing what sort of evil-ness that turns into.

Now to go see how badly I can coat a gun barrel with plastic! Wish me luck....

 

[frnkeore]

Good Luck

Frank

 

[Brad]

I am waiting to see how this turned out. Should be interesting. If nothing else there are many solvents that can remove plastic was fouling from shotgun barrels you can try.

 

[Ian]

Thanks, Frank!

We get away with using polyethylene buffer at near 60K psi, and that stuff melts over 100'F lower than the average polypropylene stuff, so I'm encouraged. Acetone and a bronze brush does a number on wad fouling, so that's my backup plan.

 

[Grump]

Looks like these guys could provide a stiffener wax: http://www.hpwax.com/synthetic_wax.htm

Not sure why the Navy Wax thread died, but I would like to see it replicated since it basically makes the soap lubes WORK and simplifies the production.

And I bet that something like that with a nice high melt point would soften up to just what we want if blended with your poly grease.

And here's more reading than you want: https://books.google.com/books?id=S...=onepage&q=c24 (wax OR paraffin) melt&f=false

 

[Brad]

Just because the navy wax thread has no new posts doesn't mean trying to replicate the usefulness of the wax died. Much goes on that is never reported.
Grump, you have lots of ideas. See them thru and let us know what happens. The more people doing the dirty work the faster it all goes.

This lube testing takes lots of time and effort. I haven't shot in a month and when I do, it will be for fun. Making and testing lubes quickly becomes a chore. It isn't always fun to shot the same gun and loads just to see failure in the first group and know you have 50 rounds of crap ammo to shoot up.

There have been many tangents along the way. Some haven't panned out, others have shown promise in some areas and not in others. TNT for instance is an excellent handgun lube but was a dud in rifles. One of the best handgun lubes I have tried yet but it will never be fired in my rifles again. That tangent needed lots of investigation, took a few months of my life to see if Ian was right. We both learned a bunch but we didn't find the Holy Grail of lubes.

 

[JWFilips]

Loving all this research stuff! (It appeals to my old suppressed scientific background).
I do like shooting for fun but just sometimes I will pound my head against a wall if I know I'm close to an answer. Either the wall's got to give or else!
Anyway....I should have read "way back" in this forum sooner....now I'm finding some really exciting stuff! ( not really up on all the anagrams but I will learn them)

 

[Ian]

TnT....oh yes. One of those crackhead ideas that actually panned out...mostly. I thought we had what we were after, but several others manned up and made/tested it themselves and found the chinks in the armor that might have taken me years to uncover. One person (I don't exactly remember who) discovered the lithium trick. That stuff absolutely excelled at a few things, and under certain circumstances could be a most dismal failure. I still keep a sizer full of it (made a full pound batch once, not an easy task) and use it for some things that play to its strengths. My Colt .38 Super loves it and never needs cleaning (OR OILING I might add!!!), my rough-as-a-cob cut-rifled Marlin will fling the first shot with any other lube, even Joe's. With 5% lithium complex grease added it doesn't de-oil and cause the brown goo syndrome at high velocity/pressure like the normal stuff, but the lithium made it a tiny bit too soft for my liking or I'd use it more (shoots fine, just a huge mess to handle). It's as close to a no-smoke lube as I've seen, and any clean or brand-new bore is instantly seasoned with one oiled patch.

It's been raining (insert you favorite colorful expression) here all week so I haven't been out shooting much. New lube to test and all. As for Navy wax, the important thing is to understand just WHY and HOW it worked; with that knowledge the effects are easily (thought not cheaply) duplicated.

A lot of what has happened has happened quietly. More things have been learned here than just about bullet lube, and that secondary knowledge leads a lot of us to work on some things in private. In a way people like Eutectic and Fiver have no real peers, it's like a mathematics professor asking an engineering undergraduate for input on a quantum mechanics problem. Sometimes less experienced folks have some really good ideas and unclouded perspective, but really, if you have a question like "are thixotropic qualities of benefit and to be purposely engineered into the lube, or are they a detriment?"....how many people will be able to offer a meaningful answer? How many could truly benefit from a definite answer? How many care? So we just test a lot of this ourselves and press on. When we come up with something that shows a lot of promise in early testing, then it gets talked about. Except this thread, the poly lube thing is pretty much uncharted territory except for my Vybar 103 and HDPE experiments from a few years ago, so I threw it out here for anyone in the think tank to chew on.

 

[Brad]

Never made TNT with lithium added, musta been fiver? That stuff is still as good a handgun lube as I have found. my Marlin lever guns all do well with it too, at least the pistol cartridge ones. Clean shooting, no smoke, no residue all over. Now my 375, it hated it. Never had a worse fouling in my life.

Ian is right, more testers using different guns makes for quick testing and discovering the warts on the lube. 5 guys can do the work far faster than a single guy. If each guy makes the lube on their own with a similar recipe it makes it even better.

 

[Ian]

It wasn't Fiver, dang I wish I could remember who. He found it when we were all over on that "other" (now-defunct) forum and you and I were hot-and-heavy into perfecting the cooking technique. Anyway, the lithium helps a bunch but after I verified that for myself I cooked up a big batch to use in the meantime and went back to grinding on the soap lube project, glad I did, that stuff has some advantages too now that I've got a workable recipe.

 

[Brad]

Hmmm, I wonder who then.
I am still using a variation of TNT in my Star. Mine has some microwax added, I can tell from the feel. It is the lube I used in y 44 mag shooting posted here. Awesome lube. I hope I have the recipe written down somewhere. Those dang envelope backs seem to get lost easily.

 

[fiver]

I was using Lithium to control the build up from the high soap lubes.

Ian you need a soft poly?
poly glycol, remember that flaming 3-am dash through the snow?
that was poly glycol at about 500-f.
however it remains flexible and flowable from -30 up to 400-f without issues.

I once attempted to mix nu-finish and anti-freeze by cooking the liquid out of both in the micro-wave [don't do that] looking to make a gloppy poly-ethylene glycol.
a long time reduction on the cooker might just work.

 

[Brad]

Poly-ethylene glycol is easy to get, well at least for me. What molecular weight do you want? I will see what I can get.

 

[fiver]

I'm interested in the poly lubes for sure.
I had a super long P.M. string going with Felix on the matter, and he fully believed the future of bullet lube is in poly's.
I just don't have the information to pull it off, and I'm not too sure I got the time to learn.

I did learn enough about it to know that the boolit coatings in use now [not powder coat] are cross-linked poly ethylene.

 

[Ian]

I'm trying to make a polyethylene ester, with no wax, and need (as always) a middle modifier. I'm not sure the glycerin part is the way to go, but maybe. Mainly I need a really soft plastic, like cold Vaseline. I gotta try the polyethylene/K2 ester oil grease by itself to see if I get plastic buildup. I'm back to the beginning where we theorized that getting rid of wax is the first step to getting consistent bore condition. I'm also trying to get away from metal salts entirely.

 

[fiver]

I think your gonna end up using something like acetone to float the poly's in.
getting it to evaporate making the whole matrix open up so that you can get a cross-link.
you may also have to figure a way to control Ph. most polymers want a low Ph to relax and lengthen out and then an increased PH to help them cross-link.

you might also need to find another chemical to help the crosslink along and maybe also a buffered cross-linker to help it stay that way in a temperature change situation.

 

[Brad]

If we have any high molecular weight PEG at work I will grab some and see what happens when it is heated with some ester 100 oil.

 

[Ian]

I didn't think about using solvent, I was relying on heat and the problem with heat is the way the polys want to make big, brittle, hard crystals when they cool which makes a grainy, crumbly lube. Using the right blend of HMW and LMW polyethylenes and quenching to room temp fast is supposed to drastically improve the fine-string formation when thickening oil with grease, that's what I'm working toward now. I'm still thinking in terms of a grease gellant rather than a homogenous, cross-linked putty because I think the oil does the work, especially in the cold, and we have to lock up the oil in "storage" but release it in a controlled manner under pressure, same thing we were doing with the metal soaps and microwaxes. Baby steps, you know! I might have to come up with some actual graded feedstocks and a very powerful microscope to actually see what I'm doing, though. Just using a flexy, plastic lid with a "5" recycle symbol doesn't tell me much.

 

[Ian]

Ack. I meant "polypropylene" in the last two posts, not polyethylene. PP has a much higher melt point than PE, though both can be used as grease thickeners.

 

[fiver]

getting the strands to relax and lay out flat is the key to a good smooth cross link.
also not over cross linking the final product will remove that lumpiness and improve cohesion of the final product.
you might be using too much of something.