Another bullet lube tangent...

[Ian]

TnT was always clean for me, but not dry. It will grease-up a revolver all over, so much so it gets slippery to handle. Delayed-blowback autos always shot very clean with that lube and didn't get too oily. SL-68 and .1 are by far the driest-shooting lubes I've ever used, it's like there's no lube at all, even after several boxes of ammo. This NRAPP lube shoots almost as dry as SL-68. The revolver had absolutely no external residue on the cylinder or frame, and no lube star. I like it a LOT for that.

I guess it's time for nomenclature again. I'm going to call this NRA/polypropylene stuff "PP-3" because it's the third PP-based recipe I've tried, and continue on from there.

 

[Brad]

Did you wipe down the revolver at all? If not it will be interesting to see what it looks like after a few days. I find a blued revolver shows fouling better after a few days. The fouling seems to dry up and turn whitish.

The lack of a lube star is a good thing. My 44 mag shoots best when the muzzle shows just a hint of lube in the grooves on the crown but it doesn't like a wet star.

 

[Ian]

So an ounce. My three-ounce batch of PP-3 was enough to cover the base of a 3-quart aluminum pot almost a quarter-inch thick and I'd consider that just a fuzz too thick for a proper crash-cool. (I used the chilled pot bottom as a cooling plate).

I didn't wipe down the whole revolver, just took a cleaning patch and swiped the cylinder, frame, and barrel in a couple of places to see what was there. Nothing. Soap lubes always take a day or more to do ANYTHING, so far this PP stuff is pretty much what you see, you get. Once it cools from making it, it's completely stable. I'll keep an eye out for any haze formation, but I don't expect any.

 

[Ian]

Alright, I tried the ester oil. I melted 1K grains of the PP-3 and added 25 grains of AC-100 ester. I did my time in difficult math classes and like it as easy as I can make it. The conceal point dropped to 195F and the stuff got really flaky. It will still pack together with some effort, but cohesion (which was minimal with the PP-3) got worse, to the barely workable point. The cooking pot was MUCH easier to wipe out, though, the ester is a major non-stick additive for sure. 2.5% made a big difference indeed, the lube leaves a distinct, light oily feel on the fingers now. Funny how we can predict these things. 1% probably would have been plenty to change how it will shoot, but oh well. I did an informal abrasion test on a lubed steel plate and the lube definitely lost a lot of film strength. However, after finger-lubing 30 bullets and getting little pills of lube everywhere, I think the ester may not be so bad. The bullets had a much easier and more controlled, smooth squeeze through the sizer die whereas PP3 was a little "bumpy" (slip-stop tendencies) and almost gritty. I'll shoot some tomorrow if I get the chance and we'll see how she does.

What I think the lube really needs is a slippery "middle modifier" to balance the dryness of the Vaseline and give a silky glide without wetting out too much. Soy wax, Synester GY-HTO and maybe Cetyl Esters come to mind. I still have about half the container of HTO left from Bruce381's donations, maybe a couple tablespoons. That will be more than enough to do some thorough testing.

 

[Brad]

Made some with 10 g each gulf wax, beeswax, and Dr Tranny goo. I have no Vaseline on hand?
Added 3 g of PP. Wait a second, I think I screwed up and added 10 gr of PP. added maybe 1 g of Ester AC oil.
Took a fair bit of heat to get the PP all missed in, which makes sense because I used way too much.
The stuff is dry and a bit crumbly. I could probably get it mixed into a decent lube with some work but I don't know if it would stay in lube grooves very well.

Ian, mine is a mess but what I'm feeling is a need for microwax in place of gulf wax. Microwax brings a flew and adhesive nature that gulf wax lacks. It would help keep it in the lube grooves and help it be more cohesive.

I will likely scrape my back up, remelt it, and make it back into proper proportions. Shows what happens when I don't pay attention to what I'm doing.

 

[Ian]

How is it possible that you of all people don't have any Vaseline in the house? I am totally mind blown. Do you need me to mail you some?

Remember that Vaseline has microwax in it and you NEED that for cohesion when using paraffin. The tranny goo we're using is just paraffin oil, no branched stuff in there. Between lack of microwax and WAY too much PP, no wonder it was crumbly! I'm finding that about 10% PP in a wax/oil lube that will already stand on its own is about the practical maximum concentration. Less may be more, I just go by how much the melt point is raised and how much cohesion is lost from the PP addition. And you're right, the more PP you try to melt in, the harder it is. I think it's sort of like super-saturated solutions in that the more % you add, the more heat it takes to get it in there. The difference is, the PP doesn't precipitate out when cooled.

You might add a little (like 10%) micro crystalline wax and some paraffin oil to the mix, or even a bit more beeswax and less paraffin. I'm just making this up as I go by starting with an already "known quantity" for a basic recipe. My logic is that the NRA lube is a good formula but needs a little grease matrix stabilizer (6661) and a lot of melt-point boost to be useful to ME, and the PP used just as an additive instead of a base provides that. Where the PP might really shine is in a traditional lithi-bee sort of lube. My principle concern with PP is how it is going to behave under high pressure...the deposits at the end of the chamber might be a problem unless we can figure out how to cross-link the PP with some of the other ingredients and keep it from separating out.

 

[Brad]

All my Vaseline is already in lubes? I can get more tonight when I work.
I am actually thinking of using the 90 wt gear oil and microwax to make my own Vaseline of a sort.

This is certainly not any harder to make than the soap lubes and probably easier. I will get my stuff in order and make more.

 

[fiver]

Ian.
instead of the oil how about a little dip of some scented candle wax.
it would for sure act as a modifier without too much slippery.

 

[Ian]

Already have 1/3 Gulf wax in there, not the best stuff but it's available everywhere and *somewhat* consistently the same. You're not talking "Ranch Dipping" there, are you? The PP3 actually seems to need to be made a couple ticks softer and about one tick more slippery. Looks like the rain will hold off this evening and I might get some sort of preliminary answer to that with PP4 (2.5% ester 100) at the range. Stay tuned.

 

[Ian]

More testing, just withe the AR-45 this time. Too much oil I think. This stuff smokes like a freight train, strings a little bit vertically, and builds little black plastic stalactites on the flash hider. Other than that it was great.

 

[Brad]

Too bad someone didn't say to start with less oil.......

 

[Ian]

DOH!

 

[fiver]

laughing.

no I don't think dip lubing is the answer [lord knows I've done my share of it]
I was thinking that adding the scented wax to the mix would just bring something [less] than the oil but give that smoothness your looking for.

 

[carpetman]

Well the title is bullet lube tangent, so I'll go off on a tangent. Any of you guys making all these concoctions make any shoe polish (shoe wax)? I'm one of the very few people that still shines my shoes. Even the military doesn't seem to anymore, they wear plastic (corfam) shoes or suede boots with their camo uniform.

 

[Brad]

Polish shoes? Not familiar with that. I am aware that in the past it was a thing but have never done it myself.

 

[fiver]

shoe polish is super close to johnsons floor wax in make-up. [amount of solvent is different]
it has die in it that the floor wax don't.
the heat-rub-and buff technique Is used for both for a reason.

 

[Pistolero]

Still polish my shoes, of course not the running shoes and work boots, but have a
number of pairs of "work shoes" that were loafers or wingtips and always kept
them polished. Guess that is just old guy stuff now days.

 

[JonB]

Well, I hope one more tangent won't be a problem. Brad mentioned being out of Vaseline.
Look what I stumbled on last week, at a store called Milaca Unclaimed Freight, in Milaca MN.

Vaseline that is more yellow that the dollar store stuff (that I used in SL68B) that's almost clear.

Sometime back it was discussed that vaseline in the olden days was yellow and may be better for a lube like SL68. The labels on both of these claim 100% pure petrolatum. At room temp, the clear one spreads more like a smooth grease when I put some on the white glossy paper (shown in photo). The Yellow one spreads out like there is another ingredient in there that has slightly congealed the concoction, but once it's worked, it spreads on smoothly, like a pudding that is partially set.

 

[Brad]

You did buy all they had, right?
The really old stuff was even more yellow than that.

 

[JonB]

I bought the two you see.
I don't recall how many they had on the shelf.

That store is a liquidator, they rarely have the same items when they restock. I drive by the store when visiting my parents in northern MN. If I were to make a special trip, it'd be about 260 miles round trip...I don't want to do that