CarboxyMethyl Cellulose

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Not using moly at all, just the carnauba like is often used on top of moly to cut the mess from handling coated bullets.
 

pokute

Active Member
Not using moly at all, just the carnauba like is often used on top of moly to cut the mess from handling coated bullets.

Carnauba doesn't clump, so I'd expect to get a bunch of powdery bullets. Might work by adding ethanol and heating, but then it gets a little dangerous. Ethanol at 100C is a little hard to handle.
 
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Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
A quick Google search makes me think people are slightly hearing the bullets, just above wax melt point, then tumbling hot bullets with a small amount of carnauba. Lets a thin coat cover entire bullet surface.
 

pokute

Active Member
A quick Google search makes me think people are slightly hearing the bullets, just above wax melt point, then tumbling hot bullets with a small amount of carnauba. Lets a thin coat cover entire bullet surface.

That's about 100C. Sounds like too much work! I'm trying to find some way to keep busy while all my junk is in storage! With luck, by the end of summer I'll have a fume hood and a sand bath and all kinds of stuff liberated from the labs and be able to do more adventurous things again. Bunch of beakers on the disposal pile today.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
the wax will impact coat jacketed bullets.
I have used small amounts of carnuba when finishing off buckshot when I was out of graphite.
I just placed the small shavings in the dry tumbler with the shot and let it run for about 2 hours.
this peens the shot and coats them at the same time.
jacketed bullets just get the tips sharpened if you add some BB's to the mix and graphite them.
 

pokute

Active Member
So, this isn't any kind of real test or anything, but yesterday after court and after providing the same "discovery" to my wife's lawyer for the third time, I pounded some carnauba, BN, and CMC in a mortar, added water, and smeared it on a bunch of things. It stuck to metal, glass, my fingers... Everything. The CMC emulsified the carnauba and BN uniformly, and the dried film was tough (smooth, no flaking or powdering) and slippery. The amount of CMC required is very small. It's a very efficient emulsifier (everything mixed uniformly).

I'd say one could take a level teaspoon of carnauba, a pinch of BN and a pinch of CMC, grind them to a uniform powder, add a teaspoon of water and coat 200 bullets by tumbling in a zip-loc bag. I promise to test it on some hot 357 semi-jacketed ASAP.
 

pokute

Active Member
All the bullets I cast have nice deep lube grooves, and I fill them with soft, sticky goop that seems to work just great. I went down this dry-lube road because there was coppery deposits in my bores after shooting copper semi-jacketed very hard (as in, "holy effit pokute, that .357 sounds like a cannon!).

Well, I'm in the throes of a 21 day escrow, so no range fun for me for a while. Sigh.