Ian
Notorious member
One very important attribute of the DIY lubes, particularly three to five-part recipes, is that you know just exactly what is in them and can adjust the mix easily and predictably to meet specific needs like Fiver wrote previously. Starting with a lube that has known and well-proven accuracy potential something that has very well known and widely duplicated capabilities takes one big variable out of the equation and makes it a very small variable, to be manipulated last instead of first. Simple Lube and FWFL are both very "tweakable", with only slight additions or subtractions adding the versatility needed to chase a few degrees higher, lower, or adjust for various pressure levels or even alloys. Lanolin, for example is great for controlling antimony wash.
FWFL goes like this:
Beeswax. This is the Alpha and the Omega. It provides a balanced base with substance to hold itself to the bullet and a molecular structure very adept at dissolving and absorbing other oils and waxes. The "balance" comes from the broad spectrum of stuff in it that makes for a very broad, linear viscosity/temperature line. With FWFL, the beeswax portion should pretty much remain the same always, and if adjustments are needed to the lube, I've found it better to add other ingredients than subtract any of the basic ones. Beeswax is an excellent deep-draw forming lube with extremely high film strength even when liquid due to its high natural ester content. This helps get the bullet engraved with a minimum of fuss and damage, and with consistent results shot-to-shot. If your case necks are a snug fit in the chamber, you'll notice beeswax-based lubes forming lube rings on the case mouths where they filled the gap between case mouth and throat, which makes a "lube bridge" to ease the transition and swaging of the bullet's driving bands into the throat.
Heavy, paraffin oil. This stuff is the plasticizer for the wax. Paraffin oil is really the only thing I've found which can soften wax to usable consistency WITHOUT inducing purging. It is "dry", contributing very little in lubrication properties to the lube, which is good because that makes it an "invisible" viscosity modifier. It has a low viscosity index, which is a technical way of saying it has a very broad range of viscosity vs. temperature similar to the properties of beeswax. Why a low viscosity index of each ingredient (and the finished lube too) and no abrupt phase change properties is so important is a lengthy discussion in and of itself, but suffice it to say that I worked VERY hard to run both ends of the VI spectrum with various concoctions (and succeeded in what I was attempting to test) and found universally that a lube must thin out at a controlled, linear, predictable, consistent rate as temperature and pressure are applied or it will detract greatly from the accuracy potential of the system and even cause very bad metal fouling toward the muzzle.
Castor bean oil, polymerized. This stuff is very special, and is the principle "lube" in FWFL. It actually wicks toward heat rather than away from it, which is what makes it so suitable for lubricating the fuel in two-cycle gasoline engines. If too much is used, the lube becomes very erratic and slippery, but if just the right amount is used, it makes the lube handle heat and pressure like few others can, and it happens to have been tested and validated as a supreme accuracy lube ingredient through about a 130-degree temperature window.
Lanolin. This is a tough, sticky wax that also has a very low VI. Seeing a trend here? The film strength of Lanolin boosts that of castor oil and also of the natural high film strength of beeswax. When in solution, the lanolin is protected from scorching but its long, heavy, diverse carbon chains help fill in the molecular "holes" and balance the other ingredients. Additionally, something I discovered about it in FWFL more recently is that it helps balance and maintain consistent the moisture content of the lube, which is naturally a little unstable due to the hygroscopic and emulsifying nature of the sodium stearate.
Sodium stearate, Ivory soap. This is an old-time lubricating grease gellant which allows ordinary machine oils to become a stay-put grease that releases oil very slowly. SS is the final binder, and with a melt (or "drop") point of 460F, it really reigns in the viscosity fade of the lube at the upper end of pressure and temperature and keeps all the oils "locked up" until needed at high speed and high pressure. Ivory soap is another known-good 130F range, top-accuracy ingredient in several lube recipes, and as a bonus is slightly on the alkaline side of neutral, meaning it has a little leftover sodium hydroxide in it which saponifies/neutralizes free fatty acids from the castor oil, wax, and lanolin, and combustion acids.
Other Stuff you can add:
Vaseline. After fooling with all the other ingredients to adjust viscosity, I found the best thing for me was to just take the base lube made per the recipe and add 5% Vaseline. This discovery was made one day while I was shooting in slightly cooler than normal weather, as I recall it was about 60F, or thereabouts. Not cold enough to get into the cold-start issues nor tee-shirt weather (for me). That particular day my groups were opening up, a lot, with a very well-proven load that I was just shooting to double check sight adjustment before a hunt. When I pulled the 100 yard target, I noticed little lube "boogers" on the paper. Yep, lube was still coming off the bullet as far down range as 100 yards, and it was upsetting the balance. I made several adjustments to very small batches of lube, each of which created other problems, and finally settled on just adding some Vaseline to the original recipe. That did the trick and ironed out the little bump that was near, but not at the bottom of the useful temperature range of the lube for that one rifle and load that was giving me problems. Also, with low-pressure loads in revolvers, sometimes the lube just doesn't flow well. Vaseline fixes that, too. Adding more paraffin oil does the same thing, but at 5% extra it lowers the melt point of the lube more than does Vaseline.
Carnauba wax: Up to 5%, max. This helps even out the variable friction properties of pitted and rough barrels, repels moisture on surfaces, and protects barrel steel. It also makes the lube harder, bumps the melt point slightly, and makes bores shiny if that is important to you. In some lubes, FWFL being one, it can in some guns (not all) help remedy cold flyer syndrome in certain picky barrels and at high pressure, but below about 40-50 degrees it doesn't help the cold-flyer tendency that lanolin imparts. I tend not to use it much, and if you do choose to try it, absolutely do not use more than 5%. 2-3% is a good additive rate.
Paraffin. This stuff changes everything, and you might not want it. Some say it makes the lube harder and easier to handle, but in the heat, it does just the opposite. What it DOES do is enable a lot colder range of accurate shooting with a pretty much equal loss at the top end. Unlike Vaseline, which is best used to modify the base lube for lower pressure applications and has little effect on the useful temperature range of the lube, paraffin can be added at 5-10% and be affected almost none by either very low or very high pressure, but will have a quite noticeable effect when shooting a given load at cooler or warmer temperatures. Notably, I found that when added at 10% it pretty much wrecks groups fired in 100+ degree weather and along with no other "extras" present, it will usually remove the cold flyer down to about freezing, maybe lower but didn't test lower.
Jojoba oil/wax. Dangerously slippery stuff. Can make or break the lube at the extreme top end of velocity and pressure. Will almost certainly break it below the freeze point of the stuff, which I don't recall but it will solidify in a cool room. So far I can always find a way to live without adding it. The best way I found to use it is cut out half the castor oil and replace it with jojoba.
That's it. With the five basic ingredients in the basic proportions Felix and the group that helped him established, you can do a LOT, and be assured the lube will give you great to excellent accuracy. You know the purpose of each, why they were chosen (trial and error has all been done, many times, with accuracy being the most important benchmark), and no other gee-whiz fancy cosmetic, industrial, or automotive chemicals were included in the final recipe. The other additives I listed are there if needed, and can be left out if they aren't.
The only reasons I don't still use FWFL for everything are I wanted/needed a lube that would withstand sustained 150F (hot car) without melting into the powder, and wanted to use the same lube year-round for hunting without changing ammunition, and that would require normalized function for first-shot-in-group from about 20F to at least 105F from a fouled barrel, something I haven't been able to make FWFL achieve. The 25% Ivory soap lubes with an equal part of blended high-temperature microwax, plasticized with a straight mineral oil to a soft consistency and boosted with a small amount of high-film-strength super-lube oil has been the only way I personally have been able to get there....so far.
FWFL goes like this:
Beeswax. This is the Alpha and the Omega. It provides a balanced base with substance to hold itself to the bullet and a molecular structure very adept at dissolving and absorbing other oils and waxes. The "balance" comes from the broad spectrum of stuff in it that makes for a very broad, linear viscosity/temperature line. With FWFL, the beeswax portion should pretty much remain the same always, and if adjustments are needed to the lube, I've found it better to add other ingredients than subtract any of the basic ones. Beeswax is an excellent deep-draw forming lube with extremely high film strength even when liquid due to its high natural ester content. This helps get the bullet engraved with a minimum of fuss and damage, and with consistent results shot-to-shot. If your case necks are a snug fit in the chamber, you'll notice beeswax-based lubes forming lube rings on the case mouths where they filled the gap between case mouth and throat, which makes a "lube bridge" to ease the transition and swaging of the bullet's driving bands into the throat.
Heavy, paraffin oil. This stuff is the plasticizer for the wax. Paraffin oil is really the only thing I've found which can soften wax to usable consistency WITHOUT inducing purging. It is "dry", contributing very little in lubrication properties to the lube, which is good because that makes it an "invisible" viscosity modifier. It has a low viscosity index, which is a technical way of saying it has a very broad range of viscosity vs. temperature similar to the properties of beeswax. Why a low viscosity index of each ingredient (and the finished lube too) and no abrupt phase change properties is so important is a lengthy discussion in and of itself, but suffice it to say that I worked VERY hard to run both ends of the VI spectrum with various concoctions (and succeeded in what I was attempting to test) and found universally that a lube must thin out at a controlled, linear, predictable, consistent rate as temperature and pressure are applied or it will detract greatly from the accuracy potential of the system and even cause very bad metal fouling toward the muzzle.
Castor bean oil, polymerized. This stuff is very special, and is the principle "lube" in FWFL. It actually wicks toward heat rather than away from it, which is what makes it so suitable for lubricating the fuel in two-cycle gasoline engines. If too much is used, the lube becomes very erratic and slippery, but if just the right amount is used, it makes the lube handle heat and pressure like few others can, and it happens to have been tested and validated as a supreme accuracy lube ingredient through about a 130-degree temperature window.
Lanolin. This is a tough, sticky wax that also has a very low VI. Seeing a trend here? The film strength of Lanolin boosts that of castor oil and also of the natural high film strength of beeswax. When in solution, the lanolin is protected from scorching but its long, heavy, diverse carbon chains help fill in the molecular "holes" and balance the other ingredients. Additionally, something I discovered about it in FWFL more recently is that it helps balance and maintain consistent the moisture content of the lube, which is naturally a little unstable due to the hygroscopic and emulsifying nature of the sodium stearate.
Sodium stearate, Ivory soap. This is an old-time lubricating grease gellant which allows ordinary machine oils to become a stay-put grease that releases oil very slowly. SS is the final binder, and with a melt (or "drop") point of 460F, it really reigns in the viscosity fade of the lube at the upper end of pressure and temperature and keeps all the oils "locked up" until needed at high speed and high pressure. Ivory soap is another known-good 130F range, top-accuracy ingredient in several lube recipes, and as a bonus is slightly on the alkaline side of neutral, meaning it has a little leftover sodium hydroxide in it which saponifies/neutralizes free fatty acids from the castor oil, wax, and lanolin, and combustion acids.
Other Stuff you can add:
Vaseline. After fooling with all the other ingredients to adjust viscosity, I found the best thing for me was to just take the base lube made per the recipe and add 5% Vaseline. This discovery was made one day while I was shooting in slightly cooler than normal weather, as I recall it was about 60F, or thereabouts. Not cold enough to get into the cold-start issues nor tee-shirt weather (for me). That particular day my groups were opening up, a lot, with a very well-proven load that I was just shooting to double check sight adjustment before a hunt. When I pulled the 100 yard target, I noticed little lube "boogers" on the paper. Yep, lube was still coming off the bullet as far down range as 100 yards, and it was upsetting the balance. I made several adjustments to very small batches of lube, each of which created other problems, and finally settled on just adding some Vaseline to the original recipe. That did the trick and ironed out the little bump that was near, but not at the bottom of the useful temperature range of the lube for that one rifle and load that was giving me problems. Also, with low-pressure loads in revolvers, sometimes the lube just doesn't flow well. Vaseline fixes that, too. Adding more paraffin oil does the same thing, but at 5% extra it lowers the melt point of the lube more than does Vaseline.
Carnauba wax: Up to 5%, max. This helps even out the variable friction properties of pitted and rough barrels, repels moisture on surfaces, and protects barrel steel. It also makes the lube harder, bumps the melt point slightly, and makes bores shiny if that is important to you. In some lubes, FWFL being one, it can in some guns (not all) help remedy cold flyer syndrome in certain picky barrels and at high pressure, but below about 40-50 degrees it doesn't help the cold-flyer tendency that lanolin imparts. I tend not to use it much, and if you do choose to try it, absolutely do not use more than 5%. 2-3% is a good additive rate.
Paraffin. This stuff changes everything, and you might not want it. Some say it makes the lube harder and easier to handle, but in the heat, it does just the opposite. What it DOES do is enable a lot colder range of accurate shooting with a pretty much equal loss at the top end. Unlike Vaseline, which is best used to modify the base lube for lower pressure applications and has little effect on the useful temperature range of the lube, paraffin can be added at 5-10% and be affected almost none by either very low or very high pressure, but will have a quite noticeable effect when shooting a given load at cooler or warmer temperatures. Notably, I found that when added at 10% it pretty much wrecks groups fired in 100+ degree weather and along with no other "extras" present, it will usually remove the cold flyer down to about freezing, maybe lower but didn't test lower.
Jojoba oil/wax. Dangerously slippery stuff. Can make or break the lube at the extreme top end of velocity and pressure. Will almost certainly break it below the freeze point of the stuff, which I don't recall but it will solidify in a cool room. So far I can always find a way to live without adding it. The best way I found to use it is cut out half the castor oil and replace it with jojoba.
That's it. With the five basic ingredients in the basic proportions Felix and the group that helped him established, you can do a LOT, and be assured the lube will give you great to excellent accuracy. You know the purpose of each, why they were chosen (trial and error has all been done, many times, with accuracy being the most important benchmark), and no other gee-whiz fancy cosmetic, industrial, or automotive chemicals were included in the final recipe. The other additives I listed are there if needed, and can be left out if they aren't.
The only reasons I don't still use FWFL for everything are I wanted/needed a lube that would withstand sustained 150F (hot car) without melting into the powder, and wanted to use the same lube year-round for hunting without changing ammunition, and that would require normalized function for first-shot-in-group from about 20F to at least 105F from a fouled barrel, something I haven't been able to make FWFL achieve. The 25% Ivory soap lubes with an equal part of blended high-temperature microwax, plasticized with a straight mineral oil to a soft consistency and boosted with a small amount of high-film-strength super-lube oil has been the only way I personally have been able to get there....so far.
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