Without one sort of lubricant or another lead bullets will foul your barrel: in most cases flakes of lead will be pressed into the surface of the barrel and can be removed mechanically (Lewis lead removers work very well); in severe instances the lead may actually bond to the barrel, the use of a bit of mercury which will combine with the lead making an amalgam which is easily scraped from the barrel is the fastest way to a really clean barrel. Caution- mercury is toxic and must be handled with appropriate precautions.
Red or blue? I'm unqualified to answer which is best having used primarily various home made lubes for the past 40 odd years. I do know that many shooters speak well of products offered by companies like Lyman, Redding , Rooster Laboratories and others. In my experience there is no lube that is best for all purposes.
Bob
Red or blue? I'm unqualified to answer which is best having used primarily various home made lubes for the past 40 odd years. I do know that many shooters speak well of products offered by companies like Lyman, Redding , Rooster Laboratories and others. In my experience there is no lube that is best for all purposes.
Bob
As bfoster stated, a bullet needs some sort of lube to slide down the barrel. In the black powder days, bullets were usually lubed with beeswax or something similar. In modern day the beeswax still works or some sort of mix with wax and alox. The commercial bullet casters use various products and some of those guys will probably chime in. With copper or jacketed bullets the copper itself is the lubricant so nothing additional is needed.
I use Barry Darr lube recipe on all of my lead rounds.
I shoot a 63gr lead semi point that is gas checked, and lubed with Darr lube that I make and lee Alox, out of my AR 15 about 1900 FPS. I havent had any leading issues yet, but I cast hard bullets.
I shoot a 63gr lead semi point that is gas checked, and lubed with Darr lube that I make and lee Alox, out of my AR 15 about 1900 FPS. I havent had any leading issues yet, but I cast hard bullets.
Well I'm buying manufactured bullets. I just don't have the space or time to make my own. When I was looking up how much crimp they needed. I ran across a few pics that showed a blue lube on them. Was just wandering what the difference was. So as of right now I don't need any homemade lube recipes.
What procedure do you use to clean after wards? Anyone have a picture of what leading looks like?
What procedure do you use to clean after wards? Anyone have a picture of what leading looks like?
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/
http://www.castbulletassoc.org/forum/
Any questions you might have about cast bullets can be answered on these two websites.
http://www.castbulletassoc.org/forum/
Any questions you might have about cast bullets can be answered on these two websites.
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Just because it is worth repeating. If you have a question about casting/shooting lead bullets and it can't be answered on those sites the answer doesn't exist.
While the subject of lube is on the table...
I've got a 1000 or so lead bullets bought commercially in various calibers that I've had for 3 or more years. Never got around to using them as I pretty much got out of the cowboy action shooting game and rarely reload lead now.
Can the lube dry out or otherwise go bad? Most of the bullets have either the blue or red stuff in the grooves. Should I lube these up before using them?
I've got a 1000 or so lead bullets bought commercially in various calibers that I've had for 3 or more years. Never got around to using them as I pretty much got out of the cowboy action shooting game and rarely reload lead now.
Can the lube dry out or otherwise go bad? Most of the bullets have either the blue or red stuff in the grooves. Should I lube these up before using them?
The lube will stay good for many many years just loadem and go shoot.
And color makes no differnce in the lube it is what that bullet manufacture uses
