spray lube affects powder?

[Loves2Shoot]

*drift*

10 (limited) 8 (open) mags and you generally don't have to worry about cleaning any you drop during a match. That was my sollution to dirty mags during a match

[Flexmoney]

Why we even pinned our grip safety's by using masking tape we found in the garbage can...

lol...that is the fix that I suggested to a buddy that just got an new S_I blaster (for what? $2000+ ? ) that didn't have the grip safety de-activated.

He gave me the scrunched-up face that I usually see on women when I talk about eating peanutbutter, tuna and mustard.

[EricW]

Since I know just how terribly worried everyone is about this (I've been biting my nails for days), I wanted to post further results. I just went out to the shop and pulled the bullets on the "squibs." I set them out to dry while I did some other work. An hour later I loaded up a mag with primed cases, opened up the door. Little to my surprise, there were like 10 "bangs" and 1 "ffffft". I'll be the "ffffft" would have been a "bang" had I let the cases dry overnight.

Now, back to the shooting....

[Gun Geek]

Eric:

Thanks for the good work.

FWIW - I think it is important to make a distiction between rifle (bottleneck) and pistol (any straightwall).

When I first started loading, I didn't use lube on straightwalls - that's what the instructions say if you've got a carbide die, right? Well, after viewing Brian's reloading vid and the discussion here, I have switched to 1 Shot. I use some Akro bin look-alikes; just drop the brass in a couple of layers deep spray lightly and shake. I usually wait a couple of minutes (I think that is in the 1 shot instructions so the solvent evaporates). Works great - press functions better, no squibs.

However for bottleneck cartridges things are much different. My first couple of batches of those I lubed only the outside of the case, but not the inside/neck area. Result was that gun wouldn't go into battery (tight bolt closing, AR bolt needing hard forward assist). The reason was that the expander ball pulled hard back through the neck and pulled the shoulder out of spec. Now I use 1 Shot and no problems. I stand all the cases up (careful shaking in the bin) then spray into the mouths at a bit of an angle so that the lube hits the side of the neck, not just straight to the bottom of the case. Again, I wait a few minutes before loading. This also keeps the powder from gumming up and "bridging" over the mouth (dumping on the shell plate).

Bottom line: Use 1 Shot for everything - lightly spray straightwalls, lightly spray inside case neck on bottlenecks. ALWAYS give the lube 3 minutes or so to dry a little.

Geek

PS:

Polish the expander ball (or use carbide expanders) and spray a littel lube into the mouth of the die -and let dry.

[George]

I use Dillon lube for all of my rifle loading. A small brush soaked in lube run into the case neck before sizing does wonders for ease of expander ball operation. I just spray the crap outta‘ them in an old shoe box and then shake the shjt outta them until all are coated (the box is so soaked it almost lubes cases on it’s own). The lube soaked brush gets run into the case mouth just before sizing each case.

For match grade ammo, I size and metal work separately, then tumble and finish on a 550 without the size die. For junk 55gr ball .223 I load-em wet and have never had any problems. I have chrono tested the day after loading and found no attributable variances. If I load with Dillon lube on them, I will tumble it off only if I am gonna let them sit for a while. If you leave the lube on the cases for a couple of months in storage it gets real tacky and the rounds don’t feed slickly. If you shoot it relatively soon while it is still slick, it helps function kinda like Silicone spraying does.

I am an item specific Luddite and still load pistol cases dry in my carbide dies on my trusty 550

--

Regards,

[spottie]

I have a little more to add to this discussion.

After reading numerous recommendations for case lube and the benefits of using it with dillon presses, I bought some Hornady one shot.

Loaded a hundred the other night, went out to practice today and had 18 rounds fail to even set off the primer.

I am using Federal #100 primers in .38spl 148gn DEWC hand cast and sized to .3585 lubed with the old LAMII with beeswax/alox lube.

My initial thoughts were that the wet case lube was disolving the bullet lube and flowing into the primer, however after leaving a lubed bullet in the pump pack applied one shot I am less than convinced.

Does one shot de-activate primers if over applied?

BTW. If you are wondering why I go to the trouble of loading the above combination, the results are worth it- sub 1 inch groups at 50 yards from a ransom rest.

[EricW]

Don't get your primers wet with anything and they'll always go bang. It's not the "lube" that's causing the problem. It's the solvent carrier that's wetting your primers and causing them not to detonate.

There's no reason on this earth to use that much lube. A light spritz is all you need. A little restraint goes a long way in this business.

[kevin c]

Welcome to the forums, spottie.

Did you use the new water based One Shot, or the original aerosol?

The water based prep takes a LONG time to dry, especially in cool or humid conditions.

I use mainly the aerosol, and usually give the cases plenty of time to get dry to the touch before loading them.

Loading wet with either means trapping either carrier solvent or H2O in the case. It might not make that much difference with the aerosol (see Eric's neat little experiment), but I gotta think that powder or primer dampened with water just isn't going to ignite with authority...

[spottie]

Thanks for the welcome KevinC,

I am using the pump pack rather then the aerosol.They are both priced the same here.

Curiously Hornady specify no difference in drying time , still 3-5 minutes.

Since it is winter in this part of the world (7-25C)I will try to give the cases 30 minutes in the sun before loading.

After having experienced the difference in effort and the resulting increase in loading speed it would be a shame to have to go back to the dry case method.

Many thanks.

[bpowe]

I use Dillon spray , cut about 60/40 with isopropyl alcohol (used to use One Shot, the Dillon is MUCH more economical). I spray the cases directly on a disposable aluminum foil roasting pan, the diluted mix covers all sides better than a heavy spray, undiluted. Let a fan blow over them for a few minutes, then load. The fan greatly enhances evaporation of the alcohol, if I'm really in a hurry, 10-15 seconds with my SOs blow drier then load.

bill

[warpspeed]

I'm having a hard time believing that the lube is getting to the primer.

Tumble dirty cases - apply lube - size / deprime. How much lube is left in the case when the primer goes in ? If there is ANY, you should probably back off on the lube. The lube is for the outside of the case. The inside could care less.

Or am I missing something....................

[shred]

Me too Mr W. I've hosed maybe 40000 cases down with the aerosol 1-shot, paying no particular attention to the orientation thereof, or even drying time and never had a problem.

[TBF]

I soaked ( almost submerged ) loaded ammo in the stuff for like a week ( One Shot ) both with and without letting the carrier evaporate.

Aerosol stuff.

I have also intentionally sprayed primer pockets with it liberally.

No defects noted.

Travis F.

[.40AET]

Agreed. Soaking the living sh*t out of once fired cases should have no effect on a case that is resized, and then gets a new (unsoaked) primer put into a soaked case. The new primer should have no case lube on it and should fire.

I don't get it.

[kevin c]

Again, is the problem with the H20 based (pump) One Shot, then? I haven't used it much. The aerosol, I agree, hasn't ever given me a problem, but again, I tend to prep cases in advance, so that they are dry when I actually reload them.

Just speculating, given the weirdness some folks seem to be experiencing.

[spottie]

Yes, I am talking about the water based lube.

I wash my cases in a water/ household cleaner mix to remove the bullet lube/powder residue, dry, then tumble.

Since the cases are completely dry before spraying with one shot.

And the only step that has changed in my reloading process, is the addition of case lube, I cannot see any other possibility other than the carrier for the lube was not completely dry.

[.40AET]

Spottie- Have you tried the aerosol spray yet??

[kevin c]

Okay, having too much time on my hands this weekend, and being inspired by EricW's tests, I did a little testing of my own. Here's what I came up with:

Questions: Does the lube or carrier in the case/powder/primer affect ignition, and if so, how? Is it the carrier, or the lube itself? Does it matter if the case has a chance to dry out?

I basically took four case lubes (One Shot Aerosol, One Shot Pump, Midway(now Franklin Arsenal) Aerosol, which, unlike the One Shot, contains petroleum distillates, and Midway Pump (lanolin in alcohol, I think, though the bottle doesn't say), and made up sets of cases that had the same amount of VERY HEAVY lube contamination, but in different ways.

For each lube, I did up four sets of five cases. Two drops of each lube were put into each case. The aerosols were sprayed into glass containers and immediately drawn into a dropper. The volume was two drops for all lubes, but the actual volume varied from brand to brand.

The load used was 4.6 gr Universal Clays over a .40 180 gr moly TC, WSP primer, same brand of case, OAL of 1.125. This chrono'd out at 960 fps in the gun used in this test.

One set of cases was primed and charged first, and the lube applied over the powder directly and the bullets seated immediately afterwards. I figured that this would mainly contaminate the powder, and would most closely approximate a severely oversprayed case.

Another set of cases was primed first, then had the lube put in before the powder drop. The lube was spread onto the inside walls of the cases with a stick. The aim was to contaminate the primer as well as the powder.

The third and fourth sets had lube first, spread as described above, with drying overnight in combination with blow drying with a hair dryer. This left a shellac like coating inside the case. One set had live primers in before the lube. The other set had spent primers in, that were deprimed and the cases reprimed with clean, dry uncontaminated primers. The aim here was to see whether the lubricants themselves were a problem, as opposed to the carriers used. Hopefully, the drying efforts removed the carrier, leaving only the lube in the case, but not the primer, in the fourth set, and in both the case and primer in the third.

Wet prepped rounds were stored 48 hours post assembly, and dry prepped rounds stored for 24 hours, bullets up, headstamp down, in loading blocks. They were transported to the range in a ammo case, bullets down, and all fired over a chrono through the same gun on the same day.

The summarized results:

Only the One Shot Aerosol and the Midway Pump cases that were prepped and dried and had clean, uncontaminated primers had normal velocities matching that of regularly prepared ammo (the same components prepared with a light spraying of One Shot Aerosol on the exterior of the case only). One Shot Aerosol prepped and dried cases with contaminated but dried primers, Midway Aerosol and One Shot Pump prepped and dried cases with clean primers showed reduced velocities (~5%). One Shot Pump prepped and dried cases with contaminated but dried primers showed further reduced velocities (~10%).

Everything else was way off. By that I mean that, if I could get it to go off, velocities ranged from 250 fps off (-25%) to so slow that I literally could track a couple bullets as they went down range. Of the fifty rounds in the sets of cases besides the ones summarized above, half were hangfires (interesting to watch my consistent flinch after the trigger break, there) two were deep-in-the-barrel squibs, and the rest were duds.

Conclusions (based on very small sample sizes, but hey, whaddya expect for free?):

Case interiors that are very wet with lube are a very bad idea.

Contaminated primers, wet or dry, will not ignite in a normal fashion.

Even dry but heavily contaminated cases with clean primers can effect round performance.

One Shot Aerosol and Midway (Franklin Arsenal) Pump lubes did not affect the round in this extra heavy case contamination test, provided the case was dry and the primer was not contaminated. One Shot Aerosol seemed to be OK (small effect) for a primer, if allowed to dry out.

Bottom line: Don't soak your cases in lube of any kind (but we already reached that conclusion, before, didn't we? ).

[.40AET]

Kevin-Thanks for the time and effort you put in for the test.

[kevin c]

It only reflects the O-C nature of my personality

[TBF]

Kevin,

Cool test !

Travis F.

[uscbigdawg]

If you guys want some insight into Kevin, go with him to the range for practice and ask to see how he "places" rounds in the box. It's fairly scary. But then, for his occupation, it's definitely desirable.

Spottie -

I wash my cases in a water/ household cleaner mix to remove the bullet lube/powder residue, dry, then tumble.

Try this routine, starting with fired brass:

- Tumble clean (to get range gorp out and other nasties) for about 30 minutes

- Toss brass into box and shoot with One Shot Aerosol (lightly...you are using carbide dies after all)

- Load ammo

I'm sure that you will see a marked improvement. I tumble my loaded ammo now as it's a nice way to get the not totally dried lube off my ammo (especially when I load the ammo an hour before the match...gotta love being lazy and your 1050 is there to rescue you!).

Rich

[kevin c]

If you guys want some insight into Kevin, go with him to the range for practice and ask to see how he "places" rounds in the box. It's fairly scary. But then, for his occupation, it's definitely desirable.

Optimal packing of conicoid cylinders into a box of known dimensions. An interesting problem. Don't know the math, but found a solution.

It's an idiot-savant type of thing .