Cast Bullet Lube

[Jason Quick]

I’m currently using cast bullets from a local source that are lubed with Rooster Red Zambini. The bullets are very accurate, constant and the price is great, but the smoke can be distracting.

Does anyone have experience with different bullet lubes? The lube needs to be the hard variety for a commercial machine.

BTW the bullets are .40 caliber 180-grain flat point loaded to 170 power factor.

-Jason

[Jack Suber]

Jason,

I used to make bullets commercially. I only used Thompson's Blue Angel lube. It was harder and had a higher melting point than other brands I experimented with. If left in a car at reasonably high temperatures, the lube would get soft but would not melt and run off of the bullets. It is not sticky and really stays on the bullet. I believe it has a bees-wax base. I also found that it smoked less than some other brands of lube at certain velocities (see below). However, you will not completely eliminate the smoke. For this reason, I use jacketed or plated bullets for matches and lead for practice.

I found that the Blue Angel lube worked well for high velocities with a 6/2 alloy (brinnel hardness of about 18 - 19). When I refer to high velocities, I mean bullets moving above 1000 fps. I used to make a 44/240 grn bullet that I could push out of my Redhawk at 1450 fps. I experienced minimal leading and very little smoke with this load. I did find that using the same alloy/lube for bullets running less than 1000 fps (my 40/180 LFPs @ 930 fps) tended to create leading at the throat of the barrel (gas-blow by). This was a result of the bullet being too hard and not obturating sufficiently upon ignition of the charge. Gas would get by the sides of the bullet and burn the bullet and the lube (smoke). So, I believe the alloy I was using was too hard for these velocities.

I concluded that the smoke is a combination of the hardness of the alloy used and the lube which is used (I think this is what prompted BULL-X and Precision to explore an encapsulated bullet for IPSC shooters). In my opinion, for shooting Limited, I think a Brinnel hardness of 16 is perfect. We do not need a really hard bullet because we are not launching them at screaming velocities. The downside on using softer bullets and lube, in my opinion, is the fouling of seating dies with excess lube and/or lead that can wear off of the bullet nose when seating. Also, softer lube will melt and runn off of the bullets. One thing I do with all of my lead bullets is that I spray them with dry-silicon. That prevents the lube on the bullets from sticking to each other and also helps prevent the lube from sticking to the seating die. The dry-silicon will not effect the powder in any way.

Hope this helps.

Jack