Molly
posted this
18 January 2008
miestro_jerry wrote: Molly,
I do accept your points. I have seen where lead has been soldered to steel, but that is when you are trying to do that. I am starting lean in to synthetic lubes. I own a small farm and grease the tractor and implements with Vavoline SynPower all the time have seen longer life out of many joints and bearings.
I get a really good prices on greases and fluids for the farm, so maybe they may work for bullet lubes mixed with ALOX or Beeswax or both.
The Safflower oil and the Olive Oil is around the house because I like to cook.
Any thoughts on the synthetics?
Jerry
Frankly, I suspect that the 'ultimate' bullet lube may take the form of - or at least contain - a synthetic oil, grease or low MW polyester: As a class, they are far less subject to thermal or oxidative degradation, and are - in all probability - far better choices for mixing with hardners like stearic acid than vegetable oils. I have not revisited bullet lubes in something like 20 years or so, and a lot of advances have taken place since then. If I were to get back into it, I think I would start with some commonly available solid synthetic surfactants- and there are enough of them to keep your grandchildren busy!
One little trick I developed to sidestep any slow deposit formation in the bore was to simply see if a surfactant or polyester would leave a hard deposit when it was heated enough. You'd be amazed how many products are just a solution of something hard in a slow evaporating solvent or light oil. I just took a hotplate and covered it with foil. When it was hotter than blazes, I'd drop a pinch of material on the surface and watch it. Almost everything would bubble up and boil to one extent or another. Most would end up leaving a hard brown char to one extent or another. A few would evaporate away entirely, but not many. Those - and the ones which left almost no char, I kept for further development. And a VERY few would remain liquid, even at the highest temperature the hotplate could reach, which was well above the melting point of lead. The most stable materials were then judged by how well they spread out on the aluminum. The best of these were then tested by polishing a bit of steel to bright white metal, and placing a bit beside a lead chip. If the lube material could prevent the lead from soldering to the steel, then I'd try it out in my rifles. No magic, nothing fancy, no expensive lab equipment, just pragmatic common sense.
(FYI: Most of the various Alox compounds are what you might call 'pre-oxidized' (ie, pre-burnt) greases and oils. They are made by oxidizing selected compounds under highly controlled conditions.)
As far as soldering only 'when you want to', if you're a successful farmer, you are far too realistic to think that things happen only when you want them to. A single broken axle on a bailer that has hit a groundhog hole will convince anyone of that. Things will happen when the conditions are right, whether we want them to or not! And I speak from sad and bitter experience! (VBG). Soldering (leading) will happen when the hot gas blow-by etches molten droplets off the edges and sides of a cast bullet and drives them hard against the bore. Or more precicely, it will happen when the load is hot enough to lower the surface tension of the lead droplets enough to overcome the wetting of the bullet lube.
BTW, I see you are located in Ohio. Anywhere remotely near Cincinnati?