A beekeeper friend of my wife's has given me about a pound of beeswax. It is as collected, so I will have to melt and strain it. I have been using a vasoline / paraffin mix for about 25 years with good success, but now I need to try the beeswax.
I will be pan lubing 30 cal. rifle bullets to shoot in the 1400 to 1600 fps range.
Does anyone have a simple recipe? I would like to be able to get all the ingredients at Walmart or Autozone.
Thanks in advance.
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... thought it would be good to add one that didn't work that well ..
Lithium Grease, they told me ...
bot a tub of white lithium grease at K Mart ...
i had some nicely sorted and squared 225438 that had been shooting about 1.5 moa in my trusty remmy 722-222 with alox-50-50 ... ... so i filled-em-up with my new affordable miracle lube
after the first shot in each new group ... the lube worked great ... but the first shot landed about 18 moa from the core group ... and that was repeatable ... just wait five minutes between groups ... after the first shot the groups were nice ...
after that, shooting cast bullets got real interesting ... how could bad lube make a flyer hit the next target over ?? ... the flyer bullets made round holes ... it looked as though the real problem was barrel condition, as following rapid shots grouped well ...
i havent given up on figuring it out ... this was only back in the 80's ... still got time ...
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A great lube that schuetzen shooters use is 50$% Beeswax, 40% Crisco, 10% Canola Oil. Have used this for years. Is not for high velocity.
bob
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Bees wax and white lithium at about 50/50 by volume has worked for me for 35 years.
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Consult "The Modern Schuetzen Rifle" by Schwartz. Recipies will make your head spin. Kinda like looking for the ideal rifle......
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i have had good success with a home made lube recipe consisting of: 4 parts toilet ring wax, 3 parts extra virgin olive oil, 1 crayon for color, 1 red waxy cheese covering (carnuba wax), 1 table spoon murphys oil soap, 6 drops of "secret barrel lube" (break free). i pour the lube mixture into cleaned deodorant containers and once cooled, use it to hand lube my cast bullets. not high volume work, but lubes well and leaves the barrel shiney. havent tried pan lubing with it yet. best regards
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I can't help you in figuring that out Ken, but I can attest that it happens. Mine was in the early 60s and my Sako 222 did the same trick you describe with I believe 225438. Unfortunately, I can't remember what lube I was using but it could have been lithium since I messed with that for a while at Col. Harrison's suggestion as I remember. It was truly amazing how far out the first shot would be. Haven't seen anything like it since.
John
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Ken & John, getting a little off topic, but ......
Larry Gibson in his excellent write up of the big bullet lube comparison notes one lube put the first shot 9" out of the group, and another missed the paper altogether with the first shot, though both OK after that. Two of the other lubes (Lyman Orange Magic and Super Moly) are noted as putting the clean barrel fouler in the group. All of this was in a high velocity application.
This first shot performance is highly relevant to hunting loads, and in due course I hope to have more to say about it.
Back to the question in hand - I have also tried beeswax and two stroke synthetic oil, 4:1. With subsonic .30-30 and .32-40 loads it was not outstandingly accurate, but it had one interesting feature. Unlike some of the commercial lubes I have tested, it did not set up, facilitate or allow a bond between bullet and case neck, even after several months. With LSM, LBT, BAC, & 2500+ , within days, bullets can get a grip on case necks, which we discover when we try to pull them, or when we seat them deeper (as a prelude to pulling).
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Check out a black powder cartridge site, they use a lot of bees wax. Their recipes also call for lanolin.
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Equal parts of beeswax and auto chassis grease, lithium based. FWIW
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I use 50/50 BW to petrolatum(base vaseline) for handguns. Use 3/1 same ingredients for the varmint rigs.
The only thing slightly different is;
On the 3/1,I make it 50/50 first then instead of remelting,the extra BW get "cut in" to the 50/50. Intentionally not trying to "fully incorporate". It ends up like chunky,vs smooth peanut butter.
On the varmint rigs,with but a mighty few exceptions..... only the tiny spot above GC gets lube. And done with a little pen knife thas been on my bench for 40 years.
Handguns,almost always are lubed 50/50 through one of several Lyman 450's.
We have all sorts of ingredients available and do play around with them a little like,carnauba flakes,alox,certain high $$$ threading lubes from the shop. But in general,keep an EXTREMELY low profile on lube chemistry. The amount on the rifles seems to be more critical than the blend. The "chunky" 3/1 is working fantastic.
Recently;
Took Lee LLA and put it in an empty,cleaned out Kiwi shoe polish tin. I left the top off so that the solvent/s would burn off. The stuff looks and feels exactly like the consistency of the shoe polish.
I use it as a final op,after the round is fully loaded,as a very mild waxing on the bore ride part of the bullet. Good luck with your project.
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50/50 beeswax/olive oil is what I use for muzzleloaders and have used it some for smokeless. Also makes a good lip balm and dry skin ointment.
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I have had good luck using a mix of 50% beeswax, 33% Pure Lanolin Cream and 17% Castor oil up to 1500 fps. Never shot anything faster so I don't know. Good luck, Squid Boy
"Squid Pro Quo"
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Several CBA members (Steve Hurst and the late Norm Duesterhoeft) turned me onto a very simple recipe some years ago that I have used ever since: beeswax and automatic transmission fluid. The proportions are not critical, use more beeswax if you want a firmer lube, less for softer. I've been using 3 BW to 1 ATF and found it to work exactly like the old M&N. I think Ed Harris uses a 4-1 ratio. I don't know if the type of ATF matters but Norm told me he used Quaker State Dexron III, so I bought a couple quarts and that might be enough to "see me out."
Glenn
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Put it in a pot with water in it and slowly bring the heat up to around 80c.
‘This will melt the wax you don’t want to boil the water.
let it sit for a while and maybe give it a couple of light stirs to get the floaty bits up bees legs wings and things etc.
Turn off heat source and let cool for a long while.
A straight or tapered pot is your friend here.
When it’s cold the floaty bits will be on the wax and the junk below.
Gently tip out water and flip over.
The rubbish can be scrapped from the bottom leaving you with clean pure beeswax.
‘it prolly smells like honey and still yellow.(with good bits in it)
‘If you heat it up too much it probably turn white and not smell.
I prefer the yellow wax for my bullet lube of bw/vas lube...aka lip balm.
I like it soft but not melting when seating a cartridge in my rifle.
‘Depends on your mode of shooting regime and power factor.
Good luck.
Ohh the cappings that he gave you have the good glue or stuff in them.
‘But I may be wrong as usual.
ha
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If your beeswax has a lot of stuff in it you should use a double boiler to melt it and then over a cake pan or similar pan pour the melted beeswax thru an old t shirt. When I was told to do this I thought the guy was nuts but it works.
Marty
This looks like a really old thread. I was looking for the Lee Wiggins post about tumble lubing and found this.
Still have not found the Lee Wiggins post,
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Marty, check your PM for the link to that article.
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Thank you Duane.
I have tried LLA tumble lube on both rifle and pistol bullets. I get leading in some of the pistols and leading with the 155 gr PB rifle bullet from accurate. Maybe my leading is from bullet fit but when I use my lube in a lube sizer I do not get any leading with the same loads in both rifle and pistol.
Maybe the components for white label 2500 are a more effective lube than LLA stuff when used in a similar manner. Tumbled.
Marty
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