Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Bullet lube question

I just bought 500 bullets from a cast bullet manufacturer. The lube grooves don't appear to be completely full. Is that something I should be concerned about? Sorry for the newbie question but I don't have much experience with cast bullets.

Probably not. Try a few and see how they work.

most bullet grooves contain way more lube than is necessary, so if half is missing you still have enough

I feel much better, thanks guys!

Cast all my own and use SPG for everything.

Good shooting.

best, Larry

Did you even read the question the OP asked? He isn't asking for bullet lube suggestions.

Yes, just trying to offer some experience based advice should he decide to cast his own.

best to you and your, Larry

I wonder how many people get led down the rabbit hole of bullet casting by starting out buying commercially cast bullets? I bet a lot do.

My very first casting experience back in the late 60's was laughable (now). I bought a Lyman 311241 mold (155gr. RN plain base) to feed my $40 Krag carbine with, along with a can of 2400 powder. I cast a big handful out of god knows what soft alloy, sized them to .311 in a Grampaw-made push through sizer, and skipped the lubing part because, well, I didn't have any and thought "what could possibly go wrong?" Powered by a fairly stiff charge of 2400, the first couple shots went smack dab into the bullseye. By the twentieth shot god only knew where those bullets were flying, because I sure didn't. A peek through the barrel saw little evidence of the presence of rifling- those grooves were packed solidly with lead. A lot of cussing and several bronze brushes later I had it back to normal. Then I broke down and bought a stick of lube, and some Red Dot to replace the 2400.

With 500 bullets costing less then $90 to my door for sized, lubed, and gas checked bullets I don't see a reason to bother. But I also don't have a reliable source of lead or any appreciable free time.

Thats pretty much the way it went for me in the beginning. At the time the only firearm I shot cast in was my Ruger BH. I bought LazerCast 158 gr. SWC bullet at the LGS for I think at the time was around $25 for a box of 500.

I ended up getting a couple of molds an at the time wheel weights were easy to get for free. I cast all my bullets at the time by hand,no pot an also had a RCBS lubsizer. Got married kids came along and all that goes along with that so all the fun stuff went by the wayside for a number of years. I sold the molds and lubsizer.

Fast forward 20 years and I've been back in the game for the past 15 or so and haven't looked back I own 15 molds of various makers both plain base as well as gas check version. I lube all my bullets using Alox and JPW lube and all the gas checks and sizing are done with Lee push through sizers just to keep things simple. I've stashed up enough free lead and lead based alloys over the years not to have to worry about bullets for awhile. I shoot cast lead in all my rifles and handguns nowadays although I have a decent stash of J bullets for all calibers I load that I stuck back during my non casting years they just stay in there boxes waiting for a rainy day.

Biathlonman those bullets shouldn't be a problem unless there are just large voids where there is no lube at all. A simple fix would be just to give them a light coat of Lee Alox thinned down with mineral spirits if they give you any problems.

No free time is a killer. But the inexpensive, mass produced variety of cast bullets generally suck compared to well done home cast bullets. They have hard lubes whose primary virtue is withstanding handling and commercial loading machines, not doing the best job as a bullet lube. They are often too hard for the mild to mid pressure loads a lot of handloaders want cast bullets for. They are often undersized for best results, and have bevel bases, and these things exacerbate leading when the too hard bullets don't obturate under the pressure of a mild load. The bullet designs are better for mass production than they are for in gun or on target performance.


Commercial:




Not mine, but not commercial either:

I got mine from Carolina Cast Bullets. Got the Ranch Dog 190-358, sized .359 for my barrel and gas checked. Having a heck of a time finding appropriate jacketed bullets so thought I'd try cast.

there is quite a few folks out there that are skipping the lube altogether and powder coating. I plan on trying it sometime down the road.

Time marches on in that respect. I'm sure powder coating is all it's claimed to be, and probably more. The thing is, I'm nowhere near done exploring the art of traditional cast bullets and lubes so I'll keep at that. I'll leave the new technology to others, and cheer them on from the sidelines. Besides, the odors drifting up from a hot gun firing grease lubed bullets to me are like Hoppe's, pipe tobacco smoke, and bacon frying. Some things I just don't want to change! I'm just another (sort of) old fart who's steeped in tradition and find comfort in it, and who knows where to draw the line...

Hard lube missing anywhere makes fliers. Lube must be even all around and must all leave at muzzle exit or you have counter weights on your boolits. It is like casting with air holes in your boolits.
Most store bought will have a hard lube with half in the bottom of the box. Do you REALLY want to shoot them?
I have made more lube tests then anyone and you can go from a shotgun to one hole with a lube change.
Powder coating still scares me because what will be long term barrel wear. Are there any abrasive things in the paint?
here is a hard lube and a soft at 50 yards.

Not that I can see. I got 4 4oz ziplocks of 4 different colors to play with along with some plastic BBs to try the "shake and bake" method. A Harbor Freight gun is $50-75 if it doesn't seem to work well the cheap way. I've got less than $30 invested in this "experiment" so far so I don't have much to lose.

Worth a try, many claim good results.
I would be interested in accuracy testing.
Maybe I just old fashioned!

Avoid the flat powder coat colors, as they may have abrasives in them, but the glossy powder coat seems good to go. I haven't used bullet lube in quite a while now.

tmax, try it without the plastic BB's, just bullets and powder in a plastic margarine or yogurt tub. If you have good powder, they are completely unnecessary. Best I can figure is some people just have to complicate things; don't know why else they'd use them.

Thanks for heads up. I got gloss black, JD green, purple and a blue. Thinking I'll use different colors to separate calibers.

I use two colors to separate subsonic vs supersonic, and have settled on just two powder colors (after testing a lot of them) for their different attributes. Every powder I've tried works a little differently, some are slicker, some are tougher, some stick the bullets together too hard, etc.

My subsonic powder is a cobalt blue that is not tough enough for high pressure loads, but is very slick, and the bullets break apart easily without leaving bare spots.

My supersonic powder is a yellow/green that is very tough and slick, and doesn't stick bullets together as badly as some others.

The candy colors have been the worst for sticking bullets together, and being a little grabby in the bore.

Good article, he is correct about leaving a film on the boolits.
I either pan lube or stuff Felix lube in the grooves with my fingers. Then I don't really size any lead, just use lapped out Lee dies as excess lube removers.
If I drop a boolit on the rug with all the dog hair I have the original porcupine boolits!
I keep lube out of crimp grooves and use my thumbnail to remove any lumps but always leave a film. Everything I do is very messy.
On occasion I use the lube sizer if the die is the right size.

What in the world is a "boolit", for crying out loud??!! It's ok to use the hillbilly phonic re-creation of the word "bullet" over on the forum where they don't know how to spell, but elsewhere...

It is what we use at Cast Boolits to differentiate between condom bullets and cast. Easier then saying cast bullets or jacketed bullets. Lead is just boolit, jacketed is bullet. It grows on you. Carol even laughs at me.

No experience here with PC bullets but have all the paraphernalia to do so purchased some time back. Just haven't made the time to try it out.

Question is, can you get one hole accuracy with coated bullets? I read a good deal on the subject AFTER I made my purchases, and it seems few, if any, have been able to get the accuracy with coated bullets that is pretty standard with traditional lubed bullets.

It may not make a lot of difference with handgun bullets, but rifle bullets seem to be another matter.

What say you? Or anyone else?

I haven't tried the powder coating as a lube yet.

I have done conventional lube experiments with accurate revolvers and lube can have a significant affect on accuracy. As far as one hole accuracy with cast, that's a dedicated cast br rifle proposition. I'd say a good revolver will hang with most rifles i.e. a bit under 2 moa, right around moa when everything is perfect.

That depends how close the target is!

I've read a bit about people's issues with it on castboolits too, but haven't had any problems myself. To be fair, I've never experienced "one hole", as in sub-0.5moa, accuracy with any cast bullets, but I don't shoot watered down light cast bullet loads in my rifles either.

In my experience, my powder coated bullets have been just as accurate as lubed bullets, in both rifle and pistol. The difference is being able to push the powder coated bullets faster and at higher pressure, without worry about leading. In pistols, I am getting "one hole" accuracy out of a couple 45 and 9mm Glocks at 15 yards with powder coated bullets. In rifles, I'm getting ~2 moa with full power 308 (2500-2600 fps), as well as 35 Remington and 300 Blackout, which is as good or better than lubed bullets ever did for me.

Some of the problem may come from people insisting that you don't have to worry about alloy hardness with powder coated bullets. While it's true that you can shoot softer bullets without leading, they still need to be hardened correctly for best accuracy.

Hope that helps.

I'm fairly familiar with what cast bullets can do. In this case it's a matter of perception. One hole can mean a .308" hole with 10 .308" bullets through it. Unlikely with cast or jacketed bullets.

Or it can mean the nice small group bfrshooter made with the Marlin .44 Mag in the right hand photo in his post above. More along the lines I am referring to.

I suppose I could have made better choice of terms. Let's look at something 1 MOA or better to avoid further confusion.

Some folks don't shoot handguns well enough for the bullet or lube to make a difference. Depending on the handgun and discipline, less than 1 MOA may not matter if one is attempting to knock a 6-8" steel plate down at close range.

Point is, I don't have the experience with coated bullets, but from what I've heard, with rifle at least, it is difficult to get less than 2 MOA, much less 1 or less.

With a handgun shooting steel plates it may not matter.

Thank you for a well thought out answer. Possibly more so than the ill stated question. Pretty much what I was looking for. More along the lines of a .5 MOA group is what I had in mind.

It sounds like it is well worth whatever effort it is to coat the bullets. Guess I'd best get to coating and see how it works for me.

If you look at my avatar, the big 45-70 BFR has done 3/16" at 50 yards, 1/2" at 100 and my best was a 2-1/2" group at 500 yards. Home made mold and 4759 powder, LP mag primer. I can't do that with a rifle, even jacketed. The shooting was done Creedmore but from sand bags I can hold a revolver more steady then a rifle anymore. Off hand at my age is kind of gone! I managed a 3 shot group on steel once of 3/4" from my old SBH at 100 yards, .44 with a home made mold, 330 gr with an ogive as close to the forcing cone angle I could get it.
Even the big .500 JRH in the BFR has proven more accurate then most rifles. I put up a shotgun shell at 100, taped to cardboard, missed the first shot by 1/2" and hit with the second, very tough with a 4 minute Ultra dot.
I have had my 30-30 Remlin down to 3/16" at 100 but have a devil of a time holding that thing still. You must hold the forearm with your hand, can't rest the thing on a bag.
Anyway, the good revolver is a thing of wonder. I have much more trouble with rifles and cast, don't think it is the gun or boolit, just the loose nut behind it. Dang that Marlin is a beast to hold still! Even though I worked the trigger, every shot takes different pressure but my revolvers run from 19 oz to 1-1/2# trigger pulls. I even made more clearance on the Marlin lever safety but it still changes. Stupid thing can be 1# once and 5# the next. Run out of breath without the gun going off.

This is a sight in session with the BFR .475 at 50 yards, home made mold, 420 gr WFN. I reject any revolver group over 1" at 50.

Never look down your nose at cast. Just takes more thinking and work.
Now show what powder coated can do and you might change me. Here is my 30-30 at 100, 4895 on the target and 3031 on the can, no Unique or Red dot.
Lube is important, much more then stopping leading.

BFR,

I am a novice caster and have had good luck with pistol bullets. I have not tried rifle rounds yet but maybe this year. In jacketed 30-30 I have had great luck with Win 748. Have you tried 748 with cast bullets?

Ran out long ago but it is good powder. It will work.

It's not a problem, per se, unless it's a sign of careless manufacturing overall. A good quality bullet from a manufacturer that cares about the end product will have nicely filled grease grooves. A crap bullet will still go bang, but might not shoot as well on the target.

You can buy good quality lubed or coated bullets from reputable manufacturers as well. Hard cast bullets are often cast from an alloy that is not a good choice for the application. You will mostly get what you pay for.

There are a few types of non-grease type coatings, and they are very good...Hy Tek coating is one brand that is well regarded.

Coated bullets are a lot cleaner to use, and accuracy is the same if the bullets are cast well of the correct alloy and correctly sized.

As to that, whatever your choice, why buy crap bullets in the first place?

Pay a penny or two more and get the best!

No one in my circle uses grease type lubes anymore.

The hard lube used by makers is a problem if some breaks out of grooves at exit. If any stays in, it throws a boolit out of balance like an air pocket. Best for all the lube to leave the boolit at the muzzle or all stay on.

Exactly...

I've dug plenty of bullets out of back stops...(free lead you know), and could find examples that still had the hard lube in the grooves fully filled out and still hard.

I used a softer lube because it ran through my sizer, and my concern was that if the hard lube survived through all that...was it actually doing much lubing?

That's another point in favor of coated bullets...the coating is very tough and intended to survive.

You can apply coating to any bullet design without running into any issues, but some makers now offer designs without any grease grooves as well.

But whatever the choice of lube, a good quality bullet is one that reflects quality in every aspect of the manufacturing process from the alloy through molding and lubing...it makes a big difference in accuracy and is well worth the slight extra cost.

Cast bullets can be carefully...or carelessly crafted, and shooting is not just an exercise in shoving any old lump down the barrel regardless of defect and hoping for the best...which is the point, after all.

Sounds good to me.