Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting What lube now?

I used to shoot Rooster Red and Rooster HVR .. Rooster seems defunct. What's the go-to high temp lube today? (I'm not interested in powder coating at this point.)

TOM, If you think Larry Gibson is a guy to listen to over at Castboolits...he converted me to plain ol' Lee Liquid Alox, they call it LLA over there, long ago. Some of the higher velocity loads I use it in are .30-40 Krag at almost 1,700 fps and 8x57 at 1,600 fps...with no trouble at all...the 8x57 has a 28.5 inch bbl, you would think a tumble lube would cause problems, but it sure hasn't. At the beginning though, I did thoroughly clean the barrel and warm it well, and pre treat it with LLA. But now I've got 240 plus rounds down that bbl, without bothering to clean it, accuracy staying steady.

What's your velocity goal and alloy? One man's definition of high velocity differs from the next guy's. Me, I consider anything over 2000fps as high velocity and rarely (like, never) go there. As such I've never felt the need for high temp lubes.

Pursuant to your question, someone else will have to chime in. Ye Olde NRA formula lube (50/50 beeswax/Alox) cooked up by Col. Harrison back in the mid-60's has served me well for my playing in the sub-2000fps realm, rifle and pistol. Never cared for the LLA tumble lube, no good reason just never did. I have a couple bottles of the stuff glaring at me from the shelf as I write this.

My father ran many a stick of Tamarack through the lubrisizer over the years.

Velocity .. I would say 1250 to 1400 fps for now. .357 and .44 revolvers. Someday up to 1550 for revolver and 1750 for rifle MAYBE. I'm not worrying about that to begin with. Alloy will be wheelweights spiked with linotype to begin with, I have 100-150 pounds of that left, then something approximating Lyman #2 when the wheelweight metal is gone.

I guess one addition is I'd rather stay away from alox-based lubes if possible to avoid the smoke if possible.

Smoke? I don't see no stinking smoke. I'm not trying to push LLA, but I think smoke maybe comes from excess lube, and properly applied LLA uses a tiny fraction of the lube that filling the grooves with color coded lubes do. Imagine the varnish type lube on modern .22 rounds...properly applied LLA dries and finishes like that.
A 4oz squirt bottle of LLA will lube hundreds of large surface area rifle bullets. I personally don't care to have lube on the bullet bases, so I deviate from the instructions...lay my bullets down and roll them on a film on a plasticized paper plate or something. Then just the bearing surfaces get a coating.
But, if ya don't like...ya don't like it.

I haven't used LLA a lot. I was thinking more of the alox based lubes .. sticks .. I messed with years ago.

Oh yeah...that nasty old dark brown Lyman Alox...the smoke from my .45-70's using that stuff made people think I was using black powder only the smoke was a nasty smelling cloud of blue.

I use SPG for BP loads and Lee Liquid Alox for smokeless. My alloys vary of course, but the lube path is the same. Thinned about 10% with mineral spirits, dipped base to upper groove, allowed to dry to a sticky state then dusted with a blend of motor mica and graphite. I have used LLA with BHN12 alloy in a .30-30 at velocities up to around 2100 fps with a Lyman 311041. Accuracy at 50 yards was about 1.5" for 5 shots.

Working up some loads early on...

How many tubes would need for your project?

I may have some out in my shop,i will look in the morning.

I'm an odd duck - I kinda like the smell of burning Alox in the morning. It's the smell of....victory!

Thanks, I appreciate the thought. I'm not out, I have 8 sticks of Rooster Zambini left which should get me through what I cast Sunday, but I need to figure out what to do 'cause no matter what I bum, beg, borrow, or buy, when it's gone it's gone and I'll need to do something else. In other words I'm not asking 'cause I'm in a bind now, I'm just asking so I can learn what I should be looking for to stock up for the future.

Anybody use Lyman Orange Magic?

I have, in the past. Ok stuff.

Lotak Hard from the Bullshop. I bought a lifetime supply years ago and it's still going strong. https://bullshop.weebly.com/-lubes.html. I use it on everything I cast for - .38 Special, .357 Max, .350 Remington Magnum, .260 Rem, .30-40 Krag, .30-06. It's fantastic.

I have. Its garbage, as is the OP's Rooster Red. Saeco Green about the same. Lots of wax, mostly paraffin, which makes a good flux but a piss poor lubricant carrier. Paraffin is mostly decorative and works well for tinning, something we are trying not to accomplish.

Alox and SPG flat work for what 99.9% of us do with cast bullets and pressures under 40kpsi. Orange Magic kind of fits the bill in this regard, but it doesn't work like Alox or Texaco Taurac, both of which keep the steel "wet", even when hot.
SPG is allegedly Beeswax and petroleum jelly. Garbe made it specifically to keep fouling, especially black powder fouling soft. Mike Venturino swears by it, and few if any BP shooters swear at it. For most handgun pressures it should be right at home, but like alox it lubricates by volume of consumption, so generally more is more and is at home with large, square bottom grease grooves or multiple finned grease grooves like Louverin style bullets of old (or tumble lube bullets of today).

I've stocked up on LBT stuff and made my own and ran it side by side with LBT. LBT makes for a good substitute for Alox whether using as a groove hydraulic lube or surface lube with less smoke, less odor and higher load bearing and higher temp stability. LBT designed bullets pushed hard fare better with LBT lube as their groove size and depth are designed around it and less so volume lubes like Alox or SPG. Again, it depends on how hard you are trying to push them, how hot stuff is and what you want as an end result.

Beeswax with Lucas SYNTHETIC oil stabilizer, enough to soften to flow under pressure is what I have used as a sub for LBT. Its a few decades advanced from ordinary Alox and petro jelly and will run a couple feet of tube at max pressures without smoking or getting dry at the muzzle, still making a lube star upon exit.

Here you go. All of his lubes are great. https://www.lsstuff.com/

Agree.


How many did you cast Sunday?

Not sure. I spent at least 9 hours with a pair of 4-cavity molds so .. there's a hell of a pile of bullets. I would say absolutely no less than 40 pounds possibly upwards of 50. Biggest damned pile of bullets I ever made in one sitting!

That's a pile for sure. With a standard 1X4 solid stick of lube I could lube 785 each Lyman 429421 bullets. Those have a fairly deep lube groove. With 8 sticks that would be 6280 bullets. Maybe this will help with your plans.

As Tomme Boy said: https://www.lsstuff.com/ is a good place to look for store bought lube.