BULLET LUBE

All bullets need lubrication, some more than others. I know it is commonly taken that jacketed bullets do not need lube. If that were the case however we would not use oil in the bearings on our cars. Fire a few thousand jacketed bullets through your barrel and watch it turn copper-colored in the rifling and then tell me jacketed bullets don't need lube. They do, however, need it far less than lead bullets.

Many years ago I ran a test - lubricating jacketed bullets. I did this after I pulled some early Winchester .45 Silver Tip bullets and found that they had a grease groove in the jacket!! Hmm....does Winchester know something I don't, I wondered? So I gave it try.

TEST 1 - fired in a Ruger .45 Colt Blackhawk 7 1/2" - using WW cases with CCI LP primers - 22 gr. H-110 and the Speer 300 gr. PSP bullet. The bullet was seated out of the case as far as possible, crimping into the bottom crimp groove.

NO LUBE

Load #1 - 974 fps
Load #2 - 815 fps
Load #3 - 1003 fps
Load #4 - 993 fps
Load #5 - 987 fps
Load #6 - 896 fps

Average of all shots - 944 fps

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LUBED WITH LEE LIQUID ALOX - ALLOWED TO DRY 24 HRS. BEFORE FIRING

Load #1 - 1027 fps
Load #2 - 1075 fps
Load #3 - 1063 fps
Load #4 - 1062 fps
Load #5 - 1055 fps
Load #6 - 1000 fps

Average of all shots - 1046 fps

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Next I fired the 7 1/2" .454 Casull with the same bullet loaded over 30 gr. H-110, using CCI #400 Small Rifle Primers.

NO LUBE - average velocity 1698 fps

LUBED WITH LEE LIQUID ALOX (dried 24 hrs. before loading and firing) - average velocity 1775 fps

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FIRED FOR ACCURACY AT 25 YARDS FROM A REST

Bullets without Lube = 2" average

Bullets with Lube = 1.75" average

What did it prove? Bullets going down a bore have friction. Something we all know. Often we do not think about jacketed bullets and barrel friction though. What little testing I have done leads me to believe that you can have too much of a good thing. Accuracy is not always enhanced by better lubrication. Bullets apparently need some "drag".

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LEAD BULLETS

Reloaders have always known that lead bullets need lubrication. Dry lead on a dry barrel causes real problems. Once lead starts building up in a bore it can continue, aggravating itself. A man once brought Dad a pistol and asked him if he could clean it. It was an H&R .22 revolver. The bore was so leaded that it would not allow a .22 caliber brush into it. The guy had been shooting it that way for some time. He said it was hard to hit anything with it and figured maybe it needed cleaned.

Dad and I found some of the bullets that had been fired from this gun. They were squeezed down to about 15 caliber and were real long and skinny. Dad got the gun clean in about 10 minutes. His secret involved using a torch... after the owner had gone home.

The list of commonly used bullets lubes over the years is interesting:

US Army 1855 - 1 part beeswax, 3 parts tallow
US Army 1861 - 8 parts beeswax, 1 part tallow
US Army 1873 - 8 parts bayberry wax, 1 part graphite
US Army 1880 - Japan wax
Sharps Rifle Co. 1878 - 1 part beeswax, 2 parts sperm oil.
Maynard Rifle 1890 - 1 part beeswax, 3 parts tallow
Marlin Firearms Co. 1891 - 1 part beeswax, 4 parts tallow
S&W 1891 - tallow
H.M. Pope 1900 - 3 parts mutton tallow, 2 parts bay wax, 1 part beeswax, 1 part steam cylinder oil, .2 of 1 part Acheson graphite. (The bay wax can be omitted)
A large Police Dept. 1962 - 1 part beeswax, 1 part paraffin wax, 1 part cosmoline.

Dad and I did a series of tests years ago to find out what would work for bullet lube. We wanted a lube that was easy to make and use. It was for loads under 950 fps in sixguns - practice loads. We experimented with a number of things and found that you could lube a bullet with a number of substances. For instance, I took some cartridges which had the bullets loaded "dry" - no lube on them. I would dip the nose of the bullet in motor oil, shove the cartridge into the chamber, roll the cylinder around and fire. They worked just fine...except the gun got slick after a little while. I tried Vaseline, brake fluid, Butch Wax... it all worked OK if you fired the cartridge right away. Left too long the oils would "creep" back into the case and kill the powder. But it did show what would keep a barrel from leading.

Eventually we settled on crayons. Yep. We melted crayons in a skillet, tossed in a handful of bullets, rolled them around until they were covered, dumped them out on a newspaper and let the wax harden. I would shoot these in the .357 and .45 Colt at speeds up to 800 fps without any leading.

BUT...since Lee came out with their Liquid Alox I have never used crayons. The Liquid Alox is much easier to use and a much better lubricant.

After Col. E.H. Harrison did all his testing for the NRA was when Alox came into use. Usually found in a combination with beeswax, Alox actually is the name of a company in New York that produced lubricating substances and corrosion preventatives. In the 1970s there were more than 2000 formulations of "alox" lube. Col. Harrison ran thousands of tests with different combinations and eventually found that Alox 2138F when mixed with equal parts of pure yellow beeswax produced the best bullet lubricant until that time. This is still the basic formula for all "alox" bullet lubes.

I have used Paco's Apache Blue for years now...in rifles and handguns. I am used to it and so are the barrels in my guns. Oh, I shoot some other lubes if I get bullets from a commercial caster but for the most part I only use the Apache Blue. Paco gave me several large cans of it in 1989 and I still have one left. It should last the rest of my life.