SL68 ...continued

[Pistolero]

OK, like I said, probably a good reason.

Thanks for the explanation.

Bill

 

[Grump]

Okay, so trying to stay away from beeswax is because of the temperature and scorch problem inherent to the melting of any soap lube.

Original SL-68 tried to do it using microcrystalline waxes to substitute in for the long-gone (though a few people still have pounds and pounds of it on their shelves) "Navy Wax" which is most likely only long-chain alkanes. The micro-wax used is therefore different on the branched-chain structure from Navy Wax.

I found a place that will sell me 11 lbs of IGI Microsere 5715A (melt point 165 C = 329 F), and one that will sell IGI Microsere 5701 (I can't find melt point info right now) in 1-lb bags...

Y'all are willing to work around the limits of beeswax in a soap lube, but I'm becoming convinced that either a few microwaxes or some newly-concocted mix of Alcanes can replicate Navy Wax and make all this focus on temperatures unnecessary.

 

[Ian]

The deeper I get into this, and the more I shoot cast through gas-operated guns, the more I think about what Felix Robbins mentioned a few times about polymer lube. He felt that a custom-tailored, semi-solid polymer would be the way to go, and I'm beginning to understand some of the reasons why that is so. Metallic soaps will always have a fundamental disadvantage in bullet (and many other) lubes, specific gravity notwithstanding. Truly homogenous mixtures of different chain lengths of the same basic molecule will do what needs done without the side effects of separation, deposits, etc. The trick is finding the right polymer. Polyethylene isn't quite it, I actually made some PE-thickened grease once and it left what looked like shotgun wad fouling in the bore. This company has some rather intriguing products: http://www.interlubecorporation.com/grease.asp

Yeah, I know, "here we go again".

 

[Grump]

So, are both the Extreme Lube and SL-68 threads over on CB pretty much dead?

And Ian, I had posted some expression of hope for exactly that sort of a single-synthetic goo of the right wide-range "flow" through the sizer characteristics probably more than a year ago in the Extreme Lube thread. Off to follow your link. I was originally thinking about a wax-like polymer from the lube side of life, but recent readings make me wonder about some sort of a more plastic-type goo that happens to have limited lube characteristics.

 

[JonB]

I have not fired a gun since my auction on April 2 I just haven't felt like shooting.

I did get my Win model 70 bedded and got it back from the gunsmith. But I haven't even removed the stock, to check out his workmanship, if I had, I'd have surely posted a photo or two. I have bullets lubed and coated with BLL read to load for this 30-06 ...just can't do it. About once a week, I wonder up the the reloading room, and sit down and look at all the little projects that are half done, and I just can't bring myself to jump in. I have fired up the casting pot a few times, mostly to cast some samples for some other cast shooters to try out.

Maybe I'll get back to the 30-06 next week.

 

[Brad]

I loaded some 375 Win tonight with a variation on the SL69 theme. Mine had less castor oil, a smidge of Ester 100 oil, and a little cetylesters. I works in the fingers very nicely. Leaves slight tacky feel on the fingers, not oily.

I will be interested to see what the rifle says. I need to try this is the Star and run some thru my handguns.

 

[Ian]

I keep going back to an SL-68 variant every time I need to lube stuff that just needs to work in any gun I have on any given day of the year. There's plenty of room for improvement, but the basics of 1/3 soap, 1/3 microwax mixture (the broader the spectrum the better), and 1/3 heavy liquid paraffin/gel paraffin mixture and a dash of castor oil just keeps doing the job for me. The more complex the mixture from light, straight-chain paraffin oil to extremely heavy, branched microwax, the better. Beeswax does seem to help, I made some stuff similar to Jon's SL-68B and a little beeswax helps with HV antimony haze a little, the trade-off is just a teensy bit more smoke.

If I could get away from the metal soaps and still have a lube that could withstand hot storage and hot guns, I would, I just don't see that happening any time soon. Just about my only concern with SL-68 is the water-solubility and slight tendency to darken brass and oxidize bullet metal in the long term. If the lube were less reactive I would call the quest fulfilled, but..........

 

[JonB]

Yesterday, I did some mods to a brand new Lyman .458 lubesizer die, to handle this long bullet (drilled 4 extra lube ports) and honed it to a tick over .459
Then I lubed a few with SL68B to test my my new-to-me Ruger #3 45-70
I'm wondering how the massive lube capacity (two deep lube grooves, obviously with BP in mind) of this design (NOE 460-405-RF) will effect the Gun using SL68B and SR4759 and/or whatever powder I decide to try ? (these are straight AC COWW and PB weigh 395gr, the one with GC weighs 390gr) I plan on staying under 25Kpsi.

 

[Ian]

Way back in the beginning of the quest I brought up the point of lube volume and how I wanted to find a way to engineer a lube that was pretty much inconsiderate of groove count or capacity. How many years have we been reading of some CBA competitors getting the best groups by only filling the space above the gas check? I've seen that myself. It seems that filling all of the grooves, particularly with Loverin or multi-groove designs, adds too much of the slippery factor or possibly affects bullet balance by uneven jettison, especially at low velocity/low pressure. Most lubes seem to be too slippery and don't contain much in the way of things that can control the flow of oil and molten wax. Several years back I bought a grab-bag of stuff and got a couple sticks of LBT Blue Soft lube, and later Joe gave me a sample of his soap lube. Both of those lubes had the characteristic of shooting pretty much the same no matter how much or how little was used, or at least were far less sensitive than things like NRA 50/50 or Lithi-bee. The secret seems to be using components in the lube that allow it to be soft, yet not too slick. By a lengthy process of addition/elimination we started seeing trends in what does what and how all that works, and I at least concluded that lots of soap and using paraffin oils instead of napthenic (branched) oils lets us get soft lube that flings well yet resists extremely high pressure and isn't too slippery. Things made from "brightstock" base oils like most (not all) modern conventional engine oils, gear lubes, greases, etc. are death to accuracy, particularly if "too much" of a lube containing them is applied to the bullet. SL-68 and variants, LBT, and Joe's lube do the trick, though.

Sooooo, my prediction is that the extra capacity of those lube grooves won't matter with your SL-68B except for more atomized lube coming out of the muzzle. If you're curious, take a few and peel out all the lube from the front groove with a toothpick, shoot them along with the others that are fully lubed, and see what differences you observe. Shoot some clean cardboard at about a foot from the muzzle and observe the lube dispersion patterns with one and then two grooves filled. Try it again with the gas check version and see what happens.

 

[Brad]

Just to be pedantic, thanks for that word Ian, napthenic isn't branched chains, it is made of up cyclic compounds.

That said, paraffin does have a charm all its own. It provides a good base that is cheap and plentiful. It also mixes well with most other waxes and oils and provides little lubricarion itself.

I agree with Ian, the less real lubricarion the lube provides the better it does long term.

 

[fiver]

paraffin's downfall [and great asset] is it goes from a solid to a liquid all at one time.
I used 10% In the moly complex lube to make it flow quicker.
I picked it over Vaseline because it doesn't add any sticky and didn't soften the lube.

 

[Ian]

Just to be pedantic, thanks for that word Ian, napthenic isn't branched chains, it is made of up cyclic compounds.

That said, paraffin does have a charm all its own. It provides a good base that is cheap and plentiful. It also mixes well with most other waxes and oils and provides little lubricarion itself.

I agree with Ian, the less real lubricarion the lube provides the better it does long term.

You're right, I used the wrong term there. Paraffins can actually be branched or unbranched, but differ from the napthenes with where the carbons hook up in circles rather than in straight lines or like the branches of a tree. The napthenic oils are the ones that give me the most trouble with purge flyers and cold-start flyers in the tests that just isolated oil types. The PAO synthetics were the worst.

No someone please explain what "lubricarion" means to an Ipad...

 

[Grump]

lubricarion is dipping the road kill in ranch dressing to make it slide down your throat easier.

Never been there, never done that, don't wanna.

Okay, seeing the SL-68 recipe for the first time in months reminds me that it is "Satan's Lube", the 666+1 or +something variant. How soon I forget. Wasn't that a favorite of 357Maximum? Again, how soon I forget.

I will continue to watch with interest. Never knew that the Navy Wax melted at "only" 147 F. Is it a soft not-liquid melt for the first few degrees above that?

Glad to see some more leads on replicating the Navy Wax. My investigations into Alcanes and microwaxes for sale got jammed up with vendors who wanted to sell a minimum order of a full pallet, and they love to ship in the hot tanker truck melted stuff mode.

 

[Elkins45]

So I bought what I'm starting to think is an endless rat hole in the form of the 35xcb mold. At anything above 2K I'm getting shotgun patterns from a known accurate rifle. That bullet has a very minimum lube payload and 666+1 seems to be all used up before making it to muzzle. I decided I needed to try one of the extreme lubes and by coincidence the SL68 thread bubbled back to the top of the lube forum over on the other forum. I had hoped I was finished with lube alchemy for a while, but alas I got pulled back in.

I don't have any 180° micro wax, but I do have a giant box of palm wax, so I figured why not try it, since all of the other stuff is really cheap and I have a bunch of it. Just because a wax is hard doesn't necessarily make it a good choice. The Glass Glow variant of palm wax has a sort of weird granularity that makes it not fully assimilate into a solution when it cools. The good news is that it doesn't scorch at the temperature of the soap gel. The bad new is that when it all cools it's a wired, grainy greasy gunk. As a hand lube it is really soft and greasy, but I don't know how it works or flows thru a sizer. I smeared a bunch of this concoction onto a few bullets and will be testing them. Frankly as long as it shoots OK in this one particular application I will be happy with it, but the handling qualities seem to leave a lot to be desired.

One of the posts from Ian about making the metal soap in the pot spurred some thinking: is Ivory actually water soluble? If so then it might be possible to get the wax and soap intermixed by dissolving the soap in a lot of boiling water, melting in the wax and then substituting time for temperature by keeping it boiling for a while. Eventually as the water boils off the liquid oils could be added just as the last of the water is driven off of the mix.

Hmmm...I may have a weekend project now.

After the reaction is complete, the water byproduct of the reaction would be simmered off and the mix allowed to set into a finished gel. The problem is making it stoichiometric and not having any residual lye or stearine to muck up the pH and corrode things it touches.

I think the danger lies more toward the lye than the stearic acid, given how many lube recipes just dump a bunch of it in as a substitute for sodium stearate. At any rate, the calculations will get you pretty close and you can just intentionally reduce the amount of lye a bit to make sure it errs slightly in that direction.

 

[Brad]

35 xcb not all it was made out to be? Huh, maybe Fiver was right?

Ivory would dissolve in hot water but the time to boil off the water and get it into the wax would be quite a while. Interesting idea and I applaud you for taking on the challenge of trying a new approach.

I don't really believe in the "lube used up" theory. I have shot some good groups with bullets that hole very little lube. Even the Loverin style bullets can do quite well with just one or two grooves filled and that at some decent velocities.

I'm currently using a weird SL68 variant that has way more ingredients than it should. It flows well and is great for hand lubing. So far it is giving some nice results.

 

[35 shooter]

Elkins45 I have that bullet too and am experiencing pretty much what you have described so far.
I'm going to back off the rifling next trip and see if that helps.
I didn't have a lube problem as you describe though as i had a good lube star with both Ben's Red alone and also tried an overcoat of BLL.

Like you i'm shooting a known accurate rifle. So far i've tried light contact with the rifling to about 1/8" engaged...it got worse with more engagement in MY rifle. I'll be interested in your further results.
So far i've only shot it from 2200 to a bit over 2400 fps. with imr 4350...just saying your not the only one having a problem with it so far.

 

[Ian]

The .35 XCB is a solution looking for a problem, but to each their own. The "XCB" bullet design has some fundamental issues, regardless of caliber, so don't expect a lube change to work any miracles. I already demonstrated the issues with a certain nose shape akin to the NOE XCB with the AM 31-190X, which was in fact the first bullet mould designed and made specifically for the .30 XCB. I showed and explained to several people exactly where the faults were, but apparently the advice and test results with multiple alloys and powders was deemed inconsequential. Brad also had a 31-190X cut as well, I don't think he's been too impressed with it either in the chamber for which it was intended. Now, I'll say that it DOES shoot very well in a standard .308 chamber because of the appropriate taper mis-match and lube groove design.

Edit to add: I think we all pretty much have found that the straight taper nose of the XCB likes a little jump in throats which match it closely. That brings up the problem of going from zero to full contact instantly, with no time to gradually self-align. If your neck clearance isn't practically zero and case-chamber-neck concentricity isn't the definition of perfection, the design is highly prone to severe misalignment damage of both nose and body bands during launch. Look into these things for your accuracy issues. Also, if you DO jam the nose, use a harder than balls alloy and ream the throat way forward so that only the gas check is in the case neck when the cartridge is chambered. (seriously, don't do that to your rifle, but it's a way that works. You're better off using a bullet that self-aligns, just like someone has been telling us over and over for many years now).

 

[Elkins45]

The designs were created, reviewed, scrapped, and repeated until I could find no weakness in the entire system whatsoever. Part of the design process included submitting the proposed design for stress evaluation with ballistics simulation software that would exaggerate the effects of torsional deformation, accelerative deformation, centrifugal force, and plasticization.
All of these forces were taken into consideration and the designs were both bolstered against these forces while maintaining the highest ballistic coefficient possible.

Make no mistake about it. I intended to design the most advanced cast bullet ever created, and I believe I have done so.

Sometimes you just take a guy at his word.

In his defense it was intended to be a part of as system and I'm not shooting it in a custom chamber it was designed for. I still have a 358 Win Ruger (also a known accurate rifle) I haven't tried it in yet...I just went straight to the Whelen so I could test it at 2500+ easily.

Worst case I'm out $90 bucks or so. That's a half-hour at a blackjack table.

 

[Ian]

Oh my. Well, in that case, nothing I can say will help you.

 

[Brad]

The SL68 variation I have been using is working very well. Leaves a nice clean bore, flows well with little heat, and seems to give pretty good accuracy in everything I have shot it in.

I will have to find the recipe and post it.