Substitute for BLL

[David Reiss]

I think my question got buried in the other thread and was not responded to, so I will pose it again.

Since paraffin will completely dissolve in acetone & kerosene, and when the compound is left to dry, it turns hard. Why can't this be substituted for Johnson's NBFW and added to liquid alox? It sounds like it would work in the same manner and be much cheaper.

 

[Brad]

Sure worth a shot. I think fiver adds a little beeswax to his 45-45-10, bet it would work well here too.
Might need to see if i can give it a go. Paraffin would dry hard and help reduce the tacky from the alox.

Only real concern is acetone and it's extreme volatility. Might be hard to keep it from evaporating out in storage.

 

[David Reiss]

I wouldn't be concerned with the acetone. First because it would be compounded with the kerosene & liquid alox. Second, it put in a metal container with a lid like it is sold in, then it should not evaporate. That is how I would store it.

I am going to give it a try, I just can't see paying $44 for a can of floor wax, that is just too much money.

 

[Brad]

I bought mine before it was discontinued for around 8 bucks a can. One can will lube at least 10 K handgun bullets so it is pretty cheap. Now that it is no longer made the price has skyrocketed. I wouldn't pay 44 bucks either.

 

[David Reiss]

Glad to hear that, I certainly would consider $8, that is more reasonable. I thought I was just the odd person in the conversation and couldn't justify the cost.

 

[Ian]

You can buy enough powder coat for 30,000 bullets with $44.

I used to compete in IDPA and didn't have much room for high-volume reloading setups. I tried and tried to get LLA to work but it was always marginal at best in my 1911, and the competitors, many of them female, objected highly to the stench of Alox smoke. Along about the time I was winding down from participating in that sport, the paste wax/LLA/mineral spirits lube came along. It smokes less, dries faster, and works a little better than straight LLA. But I still have most of the 3-oz batch I made years ago and the most use it has gotten has been on paper jackets for smokeless powder loads.

BLL is a whole nuther kettle of fish, and I'm not sure it can be easily replaced. The polymer stuff in it together with the LLA does some magic. I don't know if the One Step is acrylic-based, urethane based, or what, but it is probably similar to Nu-Finish car wax except for petroleum solvents are used instead of water. Fiver and I have both tried to reduce the Nu-Finish to powder and change the solvent to naptha or mineral spirits, but neither of us had much luck with that. I did manage to get about a tablespoon of dry Nu-Finish to mix in with some LLA and dilute the whole mess with mineral spirits, but it had a tendency to lead like crazy due to having a very high CoF. A coated bullet just wouldn't slide on a steel plate, it grabbed like a rubber coating.