Alox is messy, want to try Pan Lube

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Cactus

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Hello fellas,

As I said in the title I want to try pan lube for my cast bullets. Alox works good but is a mess to work with unless you let the bullets dry for a week LOL.

There are a ton of recipes on the net but I thought I would ask here, what the best recipe to use or should I just melt down a lube sizer stick for the first try at pan lubing?

Thanks
Cactus
 
I was just using Alox mostly for pistol and .45-70 and .308

When I got into Black Powder I started using roughly 50/50 Beeswax and Crisco in a small pie tin. Once its solid I drop the hole cake of lube out and set on a folded towel. I then push on the bullets and they sink into the towel a bit and then I pull them all out. I do this when the lube is still warm. Remelt and then do more. I use the fridge to help cool. There are better recipes depending on what boolit and how you use it but this is working for my needs. You could just melt your lube sticks too.
 
There are oodles and troodles of different types of lubes for cast bullets. If you can get a piece of suet from a butcher store, only need a little, render it out and melt it down 50-50 with bees wax, or with parafin in a pinch, it will be fine.
But messy? you ain't seen nothen until you have tried pan lubing bullets!
good luck.
 
H4831 said:
There are oodles and troodles of different types of lubes for cast bullets. If you can get a piece of suet from a butcher store, only need a little, render it out and melt it down 50-50 with bees wax, or with parafin in a pinch, it will be fine.
But messy? you ain't seen nothen until you have tried pan lubing bullets!
good luck.
Click to expand...

X³... Alox is far less messy than pan lubing.
 
I used to think liquid Alox dried slow too. Eventually, I tried leaveing them outside in the sun.That gets them dry and hard in a hurry. I don't know if its the sun or the air movement that does it, but suspect the sun.
 
Thanks for the getting started help. Now I am working on getting some bees wax locally... I see there is an ad or two on the local Kajiji so that's where I am going to start.

When I refered to less messy, my hope is not to coat the entire bullet like Alox does but just fill the pan to the level needed and then let em dry and punch them out. Time will tell if it is better or not.

Cactus
 
There are a couple way to make Alox work better,most people use to much to begin with,two light coats dries much faster. If your on the cheap mix 1 oz. of mineral spirits to the 4 oz. bottle of Alox,thinner is better and it dries faster. I can put on two coats and be ready to load my bullets in less than 24 hrs.

I use this method and mix but I leave out the MS because the JPW has enough solvent in it already. http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=67654

I use the Alox.JPW for both TL and non-TL bullets. Here is my lube when it's in it solid form in it's storage bottle,once heated in hot tap water for about 15 minutes or laid on the dash board in the sun it turns to water.
mis005.jpg
 
SKS50, are you saying you don't cook the solvent out of your JPW at all? You're just mixing it 50/50? Without the MS, it still doesn't re-harden at all when it hits your room temperature boolits, preventing you from getting an even coat?

I bought some JPW from an American on eBay, but had problems with consistency after the "cook". I may just revisit the technique and see if it works better next time.
 
Yes I do cook the JPW down just not quiet as far as some others. I reduce about 1/2 can of JPW down to 8 oz. of liquid and mix in two 4 oz. bottles of Lee Alox while the JPW is still hot.

It will set up solid in about an hour at room temp. and stay that way. Once I reheat it as mentioned in my other post it stays liquid for quiet some time and coats the bullets really nice and even. As long as your bullets are not cold you shouldn't have any problems getting a nice even coat I usually do 50 to 100 bullets at a time depending on the size.

It also makes a great ranch dip for traditional grease groove bullets as well,I TL very lightly before applying the GC then dip the bullet in the mix and stand them up overnight and run them through the Lee sizer again the next day before loading. Here is one of my Lee 150 gr. bullets I ranch dipped.
mis002.jpg
 
Lovely looking bullet there. I'm guessing its the Lee sizer that cleans off the lube and levels it off into the grooves? I think I've going to try JPW again though. I think my problem before was estimating how much it should be cooked and how far it gets reduced. How do you measure the 8 ounces while it cooks?
 
with liquid alox its a bit of reverse thinking, less is best sorta thing.
if using to much the bullets will take a long time to dry.
all is needed is a very thin layer which makes the bullets look just a bit off color, sorta dull grayish matt finish.
if the bullets are brown than you used way to much alox.
 
Head over to castboolits.gunloads.copm and look at the LOOB section...there is an excellent recipe for ALOX based lube along with instructions. If your tumble lubed bullets are too messy then you are using too much lube.
 
SKS50 said:
It also makes a great ranch dip for traditional grease groove bullets as well
Click to expand...

Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly is 'Ranch Dip'(ped)? Very new to Casting and trying to learn all I can.

I've Googled it, however you wouldn't believe some of the results...ugh...!

:eek:
 
All these different methods of lubing being discussed, including the Lee method, are just a very poor substitute for a sizer/lubricator. Anyone doing much cast bullet making will soon have a proper sizer/lubricator, so why spend money on a poor substitute, which will just be discarded when a proper tool is purchased?
The Lyman 450 has been around for a great many years and still does a very good job.
 
H4831 said:
All these different methods of lubing being discussed, including the Lee method, are just a very poor substitute for a sizer/lubricator. Anyone doing much cast bullet making will soon have a proper sizer/lubricator, so why spend money on a poor substitute, which will just be discarded when a proper tool is purchased?
The Lyman 450 has been around for a great many years and still does a very good job.
Click to expand...

I agree with you....to a point. I use both methods. My Lyman 450 gets used for all my cast rifle bullets. I tend to tumble lube the pistol bullets and to very good effect. Even the 'high pressure' 9mm rounds I blast through the cz-75 leave no leading at all. I was not able to achieve this result with the Lee Alox alone though. Once I mixed it with carnuaba and mineral spirits it was off to the races. The key is not so much the recipe as getting the correct amount of lube on the bullet. As it turns out....with the complete covering that tumble lubing provides, you don't need much at all.....the excess somke and gummed up dies is almost always the result of overlubing with liquid alox...
 
I've been using the "Alox" type lube from Phishroy (Dealer see post 12) with great results. I lube them at night, spread them on a sheet of wax paper on the deep freeze and by 24 hrs there ready to be sized. I use to relube them once more after resizing but have found that it's not needed. No leading as of yet and not messy at all at least for me
 
Thanks for all the great info fellas,

It seems I have overlubed my bullets in the past and have gummed up the sizing dies in the process. I will give pan lube a try and give alox another try (just a lot less of it) since I have several bottles from Lees sizing kits.

Cactus
 
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