Any experience with using lube on your bullets?

Mudduck

Mudduck

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I'm almost afraid to ask this question in light of possible answers :p
Some talk of using moly on their bullets - less friction = more velocity? Others seem to dislike it?
I happened to click on the CGN Dragon Lube sponsor site and noticed a lot of different bullet lubes, seemingly for target shooters. Does it make a difference?
My concern would be if lube was not consistent I suspect your POI would change?.
So .... Does lube make any difference ???
 
I use Dragon tumble lube on my cast 45ACP lead bullets. No leading, good velocity and great accuracy. Suits me very well.

My only "complaint" would be that your ammo can be a bit sticky as the tumble lube covers the entire bullet, not just the bearing surface. I sometimes give my loaded bullets a wipe with solvent to remove the lube from the exposed part of the bullet. I only do this to keep my fingers clean loading mags on the line.
 
"...moly on their bullets..." At least one commercial bullet maker does that. I suspect it has more to do with marketing than any practical reason.
 
The bullet lubes aren't necessarily used for the purposes you list but supposedly make a difference. Their main purpose is to decrease fouling from the copper alloy jackets.

They do create problems though.

For one thing, you usually have to season your bore with a couple of rounds, maybe up to a dozen to get them to shoot consistently. Then, the barrel should be good for a lot of shooting, before it needs to be cleaned again or loses accuracy.

One thing it does do, is increase the amount of rounds that can be fired accurately between cleanings. The problem is that no matter what coating is on the bullets, they will still leave copper fouling behind. The coating residue itself will build up and create accuracy issues as well. Together, they can be a real bear to remove.

I went the route of coating my own bullets with moly and carnuba wax. Lovely looking grey black, shiny bullets. Shot close to a thousand rounds of it out of a 6ppc. I checked my records and there was little or no difference in the regular uncoated bullet performance over the moly coated bullet performance.

Some people swear by the coated bullets and some people swear at them.
 
I once chronographed five 180 grain copper jackets In a 30-06'
I then coasted with grease what bullet that stuck out of the case, of identical loads.
The grease I used was that thinnish, black molybdenum type.
The greased ones had about the same over all spread, but were just over 100 fps slower than were the dry, copper jacketed ones'
 
I have no knowledge of lube for cast bullets but have used moly coated rifle bullets ever since the NECO kits hit the market. Lubed jacketed rifle bullets will have less friction going down the barrel that will result in a lose in pressure and velocity. In order to get the same velocity as bare bullets, you will have to increase your powder charge slightly. For a .308 shooting 155 gr bullets the increase in powder charge is about .5 gr.

As stated above, if you are stating out with a clean barrel it will take a few shots to season the barrel and the groups to settle. The advantage of moly coated bullets it that you can go a long time between cleaning the bore. I have gone over 800 rounds and still won matches. I also stopped using the carnauba after the first year because I found it worked sometimes and other times made the bullets look like crap.
 
maynard said:
I have no knowledge of lube for cast bullets but have used moly coated rifle bullets ever since the NECO kits hit the market. Lubed jacketed rifle bullets will have less friction going down the barrel that will result in a lose in pressure and velocity. In order to get the same velocity as bare bullets, you will have to increase your powder charge slightly. For a .308 shooting 155 gr bullets the increase in powder charge is about .5 gr.

As stated above, if you are stating out with a clean barrel it will take a few shots to season the barrel and the groups to settle. The advantage of moly coated bullets it that you can go a long time between cleaning the bore. I have gone over 800 rounds and still won matches. I also stopped using the carnauba after the first year because I found it worked sometimes and other times made the bullets look like crap.
Click to expand...

Maynard,Bearhunter and H4831 thanks for the insight. Very interesting - I would have thought less friction would have increased speed instead decreasing it but good to know, Also didn't realize that moly could make that big a difference to barrel fouling.
Thanks for sharing
 
I'm not speaking from experience but a few years ago I was interested in going the moly route & did some research. One of the things that put me off is that the moly is apparently hygroscopic so it retains moisture. Moisture + barrel steel = bad news so in the end I decided it wasn't worth what small benefit I was going to gain.
 
Less pressure equals less velocity.

And my question has been, from the start, what does molybdenum disulfide do when you ingest it? I'm well aware that lead is bad, but what about this stuff?

Moly had it's moment and the moment has passed. If it was the next best thing it would be more popular.
 
I usually don't carry my match ammo in my mouth and rarely eat the paper targets of Coroplast backers, so ingesting molyblenum disulfate isn't really an issue for me. My hunting rifles do not see anywhere close to the round count my match rifles see, so I don't bother moly coating hunting bullets. What is more important to me is being able to shoot a 10 day match without having to clean every day or every couple of days.
 
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