Lubing bullets before seating
- Thread starter Smokinyotes
- Start date
No. The only bullets that should be lubed are cast bullets, and that's to aid their journey down the barrel, not to make them easier to seat in the case.
You want consistent neck tension when seating bullets. Lubing your bullets just adds another variable to effect pressure and accuracy.
You want consistent neck tension when seating bullets. Lubing your bullets just adds another variable to effect pressure and accuracy.
^this
You also under no circumstances want remaining bullets in a gun to move in their case from firing previous rounds or cycling, changing the OAL of the cartridge.
If let's say remaining revolver rounds start moving out of their case from recoil it could lock up the cylinder or if in a pump gun you push bullets in the case with cycling you could get dangerous overpressure situations upon firing by the decreased capacity/volume for the powder.
BattleRife
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
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There have been short-lived fads over the years with people dipping case necks in motor mica or tumbling jacketed bullets with molybdenum disulphide powder. You get one or two people advocating some benefit or another, then the masses try it out and find the whole thing is hype.
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Rightly or wrongly, I am working my way through some 22-250 brass - the previously fired stuff quite black and sooty inside the case - the "new" ones are all shiny inside - all make same trip through re-sizing die (yes, I re-size necks and case mouths on new brass - at least the bulk stuff that I normally get - so they all get same expander ball sized). Some will have "streaks" of black carbon soot within the case neck, and some will be shiny bright - is how the bullets will get seated. I never have deliberately "lubed" either a jacketed bullet or a case mouth in order to seat a jacketed bullet - just relying on the difference in diameter between the expander ball result and the bullet - so is no "crimp" applied, either. I have applied a dab of lube into a case mouth when re-sizing it to some other diameter, though - my thinking was to "help" that expander ball get through.
Cast bullet lube actually creates a seal to prevent gasses slipping past and leading your barrel. The term "lube" is a misnomer.
I am also firmly in the "don't lube your bullets" camp.
Depending on the discipline you are involved in you may or may not lube. It is very common to lube the inside of the neck for F-Class cartridges shot in a single shot rifle. Most use either Imperial case lube or a dry graphite type. What this does is prevent "cold welding" between the bullet jacket and result is very low ES and SD's which are beneficial at long range. However, for the run and gun crowd, I would be hesitant because the bullet "may" be seated inwards raising pressures during the seating process. I do lube the necks for my hunting rifles but increase the neck tension at the same time.
That's a complicated question. For hunting ammo, and especially if you're using a mag or mag tube, no, I would never lube them at all. For benchrest shooting, I have a system where I brush the inside of the necks with a miniscule amount of graphite embedded in it. Disclaimer: That's in a single-shot rifle, with 1-2 thou neck tension though. I also don't seat the bullets all the way until the day I'm going to shoot them - I leave them a few hundredths long when I load up a batch. (not sure if you've ever tried to pull a bullet you loaded a year ago vs one you loaded that day)
Assuming here that we're talking about plated or jacketed bullets here - different set of rules for cast lead.
Assuming here that we're talking about plated or jacketed bullets here - different set of rules for cast lead.
