BP bullet and lube suggestions

[Jax Orebetter]

Howdy all,
I have been loading Cleanshot and thought I might give real BP a try in my 45's. I have a couple of questions.

1) I have about 2000 smokeless rounds that I am thinking about melting out the lube on and pan lubing. Is it worth the trouble and will there be enough lube, after all that work to keep my "73 with 24" barrel lubed?

2)What do you use for a lube?

3) I don't want to cast!! Not an option at this time. Who makes a good BP bullet? Again, is it worth the trouble to buy them unlubed and pan lube them, or just buy pre-lubed?

4) Anything I forgot to ask that you can tell me about would be appreciated.

[John Traveler]

Howdy, Jax!

In answer to your query of whether you can melt out lubed bullets and re-do with pan lube for blackpowder loads, it would all depend on the SIZE and DEPTH of the existing lube grooves.

Blackpowder loads apparently need larger amounts of lube to function properly and to minimize bore fouling, especially in the longer barrel lengths.  If your bullets have relatively large, deep, and square lube grooves, I'd say YES, you can do it.  Many, if not most bullets designed for smokeless loads have very shallow grooves, however, and will not work well for BP loads because of the minimum lube.

As for what lube works well, there are lots to choose from.  Some guys like Bore Butter or Bore Butter/beeswax mixes, others like the home-made lubes using beeswax and olive oil, etc.  Lots to experiment from.  Some say to stay completely away from ALOX type lubricants because they lead to severe bore fouling with BP.

Some shooters favor a grease "cookie" wad under the bullet base.  a thin card wad is used to separate the powder from the grease cookie.

HTH
John

[HWooldridge]

The consensus on lubes seems to suggest staying away from petroleum based greases, although I have seen some successful recipes to the contrary.  I use 25% beeswax, 25% Murphy's oil soap and 50% Criso by weight, which works well in all my BP rifle and pistol loads out to a 30" Sharps barrel.  The grease cookie works well with paper patched rounds in single shot rifles but you probably don't have enough room in a pistol cartridge with a limited length unless you reduce the powder charge.  I agree with John that larger is better on lube grooves.

[Charlie Detroit]

From the index, => Cast Bullet Discussion, => Bullet Lube for BP or Smokeless. Read Gatofeo's post. Copy it and save to your disc. It's long, there's lots of information, and this guy knows what he's talking about.

[ButlerFord45]

Howdy Jax

I've been melting out the smokless lube for years.  The bullets I've always used looked like the Lyman found nose flat point 255 gr bullet.  Living in the wide open spaces, I use  a little gasoline to melt out the lube, I have uses for contaminated gas, so that's not a problem for me, and gasoline evaporates pretty quick leaving dry bullets to work with.  I use a '66 and a '73,  both with 24 inch barrels and I've never had a lube related problem with either.  I use the cheap plain toilet rings and Crisco mixed 50/50 by melted volume and pan lube.  If you freeze the lube and bullets, you can push the bullet out leaving it looking like it went through a sizer.  I have never shot enough of this combination to have a fouling problem, and I've been through as many as 250 in a day.