Guys, Haven't heard anything about the big melt lately. Anything new? haven't been online alot last couple months thought I may have missed somrthing.

woods

If you are talking about the big MOAS melt of FWFL lube it was done and shipped some 3-4 months ago.

Felix might still has some left (I think ??) so you might want to contact him directly if you wanted to make a $20 charitable donation to the cause & be gifted with some FWFL lube as a "thank you".

I stiffened mine with blue candle wax (20% by melted volume) to be a LBT Blue Commercial equivalent in hardeness, texture & color and I have been using it for a while now. I honestly can't differentiate between 8mm Maximum bullets I kept on purpose (loaded with Appache Blue lube) and the Felix lubed 8 Max bullets I just recently lubed. I have also shot some old freezer-stored LBT Blue Commercial 44 magnum plain-based slugs vs my stiffened blue Felix lube on the exact same bullets and I cannot discern a difference in performance because of the lube.

One of the conclusions I came to out of this is for normal shooters lube isn't the be-all or end-all of their actual shooting accuracy results (the condition of their aging eyes and their flinch is a much much bigger determinant).

Lube, as long as it is good lube, isn't a big player to me any more in my thinking. Others have come to similar conclusions as a result of the big MOAS melt (and their own efforts in building small batches of "other" lubes as experimental checks).

For sure, NOBODY is shelling out $4.50 a stick for expensive Veral & Apache Blue lubes anymore. Why in the world would you do that when $20 can get you so much more volumetrically of an "equivalent" grade of premium lube?

BTW, I have YEARS & YEARS worth of perfectly wonderful Felix lube still left from my donation. Over a QUART of it after I stiffened it up a bit with blue candle wax !!!

Oldfeller

Curious
Why has no one started to produce 'Felix' lube in large volumns for the market?
I use LBT and buy it by the two dozen. Is there any benefit to making my own opposed to continuing to use LBT?
Jim

FWFL is cheap to make and can be taylored to be any way ya want it,slick, sticky, soft, hard...and it works great.
jim

Yes, it is a logical extension of your casting hobby. You shoot a lot, so you cast, you cast so you lube, you can make the lube so it is ALL yours, from start to finish.

To be certain, all it takes a pot and some raw materials and isn't really all that hard to do. Once, I threatened to buy all the oils, polymerize the oils correctly, mix in the lanolin once it cooled down and put the resulting slurry of "active ingredients" into a plastic bottle suitable for shipment anywhere. The intent was that the label on the bottle would give mix ratio instructions for adding the stuff to melted beeswax (the bulk component that you could buy locally). Thus, I would end (at bulk material cost of the oils plus shipping) the lube selling businesses of Veral Smith and Paco Kelly (sigh).

Felix and Sundog stepped it at that point and kept the peace by doing the big MOAS melt (you should get some of that MOAS melt if any remains just so you can compare it to Veral's stuff since you like the Veral Blue lube so much. Don't forget, MOAS FWFL requires paffarin stiffener at 20% by melted volume so it gets up to Veral's Blue Commerical stiffness range).

Of course, some of us DO draw the line at making our own gas checks out of recycled aluminum cans (why, because the die set to do it simply costs too much .....)

<g> Oldfeller

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Seriously, buying lube the way you are doing it from Veral is quite expensive and quite frankly from what folks are able to determine, except for some small amount of finely ground Moly powder that is added to Apache Blue these things are VERY similar lubes in how they cut out leading at over 2,200 fps.

You might want to give Felix an e-buzz and ask him about one of his donation packs of MOAS melt FWFL.

Fellers, I do not have any big batch FWFL other than the one what I scraped off the pouring table - spillage and overpour. If Felix has any left, he'll have to chime in.

Here's what I know about lube. What Oldfeller said. If'n y'all got a GOOD, HIGH QUALITY lube, another GOOD, HIGH QUALITY lube will more than likely not change anything too much. Making it yourself is just a natural extension of what we do. The bestest part of this is that you make it the way you want. Thanks for the formula, again, Felix !!!

If you do well with one of the commercial lube's, and that's what you want to use, great. I'm sure not gonna fault you. Before FWFL I was an avid Lyman Super Moly fan. Before that, alox or Ideal.

About home made gas checks. Well, I think I'll keep buying them for the time being.... sundog

Sundog, I was wondering about the big lead melt. Haven't heard from Lew in awhile. Just thought I'd see if anything was up?

woods

Woods, you and Lew are covered quite well in lube. I have been holding it for shipment with yall's lead, that Sundog and I have yet to finish up. That will be done some time this month, ALLMOST guaranteed. Still could use your physical help. We'll let the trucks ship the lead back to STL. ... felix

Felix, how many $20 donation packs of MOAS Big Melt FWFL do you still have left at this point in time?

If you have enough to mess with, post a head count and let's see if they will mosey on down to somebody else's house to replace their need for a couple of dozen sticks ($100 worth??) of Veral Smith's Blue Expensive.

Oldfeller

OF, there is only 12 tubs left, spoken for, and paid for, by Woods and Lew. It's up to them to say what they want to do with it. If I'm not mistaken, it might be quite a while if Lew will come up with a decision. He has been under the weather since New Year's. ... felix

Neal, MOAS is the mother of all smelters, made for melting large batches of WW, range scrap, babbit, or any possible junkyard lead. Purpose is to do all of the work on just a day or two for one's year's shooting for anyone locally (mostly) needing lead. It was used to make the lube too, for lack of a better device. The pot/tub is 24 inches in diameter and about 24 inches tall. Only a heavy duty ladle is used to get the produce out; no spigots because of a possible accident with 2 to 3 tons of lead. ... felix

Thanks. I figured it was something like that, but I could not come up with it on my own. BTW, a neighbor recently gave me some bullets (Lyman #452423) lubed with Felix lube, and they sure shoot clean in my barrels. No leading at all. I now have a stick of FWFL to try in my sizer. I was an LBT Blue and Apache Blue user, but now it looks like you have another Felix convert.

Neal

Felix, As far as physical help needed, a road trip could be in order. April is a vary busy month what with turkey season, crappie spawn and mushroom humting. darned if I can figure it out but the wife thinks I shoulf try and work a little too. Let me know what you guys are planing and may be I could run down there real quick.

woods

Neal, here's some pics. Right now the MOAS is about have empty (not full - that would be good). Anyway, my little tractor will pick it up, but have to add more counterweight in front to keep front tires firnly on the ground. Biggest problem with it is that the pot itself is a heat sink, and its tough keeping the heat from bleeding off. In process of rigging some kind of wind (NEVER blows in Oklahoma doncha know) screen to improve efficiency. In all this was mostly a Felix design and project, and he did a fine job. sundog

http://www.castpics.net/RandD/moas/moas.htm

Excellent pics, thanks. I assume you made the pot yourselves?

Neal, the pot was constructed entirely by Clayton Engineering whose real job is to fabricate and maintain the pot lines at MacSteel, a speciality steel manufacturing plant. ... felix

Felix/Sundog, I got around the heat sink issue with my little smelter, (8 inch well casing), by wrapping it with one inch commercial rock wool fireproofing left over from installing the exhaust hood in the cafe. Any large commercial HVAC wholesaler will have it. It's sort of like very dense fiberglass, except that it won't burn at all. A piece on the lid will help as well. BD

The best coating is gunnite concrete, and that followed by some new fangled epa controlled fiber. However, when I requested that be done, they said any bump on the highway to Tulsa from Fort Smith would destroy the coating, and it would fall off on the next bump. Besides, the pot encircled with that concrete would have been too heavy for Sundog's tractor. Leaving the pot out in the rain/ice/thaw would be a no-no for anything concrete. ... felix