I have tried this myself and it does not work at all for me. No leading, but the BP fouling is hard from the start and accuracy is bad, bad, bad.

I recently got a copy of the Lee reloading manual (2nd Addn) along with some other stuff I bought. The author goes on and on about how great his thoroughly modern Minie' is with liquid Alox. That is the hollow-base bullet that is for muzzle loading and it is designed for liquid Alox (a large number of very small "V" grooves).

What am I doing wrong? P.S. I tried it with both hollow-base and heel-base bullets. No good with either one.

I tried the Lee Alox in my .58 front stuffer on minie bullets a while back. The very hard fouling of the burnt powder and alox to be a bear to get out. tried Tripple 7 and black powder with the same bad resolts. Went back to 80/40 beeswax/olive oil.

I use liquid alox on my REAL bullets. But I also run a wonder wad on top of the powder. Followed by a blob of bore-butter when I seat the bullet. Have good results with that. I also use Swiss powder, it gives the best accuracy in mine without near the fouling of some of the other powders.

I have found a source of Swiss powder. It is a lot cleaner than Goex, but no better with liquid Alox (at least for me). I cannot use BP lube disc/wads with hollow base bullets. They work OK for plain base, but that defeats the purpose of the Lee bullet moulds designed to be liquid lubed.

Lee Liquid alox is petrolium based and does not work with BP or substitutes do not use it. It will foul your bore more and does not mix well with the powders it should only be used for smokeless!! Also If you do not believe me call Lee they will tell you they do not reccomend it with black powder or the substitutes I allready called them to find out. Jim

I believe you, but I've never had any problems. Course the wonder wad and bore butter must be doing it's job also.

jh45gun: That has been exactly my experience with Black Powder and liquid Alox. However, that is not what the new Lee loading book says. If you check the Lee webpage, I am talking about their bullet moulds #90471 and #90475. The first one is a 354gr, .500" diameter Minie' ball for BP guns. The second one is a 470gr, .575" diameter Minie'.

Regular BP lube cannot be used on them, they say in all Lee's literature that they are made specifically for liquid Alox, and .500 and .575 bullets are not normally thought of for use with smokeless powder. Something does not add up.

Harry O, I too tried smokeless powder bullet lube (not Alox) on .45cal. Maxi-balls, but stopped when group sizes doubled. As for Lee, Inc., they sell liquid Alox don't they? Of course they'd want you to use it on their products. If commercial BP lubes aren't an option (some find them to be overpriced), you may want to try brewing up a batch of Emmert's Lube: 50% beeswax, 40% white Crisco shortening, 10% canola oil. All measurements are by volume. ...Maven

Paul: I think you may be right about the "why". The cost of the BP lube is not the problem. I have a couple of black powder Lee moulds that were made for liquid Alox. One is in a caliber that is VERY hard to get moulds for (41 Long Colt). The problem is that you CANNOT use BP lube on them. There are very small multiple "V" grooves on them that are too small to use real BP lube. Yes, I have tried. It is liquid Alox for them or nothing.

So I have a couple of moulds that will have to used with smokeless powder (not an option) or live with downright bad accuracy (also not an option). I guess should mark that up to a learning experience.

Harry O, Is it not possible to apply BP lube by hand on those .41cal. LC bullets or stand them in a shallow pan, melt the lube and then use an old case (with the head removed) as a "Kake Cutter" (too cute for me!) as Lyman used to call it? ...Maven

Paul: I pan lube some of my BP bullets and wipe SPG on afterward on others. But neither works on the bullet made for the liquid Alox. There is just not enough room in the little "V" grooves to capture enough BP lube to work. I hate it when I get a bad mould and I cannot figure out how to fix it.