I often design and build test and assembly tools at work, so I have access to a wide variety of commercial oddities. Anyway, I bought a power entry module of Roxtec brand and it came with a 10ml vial of "lubricant." I only used a tiny amount, so I thought I'd try it as a case lube. That's the new part of this story.

I had some 270 cases I'd bought a couple of years back at a gun show. I hadn't used them because, try as I might, they kept sticking to my die (full length sizing, since these were never fired in my rifle) So I tried the Roxtec stuff and voila! no problems at all!

Now here's the old part of the story- turns out the stuff is plain old tallow. Yeah, rendered animal fat, lard or whatever..

I thought I'd suddenly stepped back into the 1800's!

Anyone else use lard for case lube?

not quite lard but lanolin is used as a cutting lubricant and a swage lubricant still.
[quite often mixed with bees wax for better easier application]
when it is mixed with something like neets foot oil or castor oil to become a thinner oil instead of an animal wax it works even better.

Lots of things work. After running out of the product a common die maker sells and living way up north like 200 miles from a sporting goods store I tried some plain old STP oil treatment. Worked better than some lube that is sold as die lube and is cheap. Works just great on a lube pad.

Chain saw bar oil, super slick and goes a long way.

quote:

Originally posted by snowman:
STP oil treatment. Worked better than some lube that is sold as die lube and is cheap. Works just great on a lube pad.

Also Bardahl if you can find it.
I still use home brewed Paraffin and motor oil at times. roger