I left a few hundred .358" 148 gr. HBWC in a coffee can and my dog carefully spread them all over the patio. The sticky lube picked up lots of dirt of course. I tumbled them in stainless media and now they are all naked and clean.

My question is; I want to load up a hunderd or so for my niece to try out on her first time shooting. I have data that says 3.0 grs. of 231 will give me about 680 fps. Nice and tame. I'm using an old Model 10-4" and a Model 36-3".

Here's the deal. These are not the hardest pills I've loaded and my thumbnail does leave a nice scratch. I want to start burning through these so will they lead the crap out of my barrel or should I use some others (lubed) and lube these up for a later session?

Use the others and then lube these

Compromise. Buy a small tube of liquid Lee's "Tumble Lube" and use that. Quick, easy, job is done.

When dry, for your niece they'll be safe, go bang, go down range and also make a hole in the target.

Ponder this:
How many airgun pellets are lubed and yet they can go past 1000fps without leading.

What leads a barrel is undersize bullets and gas cutting, wich will adhere lead particles to the bore.

If youre afraid of unlubed lead going through your bore then put 20 drops of motor oil on a small sponge and dap the cartridge tips right before loading.

I have working on some of the same issue learning to cast bullet. this guy sums it up in this paragraph..

In summary, bullet lube is pumped from the lube groove to the barrel surface by compression, linear acceleration and radial acceleration. In addition, lube is injected forward during the firing process, as the result of high-pressure gas leakage into the lube groove. This injection process forms a floating fluid gasket around the bullet, and serves to limit gas cutting and is a kind of ballistic stop-leak. Hard lubes must first melt before they can be pumped or injected by any of these mechanisms. By incorporating moly into the mix, the lube delivered to the barrel surface can serve to prevent adhesion of future leading deposits by passivating the steel surface.



- Glen E. Fryxell
I would not compare fire to air??

quote:

Originally posted by enfieldspares:
Compromise. Buy a small tube of liquid Lee's "Tumble Lube" and use that. Quick, easy, job is done.

When dry, for your niece they'll be safe, go bang, go down range and also make a hole in the target.

+1

I would add a bit of amplifying information: shake them in the Lee TL and spread them singly on wax paper. Leave them overnight, then load and shoot. Assuming they are groove diameter or a thousandth larger, you should have no trouble at the velocity you are talking about. Being soft in this case is a plus...

Good info here. I'll load some others and give these a proper "lube job". I have around 450 of them.

Thanks for the replies!

Use LLA and very lightly tumble lube.
Put all bullets (pills?) in a container like a glass casserole dish or even aluminum foil. All bullets should be on their side. Squirt a little LLA in an "S" over the bullets and shuffle the bullets around by hand for 30-60 seconds, rolling them to get all around. If all the bullets have a wet shiny look, you are done. If they are at all amber/brown, you used too much. Wash hands with soap and water. Let bullets air dry for 4-12 hours depending on how much lube you put on.

I have used Delux Liquid X-lox 45-45-10 from www.LsStuff.com on filler wads and sometimes the bullets too, for 577NE. I like it but don't have any experience with anything else.

I apply it the same way noylj does LLA. Brian