FWIW, when Charlie Dell was doing his extensive research into bullet lubricants, he came to the conclusion that natural lubes were of the proper polarity to adhere to the bullet as needed while still providing the lubricity needed.  I was never able to fully make his work match up with what I know about organic chemistry, but I think we were simply having a terminology problem.   

For a long time Barry Darr and others used the old standard Par-Vas lube composed of equal parts of paraffin and vaseline and although Charlie maintained that it couldn't possibly work on the long term, it worked well for a lot of folks(?)  This brings me to your paraffin and synthetic motor oil based mix.  I would say that the smokeless loadings you are using will do fine with about anything along those lines and unless you try to get over into BP with it, your results will probably be acceptable.  OTOH, with black, you may well run into a hard fouling problem that you don't see with the so-called natural lubes.   

The above statements are based on my limited experience with various lubes and probably worth exactly what you paid for them...YMMV! 

Froggie

Joe, 

     I meant to answer your Alox question in my previous response, but got sidetracked.    The scuttlebutt is that the manufacturer of Alox changed the formula of the product several years ago, so that the long answer to your question is, "Yes, it is still available, but it may or may not behave in the same way in your lube mix as the formula is not the same."

HTH ~ Froggie

PS  Reminder:  Charlie's book is available from the ASSRA Bookshelf.  It would make a great Valentine's Day gift! 

I thought I had answered this one- oh yeah it was the lube formula thread! Anyway, I use Charlie Dell's 36MA, which uses a 600w gear oil! He tried to find a natural substitute for it, as it is a mineral oil, but never did.

FWIW I wrung out a Shiloh Roughrider two years ago with several different cast bullets, different alloys, different lubricants, powders, primers, sized diameters, etc....WITH SMOKELESS POWDER....for hunting in Africa.

Hands down, in hot weather, hot gun barrel, cast bullets and smokeless powder in 45-70 LYMAN MOLY gave the best accuracy and no leading.

I was using Reloader-7, IMR-3031 and XMP-5744 and settled on 3031.

Came home and tried Lyman Moly in 30-30 for lever action silhouette with R-7 worked just fine.

Same as I use for black.  5-parts beeswax  3-parts lube gard  2-parts anhydrous lanolin  Lube gard is obtained from Napa auto parts.  The synthetic one #61016

I don't have any recommendation for a particular bullet lube, but I've always wondered if Imperial sizing die wax might be a beneficial addition to a lube. It sure is impressive as a die lube.
I'm hoping someone has tried it and will comment on it , so I don't waste my little tin of it, experimenting.
                                                  Gene

Just curious.  Anyone try soy wax in your lube formulas?  I've used it for awhil in lubing fiber shotgun wads.  It's very low ash and very slick & clean.  Should make a good sub for beeswax and cheaper. 
Greg

Quote:


A tight fitting wad of medium steel or bronze wool wrapped around a jag will do the trick.