You guy have got to remember that the Goverment load ammo way ahead and was subject to a lot of diffent temp. So like if it was out west in the summer a soft lube would melt off and ruin the load.
So it would have to be hard to stand up to heat. This does not make it better!
Now before anyone jumps on my case I don`t know which is better hard or soft! You`ll just have to try different stuff and find out

Jim,

You bring up a good point about the government loading ammunition ahead of the time it was needed and that it had to hold up in a variety of temperatures and climates.  Of course the next step in the sequence is that it had to work well after being stored and work well enough to keep soldiers alive in extreme temperature and climate conditions.

Pete,

You're right.  I haven't mentioned the lube I'm working with at the present time.  One reason I haven't mentioned it is because I've just begun working with it and it needs a lot more testing.  The second reason is that if it works well, I might want to market it.  Be assured, if I don't market it, I'll make the formulation and results available to the world.

feather

Hi Steve,

You raise some very interesting questions.  I don't know if I have all the answers, but I tell you what I do know and what I "think" happens if I don't know.

Regarding Carnuba wax, it is a very hard wax used mainly in polishes and it comes from a South American plant.  I'm not sure about its properties, but I do know that it is different from Japan wax even though it was sometimes touted as a replacement for Japan wax.  It did not work the same.

For quite a few years I only used soft lubes with my cast bullets and black powder.  Last year I started using a harder lube than ever before and this year I've begun experimenting with one that is even harder.  Like you, I've also cleaned lube off the photoelectric lenses of my sky screens.

However, I do a lot of testing on paper at 300 yards.  When I was using soft lubes, I can't ever recall finding  a lube mark around the bullet holes in my targets.  The lube I was using last year, although it was harder, occassionally left some lube marks around the bullet holes.  Although it was hard, I was still  able to make it flow through my lubrisizer without the addition of heat to soften the mixture.  The new lube I'm working with will not go through my lubrisizer without the heater softening the lube.  In addition, every hole in every target that I have shot to date has had a lube mark around the bullet hole on the paper.  Here is how I interpret those observations.

Soft lubes do dispose of excess lubricant through centrifical force after the bullet exits the muzzle.  Because lube is found ten feet away but not at the target, I believe all of it is removed rather quickly.  Remember that once the bullet exits the barrel, linear velocity decreases and no additional rotational velocity can be imparted to the bullet.  I suspect that rotational velocity also decreases, but I'm not certain about that.

As for my semi-hard lube, it would seem that the same conditions applied except for rare occassions when some lube remained in the bullet grooves.  I suspect that the centrifical force diminshed to a point where the remaining lube was able to stick to the bullet grooves.  I'm not sure if either of the two previously stated conditions is detrimental to accuracy.  If the groove emptying is consistent, it shouldn't be a problem.  Keep in mind that even a smooth jacketed bullet is required to travel some distance before it goes to sleep.

My hard lube on the other hand seems to retain its lube all the way out to the target.  I've not recovered any of the bullets to examine the grooves and perhaps impact with the ground would empty the grooves quickly and I wouldn't learn anything anyway.  I haven't shot it across the chronograph yet so I can't say if it is depositing any lube in that area.  If it isn't depositing lube in the chronograph area, then it can be assumed that all the lube is remaining in the bullet grooves after the bullet exits the muzzle.  One of the ingredients of this lube is purported to have excellent adhesive qualities.  Although it is hard, it is also very sticky.

If the lube remains in the bullet grooves, it enhances the aerodynamic properties of the bullet by presenting a smoother surface to the air.  If all the lube comes out of the grooves shortly after the bullet exits the muzzle, then you only have the empty gooves affecting the aerodynamics of the bullet and that can be a constant thing.  If it is constant thing then accuracy shouldn't suffer.  If a sticky ingredient is added to a soft lube in order to keep the lube in the grooves all the way to the target, it may do that.  Or it may simply delay the emptying of the grooves to a point farther down range and that would appear to be detrimental unless it emptied the grooves of every bullet the same way.

I hope I've cleared a few things up for you and not confused you more.

feather

Good morning, Folks;

I have fired a series of bullets through paper from three feet through 15 feet to see what happenings to the lube as the bullet leaves.  The lube was SPG.

Without belaboring the point, I found that lube was off of the bullet and forming a "doughnut" around the hole at three feet.  The "doughnut" grew bigger and finally disappeared at around ten feet.

I don't know how much if any lube stayed with the bullet farther than that, but the lube marks on the target were clear and consistent at those very short distance.

Y'all be good.

horsefly

Hi Pete,

I don't know if I have the answer to your question about why we use as much lube as we do, but I'm simply inclined to fill the grooves that the mould maker has provided when he made the bullet mould.  To be serious though, I think you have to consider the surface area that you are trying to coat with the lubricant.

It is easy to visualize a barrel as being thirty inches long and say that it doesn't require a lot of lube to coat that much barrel.  However, we have to remember that the barrel might have six or eight lands and grooves.  That means that in addition to coating the bottom of the grooves and the top of the lands, we allso have to coat two walls between each land and groove which significantly increases the surface area that needs to be lubed.

Pure lead has a certain amount of lubricity.  When you begin alloying it, you change that property and I'm not sure it's for the better.  Alloyed bullets don't appear to have the lubricity that unalloyed lead has.  That's just my personal observation and I could be wrong so please don't hang me for it.

And what are we asking that lead bullet to do?  To see things in a different light, let's look at the numbers from a different perspective.  If we achieve a muzzle velocity of 1200 feet per second, that's the same as asking something to go from zero to 818 miles per hour in 0.0020833 seconds for a 30 inch barrel.  We are also asking that object to make 1.6 revolutions within that time and within that 30 inch distance.  I can't begin to imagine the forces exerted on that poor lead bullet.  I'm going to give it as much assistance as I can with a lubricant.

As for shooting BP dirty, I don't believe that requires any more lube than shooting a bullet while wiping between shots.  The base driving band of the bullet and any wads remove all but a thin film of lubricant from the barrel.  When you add moisture to the residue and lube in the barrel, you soften the residue and make it easier to be remove by the bullet (if you're using a blow tube) or the moistened patch (if you're wiping between shots).  The only difference between the two techniques is barrel condition for the next shot.  If you put a lube cookie between the bullet and the powder, then you could have additional lubricant in the barrel.  Since it is better able to mingle with the residue, it may eliminate the need for blow tubing or wiping.  It does however, create another concern.

It the lube cookie is hard enough to avoid contaminating the powder charge, it will probably exit the muzzle as a solid wad.  If it is soft enough to mix with the residue, it will probably require a wad between it and the powder which will also prevent it from mingling freely with the residue.  Choices, choices, choices!

I can't comment on the Shuetzen shooters using bullets with few grease grooves and very little lube because I haven't done that and I'll have to defer to more knowledgeable shooters.

feather

feather,

  Barrel length might pose a problem with the amount of lube needed, and the CBA shooters do tend to have short barrels in comparison to Schuetzen, and the even longer barrels in BP Shooting.

  As I've mentioned before tho I have found that certain bullets can use less lube and even increase accuracy.

  For BP shooting the Lyman 457125 comes to mind in the .45/70. In my .50/90 tho I have to fill all the grooves as any less degrades accuracy. I sometimes wonder if  even more lube would be better.

  For smokeless offhand shooting I use an old Win. mould that has very deep, wide grooves, and best accuracy is gotten leaving one groove empty. But my "standard" breech seating bullet is a copy of a Barnett bullet which has narrow, shallow grooves and needs them all filled.

  My thinking is maybe while testing hard against soft lubes we should also see how each of those works with less lube in the grooves.

  I'm with you about using a cookie. I've never felt it was necessary even when shooting the NCOWS Buffalo Match. I think most of the comments come from PP shooters and people who live where the humidity is low. Here In Iowa we usually have plenty of it, and as I've found using Steve Garbe's method of the blow tube and a dry patch, over 50% and you can leave the blow tube out of the routine.

  Like you to I think adding things to a load just means something more you have to account for. My theory is the less parts you've got in a load the better. In fact, before I knew better(?) I didn't put a wad behind the bullet in my .40/50SS load. Shot just fine as far as I was concerned using just the barrel sights.

Martini,

  Had forgotten about Dan T.'s grooveless bullets and his White Lightning lube. Very good point as is the one the guy who mentions now and again in the CBA's magazine that he shoots bullets with no lube at all in the 2400 fps range. Nobody publicly tells him he's full of it so there might be something to it. I've just never worked up the courage to try it. When first starting in Schuetzen shooting I "mined" enuf Lead to last a lifetime.

PETE

Both Jim Borton and I have been using bullets with only 3 shallow narrow mlub groves for a couple of years now and have had no leading issues. I have been shooting a 430 grain .40 cal bullet most of this summer and still no leading at 1450 fps. bullets were cast 32:1. 
If you are shooting black all bets are off you need the extra lube to keep the fowling soft.

40 Rod