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gnoahhh
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Lube on old RF ammo
May 5th, 2024 at 12:13pm
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I have several bricks of 20-30 year old premo .22 RF target ammo - Federal OM-1 and Eley Benchrest Gold - on whose bullets the lube is dried out/flaking off. Has anybody else determined that it's worth resurrecting, made an attempt at doing so, and how did it work out?

I made a feeble attempt by melting some Javelina Schuetzen and dipping the bullets of a box of OM-1 (after wiping the old dried hard crud off). Even when doing it as fast as I could the accumulation was pretty egregious, and a shooting test wasn't very rewarding.

Maybe try dipping into Lee Liquid Alox? Beeswax-based lubes thinned to almost water-like consistency with mineral spirits? Dunno. I hate to wave goodbye to what was some extremely accurate ammo back in the day.
  
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.22-5-40
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Re: Lube on old RF ammo
Reply #1 - May 5th, 2024 at 3:05pm
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SPG sells a small tin of their lube advertised just for this purpose  as well as a patch lube.  I would think any soft salve like bullet lube would work.  I have heard Eley used a tallow based lube, and some Lapua rounds are so slick it feels like silicone.
  
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waterman
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Re: Lube on old RF ammo
Reply #2 - May 6th, 2024 at 4:33am
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I tried the SPG stuff on a box of some sort of match ammo (not dried out) just to see if it worked.  IIRC, the re-lubed stuff didn't shoot as well as the ammo did with its original lube.  But maybe 50 rounds wasn't enough to really get the SPG lube distributed through my barrel. Or maybe I had compatibility problems.

How bad is/was accuracy with the match ammo that is flaking?   

Also, think about where the old ammo was stored.  My experience with target grade Shorts is that the stuff loaded in the 1970s has probably lost its accuracy edge.  Most of the stuff loaded in the 1990s is still OK.
  
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Re: Lube on old RF ammo
Reply #3 - May 6th, 2024 at 8:47pm
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I haven't tried this with OM-1 or anything of the same class, but for general shooting I've used this technique with good results:

Tumble cartridges for about an hour in ground walnut shells (the kind they sell at pet stores as "reptile bedding").  Use a vibrating tumbler.

Wipe them clean and stand them in the kind of plastic RF ammo box inserts/trays (see below)

Dip them in melted lube and stand them on newspaper to cool.  I use Darr lube but most anything that melts is fine.

I get slightly better accuracy if I wipe the nose of the bullet off a bit (or maybe it just seems that way to me).

If you have or can borrow one, run them up into a Neal Walz (sp?P) sizing die - the kind that puts an Eley nose on the bullet which definately improves accuracy.
« Last Edit: May 7th, 2024 at 1:30pm by Smoke »  
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Re: Lube on old RF ammo
Reply #4 - May 7th, 2024 at 3:39am
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The instructions with the Waltz die tell you NOT to resize match-grade ammo, just the garden variety stuff.  If you have a tight match chamber, ammo given the Waltz treatment may not chamber.  But it works with the cheaper stuff.
  
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Re: Lube on old RF ammo
Reply #5 - May 7th, 2024 at 1:29pm
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The bullets on the RF ammo I processed was corroded and I tumbled them to remove that, which probably reduced the diameter a bit.  Hence the Waltz die.

The instructions that came with my die don't say anything about not sizing match ammo.  They do say "I suggest you use WOLF AMMUNITION, you will be surprised at the accuracy it delivers."

I have used the die on Wolf Match Extra but it didn't seem to improve the accuracy any, and WME works really well in my bench gun.  it has a Doug Knoell tight, match chamber.   

Finally, I don't see how running any .22 ammo into the die - match grade or bulk cheap stuff - would keep the match stuff from chambering while allowing the "garden variety" to chamber properly, regardless of how tight the chamber is.   

The die is made to increase the diameter to .225 on whatever you run into it.
  
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Re: Lube on old RF ammo
Reply #6 - May 8th, 2024 at 6:34pm
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Smoke wrote on May 7th, 2024 at 1:29pm:
The bullets on the RF ammo I processed was corroded and I tumbled them to remove that, which probably reduced the diameter a bit.  Hence the Waltz die.

The instructions that came with my die don't say anything about not sizing match ammo.  They do say "I suggest you use WOLF AMMUNITION, you will be surprised at the accuracy it delivers."

I have used the die on Wolf Match Extra but it didn't seem to improve the accuracy any, and WME works really well in my bench gun.  it has a Doug Knoell tight, match chamber.  

Finally, I don't see how running any .22 ammo into the die - match grade or bulk cheap stuff - would keep the match stuff from chambering while allowing the "garden variety" to chamber properly, regardless of how tight the chamber is.  

The die is made to increase the diameter to .225 on whatever you run into it.


At the range yesterday, I tried some old (2010?) Wolf Match Extra that I had run into a Waltz die back about 2015.  Tried it in an original High Wall, SN 107xxx.  This was an original 22 RF High Wall, the side walls never cut down. Action VERY tight.  Pushing that Waltz resized ammo got harder and harder. After 5 rounds, I quit, finished my 50/50 target with regular WME.

Same batch would not chamber at all in my BSA International Mk II.
  
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