re-lubing smokless bullets for bp shooting

[R. R. Ranger]

I have switched over to shooting black powder and have boxes of 105gr and 125gr lead bullets that I would like to remove the hard wax and relube them to load in 38 long colt cases. Has anyone done this and do the lube groove hold enough 50/50 (crisco and beeswax) to shoot in 5.5 inch barreled pistols? I will be loading these with Goex FFFg. Looking for some advice.

[John Boy]

RR, you will receive many opinions, but the answer is your OK

Lube - that's your choice and will work with the grease grooves on the pulled bullets. There a hundreds of different recipes. You'll hear a few others from the folks

 

Have I pulled heads and switched to black powder? No, I've always shot the "original gunpowder"

 

Welcome to the Darkside!

[The Shoer 27979]

like John Boy said you can do what you are wanting to, the only problem will be getting the old lube out good luck

[Doc Windshadow]

why not leave the lube as it is and use a grease cookie?

 

Note this may be nuts and I have not done this with pistol ammo but I had about 100 520 gr TC GC slugs from an old SACOO mold That I wanted to shoot in my Rem. RB 45-70 and rather than relubing them I punched out a bunch of wads of milk carton waxed cardboard to be used as over powder wad ans ove grease cookie wad took two paint stirring sticks and rolled out a sheet of SPG lube between wax paper and used them behind the TC GC slugs.

 

I placed the grease cookies between the milk carton wads for 2 reasons

1 to keep the powder from being affected by the grease

2 to be sure that the grease was not adhering to the base gas check of the slug and having a detrimental effect on accuracy

 

Also this is the way I learned to provide lube to the Paper patched slugs I normally shoot in my .45-70 and .45-90 rifles

 

I can not think of any reason why this would not work in your 38s other than a slight reduction in powder space... but if I am off of my rocker I expect that smarter folks here will provide the needed correction

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

This is worth the read. As Lou Graham said, the original post belongs to Driftwood Johnson. Thanks for keeping this post alive Lou!

 

DJ's Pan Lube 101

[Driftwood Johnson, SASS #38283]

Howdy

 

Yeah, I used to do it all the time. It's called Pan Lubing. Here is a link to my method over at the the Black Powder Library at The Open Range.

 

You can use all kinds of lubes, I used to use a mixture of about 50/50 Crisco and Beeswax.

 

Just so you know, the skimpy lube groove in most hard cast bullets will carry enough BP compatible lube to keep the barrels of most pistols lubed and prevent hard fouling, but in my experience they did not carry enough lube to keep a rifle barrel lubed for its entire length. When I used to Pan Lube my bullets, my pistols might need a little wipe down every so often, but the bullets usually ran out of lube about six inches from the muzzles of my rifles. So hard fouling would begin to build up and I would need to swab out my rifle barrels every few stages. The longer the barrel, the more lube you need. No big deal to do a little swabbing, but now that I cast my own Big Lube bullets, they carry enough lube to keep a rifle running all day long without any hard fouling buildup.

 

Another thought; Goex is OK, but it is a pretty dirty burning powder. It tends to leave more fouling behind than some other powders. You can spend a lot of money on Swiss, and get more mileage out of your bullets with less fouling. Or you can spend about the same money as Goex and use Schuetzen instead. It burns a lot cleaner than Goex and leaves less fouling behind, so you don't need as much lube as with Goex.

 

Anyhoo, here is how I used to Pan Lube bullets.

 

Pan Lubing

 

P.S. I see Slim beat me to the punch.

 

About Grease Cookies; they are a pain. I used to put a grease cookie behind my Pan Lubed bullets for shooting in my rifle. You are exactly correct, ya need one wad to protect the powder from the grease, and you need another wad to keep the grease from getting glued to the base of the bullet. Otherwise they fly like lopsided darts and accuracy goes right out the window. Let's see, dump in powder, then wad, then grease cookie, then another wad, then seat bullet. Ever try loading up enough ammo like that for a bunch of matches? I did for a few years, until I discovered Big Lube bullets. That's why I eventually started casting my own Big Lube bullets lubed with plenty of SPG and never used a grease cookie again.

[Doc Windshadow]

Well I use the Big Lube .45 250 PRS Slugs in my CAS .45 Colt ammo (from http://www.whyteleatherworks.com/BigLube.html ) and the grease cookies in the paper patched big boomers. and I agree in the (1000s?) volume that a seasons reloads of the CAS ammo requires grease cookies would be a major pain

 

I just thought that if was just a matter of using up a few hundred slugs the the GC might be an option rather than melting out the old (sometimes smelly) smokeless lube and re lubing in the pan but I am more than happy to defer to Driftwood and his de-lube re-lube system does seem efficient if she who rules the kitchen will let you use her oven

[Guest Cactus Cris SASS#2790]

I used to re-lube bullets b4 the Big-lube ones came along. I used an industrial size heat gun- lay the bullets on a thin towel on a cookie sheet- start the heat gun and blow the hot air on them till the wax melts- the towel will suck the wax into itself and be there instead of the bullets. I then ran them thru a Star sizer to put lube back on them.

Used to use a cookie too- had sheets ofpure bees wax cut into strips- thumb them on the case mouth to cut a cookie then put bullet on during the reload process.

Now I use the Big-lube bullets and don't mess with the cookie.

I have also started to use APP powder for the 38spl rifle loads with Sundance bullets (they have changed to Colorado Bullets BTW ) don't need anything special to load them- The rifle shot 12 stages at WR and 4 stages of warm up with out any cleaning (Buckaroo shooting it & 12 out of 16 stages clean BTW)

[R. R. Ranger]

I had actually done what Cactus Cris said. Put the 105's on paper towel in a baking pan, took out the heat gun and just melted the wax off. Plan is to run them through my lube/sizer and relube with my 50/50 mix lube. I have the DD big lube's for the rifle but was looking for some way to load the 105's in the 38 LC cases for handguns. Hadn't thought about cookies. Would lubed felt wads work also or do they contaminate the powder also without an overwad? I haven't used those before . Trying to solve two problems,1) provide enough lube for the bullet shooting BP and 2) fill extra space in case between powder and bottom of bullet.

[John Boy]

Would lubed felt wads work also or do they contaminate the powder also without an overwad?

Pure over kill and extra work for a 38. Long term storage of the rounds with the cookie, the recommendation is a wax paper wad on top of the powder column. Yet another extra step

 

You have 38 bullets that you want to lube with BP recipe and shoot black powder. Just remove the hard wax, lube them with your recipe, seat them on top of the powder and shoot them. Nothing more.

 

Now, my honorable friend, Snakebite, who invented the 38 bullet with a big lube groove for BP shooting is going to give me a fat lip. But, you don't absolutely need a bullet with a GG that you can drive a truck through to shoot black powder. If that had been the case, the folks back in the 1800's would have done it then.

 

Example, when I started CAS, the 45 Colt PRS bullets with the big GG were all I shot for years - thousands of them. I also shoot 100 - 200 lever matches and the PRS won't produce the groups. So, I cut over to shooting the original 45 Colt bullet with BP (454190) that carriers less lube. Guess what, my revolver cylinders don't bind and I have no lube starvation in my rifles. I've shot 2 day matches with this bullet and have no issues

 

So do this if your curious to have gobs of lube in your 38 cases ... buy some already lubed 38 Snakebite bullets and give them a try ... http://www.whyteleatherworks.com/

 

In the meantime, do what your doing and shoot them 38's you have with BP and enjoy the smoke!

[Tom Bullweed]

If it were me, I would shoot the bullets that I had with APP FFFg. It does not require special lube and creates its own lube.

I would change to holy black with a new batch of bullets lubed for BP.

[Diamond Curly SASS#57086]

Pure over kill and extra work for a 38. Long term storage of the rounds with the cookie, the recommendation is a wax paper wad on top of the powder column. Yet another extra step

 

You have 38 bullets that you want to lube with BP recipe and shoot black powder. Just remove the hard wax, lube them with your recipe, seat them on top of the powder and shoot them. Nothing more.

 

Now, my honorable friend, Snakebite, who invented the 38 bullet with a big lube groove for BP shooting is going to give me a fat lip. But, you don't absolutely need a bullet with a GG that you can drive a truck through to shoot black powder. If that had been the case, the folks back in the 1800's would have done it then.

 

Example, when I started CAS, the 45 Colt PRS bullets with the big GG were all I shot for years - thousands of them. I also shoot 100 - 200 lever matches and the PRS won't produce the groups. So, I cut over to shooting the original 45 Colt bullet with BP (454190) that carriers less lube. Guess what, my revolver cylinders don't bind and I have no lube starvation in my rifles. I've shot 2 day matches with this bullet and have no issues

 

So do this if your curious to have gobs of lube in your 38 cases ... buy some already lubed 38 Snakebite bullets and give them a try ... http://www.whyteleatherworks.com/

 

In the meantime, do what your doing and shoot them 38's you have with BP and enjoy the smoke!

I shoot the smokeless lubed 38's in my pistol loaded with the black subs, but do not shoot them through my rife. I had a bunch of 38's in stock and have had not problem shooting them through my pistols. I did buy the big lube bullets from Whyte leather and they are as good as I have ever found. Shoot up the smokeless lubed bullets in the pistol and when you run out just switch over to the big lubes for both at that time and save all the time and frustration taking out lube and replacing it only for the pistols. It worked for me. Diamond Curly

[Buffalo Dick, SASS #12880]

I know some folks who simply load the cartridges with bp and hard lube bullets and then they just smear some bp lube on the bullet as they load their revolvers at the loading table. I've seen Stonecreek Drifter do this, he has a small container like a shoe polish tin with a relatively soft lube mix and just wipes the bullet through the lube before putting it in the revolver. Another alternative, if your loaded round puts the bullet nose near the front of the cylinder, you can smear some lube in the chamber mouths like a cap and ball revolver.

[Phiren Smoke GUNFIGHTER]

R.R.Ranger,

 

In desperation I've loaded Pyrodex with blue wax lubed bullets but used the foam tray vegetables are packed on at the store as a cookie. The cookie must have melted and acted as a lube because I had no problem with accuracy or cleanup. Then again I may have been very lucky.

 

As to removing the lube, my good pard West Creek Willie told me he places the lubed bullets in a colander and runs hot water over them until the wax is gone.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Smoke

[Greeenriver SASS #38681]

If it were me, I would shoot the bullets that I had with APP FFFg. It does not require special lube and creates its own lube.

I would change to holy black with a new batch of bullets lubed for BP.

 

 

My thoughts exactly.Smple, and I'm a big fan of simple.

 

Greeenriver