Coated Cast Bullet Lube

[in2anity]

Hi guys,

First time posting in this category so hiya!. I've been getting some pretty mediocre results from my Marlin 336 30WIN shooting coated hard-cast-lead projectiles purchased from the main suppliers in Australia. My rounds stabilise, but there is still a small amount of keyholing, particularly over Trail Boss. I have some questions in relation to bullet lubrication:

1. Generally, how important is bullet lube in conjunction with an already coated hard-cast projectile?
2. In the Australian climate, whats a good (but simple) lube formula? (50/50 beeswax/canola oil has been suggested). On a hot day, would this melt (and spoil the powder)?

Any genuine knowledge would be greatly appreciated. Thnx.

[Noisydad]

Try this....
1 part paraffin wax (candle wax)
1 part pure lard (I use bacon fat from the frying pan)
1/2 part beeswax
Melt hem together in a Pyrex meaning jug in the microwave. Stand your bullets up in a shallow tray about a finger width apart and pour in the melted mix till the lube grooves are covered. When it's solidified but still warm, tip out he block and push the bullets out with your thumb while supporting the block with your fingers underneath.

[Tripod]

What projectiles are they? Size and weight?

[in2anity]

What projectiles are they? Size and weight?

Current batch is Westcastings "Black Premiums" which are a dry bonded polymer-like coating (not exactly sure, as they are pretty secretive). 165gn RNFP sized to .310"

[in2anity]

Try this....
1 part paraffin wax (candle wax)
1 part pure lard (I use bacon fat from the frying pan)
1/2 part beeswax
Melt hem together in a Pyrex meaning jug in the microwave. Stand your bullets up in a shallow tray about a finger width apart and pour in the melted mix till the lube grooves are covered. When it's solidified but still warm, tip out he block and push the bullets out with your thumb while supporting the block with your fingers underneath.

Ok great thanks, just ordered some paraffin wax. In your experience, when it comes to the accuracy department, how much of a difference does lubricating (coated) projectiles make?

[Noisydad]

Try this....
1 part paraffin wax (candle wax)
1 part pure lard (I use bacon fat from the frying pan)
1/2 part beeswax
Melt hem together in a Pyrex meaning jug in the microwave. Stand your bullets up in a shallow tray about a finger width apart and pour in the melted mix till the lube grooves are covered. When it's solidified but still warm, tip out he block and push the bullets out with your thumb while supporting the block with your fingers underneath.

Ok great thanks, just ordered some paraffin wax. In your experience, when it comes to the accuracy department, how much of a difference does lubricating (coated) projectiles make?

Dunno. That wax coating is all I use and works in both smokeless and black powder loads and I regularly win target events (to 600 yards) with BP loads using that bullet lube.

[Herdsman]

Just out of curiosity what's the answer on not lubing the bullets?

Dangerous? Or does it just kill the velocity / performance with friction in the barrel?

[bladeracer]

Just out of curiosity what's the answer on not lubing the bullets?

Dangerous? Or does it just kill the velocity / performance with friction in the barrel?

No lube at all?
Severe leading would be my guess.

[Hucka]

Severe leading would be my guess.

There's an argument it also works a little like a gas check in a sense as the lube fills any slight voids between the bullet and barrel.

[reloader762]

Just curious if you Marlin has standard rifling or Micro Groove rifling. The Marlin MG bore rifles benefit best from a gas check bullet that is at least 12 BHN an sized to .311" dia. to fill those shallow lands an grooves to provides a much better grip so the bullet doesn't skid on the rifling. Keyholing is always a sign of instability which can be caused by undersized bullets,a bullet that is to hard or obturate ie. bump up under pressure an seal the bore.

Poor accuracy,keyholing or not hitting the target at all can also be cause by overdriving the cast lead bullet. In a rifle with a given twist rate bore you have a RPM threshold with a given bullet weight and length. At a given velocity the bullet is spun by the rifling at a given RPM rate as the velocity increases so does the RPM's increase. At some point in your load development once you pass that RPM threshold for that bullet the increased spin will start to accentuate all the bullets defects as no cast bullet is prefect an accuracy will go south. The only way to increase the velocity/RPM/accuracy is it go to slower twist bores say from a 1:10 to a 1:12 or 14 twist some even use 1:16 twist bore or higher which is not uncommon for cast bullet bench rest shooters. I have a couple friends in other parts of the US that built custom 30-06 & 308 rifles with slow twist bores that will shoot cast lead bullets in the 2700 fps. range with MOA accuracy at 300 yds. Personally I don't have that kind of money so I work with what I have which are Mosins an SKS rifle along with a Sav. pump 30-30 and a Sav. 99 in 300 Sav. which all get a stead dose of cast lead bullet in multiple variates about 99% of the time.

As to lubing coated bullets try it both ways an see which shoots better,it may or may not improve anything. There is some argument that standard lube groove style bullet are not best for powder coating due to the fact that those large unfilled grooves weaken the bullets integrity at the lube groove or grooves point an allow it to slump,filling those grooves or having no groove at all would negate the slump. Some of the newer molds designs for HV cast bullet shooting have no groove at all if there going to be coated or they have multiple shallow grooves similar to the Lee micro groove bullet like the 30XCB http://noebulletmolds.com/NV/product_in ... v2ta5k57q3 which was designed to go along with the above mention rifles designed to shoot HV cast bullets and using White Label Lubes 2500 & 2700+ lubes.

[in2anity]

Hey guys, I thought i fill you in on my lubing results:

So a bit of an update on my progress with accurizing my 336W in conjunction with commercial coated hard-cast projectiles. My current batch of projectiles are Westcastings "Black Premiums", which have a BHN of around 16bh. I have about 600 of these left so I need to make them work (hence the motivation).

As suggested by Noisydad, I experimented with lubing these (already coated) projectiles; I pan lubed using his formula of:

1 part paraffin wax (candle wax)
1 part pure lard
1/2 part beeswax

Before:

raw.JPG (350.71 KiB) Viewed 3936 times

After:

lubed.JPG (348.84 KiB) Viewed 3936 times

Finished:

finished.JPG (470.87 KiB) Viewed 3936 times

I tried three different powders and went back and revisited 2207 (as suggested) and 2206H. The results were mixed.

Trail Boss

The long and short of it, Westcastings "Black Premiums" don't gel with Trail Boss. Max 9.0gr Trail Boss gives me an average of 6-12moa; my rifle certainly does not like this load:

9_TB.jpg (577.24 KiB) Viewed 3936 times

8.4gr of Trail Boss is a little better (at around 3-4moa), but still far from averaging <=2moa (my end-goal):

8.4_TB.jpg (631.56 KiB) Viewed 3936 times

There is still evidence of destabilization on these Trail Boss targets - something I was really hoping to eliminate with lubing. This probably explains the sub-par accuracy.

Actually, I'm convinced my rifle favours 8.4gr Trail Boss regardless of the projectile manufacturer. Hawkesberry River and Topscore both also like 8.4gr Trail Boss; they grouped at around 2.5 - 3.0moa with this load. Still not great by any stretch, but that'll have to do, I do not want to waste my 1.5kg bottle.

I must say I'm starting to think generally Trail Boss isn't the best powder out there. Good value, but not nearly as accurate as the mid-burns. I used to rave about the stuff (due to the fluffiness of it), but the proof is in the pudding. I think I might give it up once I get through the bottle.

2207

I haven't tried 2207 for some years now, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to go back and revisit it. And WOW what a huge improvement! Looking back at my data, 2207 has performed well for me in the past (with Topscore projectiles to be precise), I'm not sure why I recently neglected it TBH. It seems very sensetive to the load though. 16.0gr 2207 seems the sweet spot, 17.0gr blows out.
Off-the-bat I knew it wanted to group, a three shot group was sitting at 1.5moa:

3shot_16_2007.JPG (262.97 KiB) Viewed 3936 times

But I like to report 5 shot groups, and anoyingly that last shot took it from 1.5moa to 2.0moa:

16_2207.jpg (606.68 KiB) Viewed 3936 times

I could well of pulled that lost shot though TBH (after all, I was using iron sights), so there's the distinct possibility the groups could indeed be sub 2.0moa...

2206H

I've shot a lot of this powder - it works pretty well with a lot of load, also jacketed. Not as sensitive as 2207, and you can push the "Black Premiums" to 1800fps with acceptable accuracy (~3moa). 21.0gr of 2206H seems to be the best load at around 1.6":

21_2206H.jpg (684.93 KiB) Viewed 3936 times

Overall 2206H probably yields about 2.5moa at best. I've achieved this in the past with Hawkesberry and Topscore. I settled on 2206H a while back, but I think I need to accept the fact that 2207 pips it at the posts.

Summary

2207 is the clear winner here, and I thin 2207 will consistently group inside 2moa. I'm going to focus in on this load moving forward, The real question is, how significant is the lube? That is a question that I cannot currently answer. My gut is telling me that the lube does help a little. The proof will be in the data.

Next session I'll load half lubed and and half unlubed. I'll also whack a scope back on the old girl to help eliminate some variables. Onwards and upwards!...

To be continued...

[bladeracer]

What velocities are you shooting these? It looks like a fairly long bullet so probably needs a decent velocity to get it spinning.
16gn of 2207 and 21gn of 2206H are going to make _a lot_ more velocity than 9gn Trailboss loads. How much TB does the case hold?

[in2anity]

What velocities are you shooting these? It looks like a fairly long bullet so probably needs a decent velocity to get it spinning.
16gn of 2207 and 21gn of 2206H are going to make _a lot_ more velocity than 9gn Trailboss loads. How much TB does the case hold?

I think you could squeeze 10 or 11 grs in without compressing, that'd prolly give you around 1350fps. Agreed worth a try.

If anything though, the slower TB loads I tried grouped better than the official max 9.0gr loads.

[in2anity]

Lubing VS Non-Lubing Update

Results are in for lubricated vs non-lubricated coated, hard-cast, retail-bought "Wescastings Black Premium" lead projectiles. The difference between the two wasn't as profound as I expected, however I feel they are still measurable. I'm ignoring the real outliers (which may or may not be shooter error) in both samples in a attempt to determine the average accuracy of both. There were 2moa 5 shot groups in both, but layering them all together like this I feel shows the truly average accuracy of the two samples.

16_2207_U.jpg (817.39 KiB) Viewed 3890 times

16_2207_L.jpg (790.64 KiB) Viewed 3890 times

I now feel an average accuracy of 2moa is indeed achievable in my rem-lin 336W using AR2207 and retail-bought, pan-lubricated, hard-cast coated lead projectiles, something I've been trying to achieve for literally years now You be the judge!