Lube: How little, how much and what?

Chickenthief · Oct 18, 2019

I have loaded and shot powderburners for the past 40+ years and i know bullet lube has a real function there: Liquid gasket.

Not if, but when there is gas blow by at the skirt the lube in the bottom groove melts and acts as a liquid gasket so that gas blow by is reduced.

If not then 4000 degreeF gasses melt/vaporise lead and deposits it in the bore = severe leading.

I know that a bullet can get to slippery with to much lube and erratic ES is the result, lube purging is the remedy and many rifles will tighten groups when one or more grooves are left without lube. Sometimes only the botton groove is lubed.

With air the situation is way different and (hot) gas blow by is not a problem. But there must still be some lead rubbing and transfer to the barrel steel if there is no lube and bare metal to metal contact?

I know diabolos need next to no lube to shoot good (i shot FX airguns many moons ago) and a drop and a half into 100 pellets was enough to avoid leading.

But what about slugs?

In the bigger calibers straight sided slugs give way to bullets with grooves to dimish the brute force needed to propel the bullet. Is it beneficial to put lube in the bottom groove or is surface coating enough? In it's purest form a coating of MOS2 or hBN?

vinny · Oct 18, 2019

I wash dry pellets and use just a very little bit of fp-10. Works great for me. With proven results I like to prove or disprove things to myself lol

biohazardman · Oct 18, 2019

I have read much about lubing pellets and slugs and did not do it until I started shooting slugs. The slugs leaded up my Impact barrel quite fast so I started lubing with a few drops of 3-in-one silicone oil like eight or ten on the foam in a pellet tin. I put roughly 50 pellets at a time in the tin shake them around gently for a few seconds and lay them out to dry for a few minutes. The need to clean my barrel has gone way down probly cut in half. Accuracy did not change. I know others use the wd40 silicone I really doubt it makes much difference. I'm sure there are other lubes that werq as well.

Ranchibi · Oct 18, 2019

Been using FP-10 on slugs....3 drops per 100 .22 cal in a ziplock, roll gently until lube is evenly distributed, then pour onto paper towels and roll around to remove any excess lube. I store them in a ziplock after. Does cut down on leading in the barrel as said above.

ChuckHunter · Oct 20, 2019

I use Slick 50 one lube the same processes as above and have had great results with way less fouling and great accuracy.

Both .22 and .25 CZ barrel's

James from Michigan

Franklink · Oct 20, 2019

Another vote for Slick 50 One lube here. It was suggested by A2ZRover and has been great.

One thing I'll add is that a given barrel/pellet combo might prefer more lube than the general recommendation to use very little. I played around with the amount of lube and found that I lost a little accuracy if the pellets weren't quite heavily lubed, compared to the comments like "3 drops per 100 pellets" and the minimal amount used by Tomcat airguns in his video describing the process.

So, my .177 poly barrel with JSB 10.34 @ 900-930 fps prefers the pellets to be pretty wet. Experiment with whatever you're shooting to see what it likes.

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Lube: How little, how much and what?

Chickenthief

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vinny

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biohazardman

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Ranchibi

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ChuckHunter

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Franklink

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