Shooting cast without lube

[newton]

I know it sounds crazy, and I would have never thought about it, but reading some stuff at another place made me question it.

Whenever I think of cast boolits I always think of lube in some way or another, even if its a coating of some kind. Gas checks are here and there depending on the boolit and application. I know there are certain "guidelines" to go by with this sort of thing, but now my mind is wondering.

There was some talk about shooting 22 cal cast boolits without any lube. I searched and cannot find any other caliber that this has been tried with. So my question is if anyone has tried this?

I have never thought about it, for the obvious reasons. But I am half tempted to just to see if its a thing. Of course, they talked about using gas checks which I would think is a must. I just wonder if it has to do with the small diameter of them. Maybe the rifling depth is less when it comes to these kind of guns? I think it was somewhat attributed to how 22LR works.

I understand what lube does, and it does not make any sense at first to think of not having to use any, but its intriguing.

Another thing that was talked about is that too much lube on these smaller boolits might be why people have issues with accuracy. The more lube that is on the boolit, and the less that is used in the barrel, means more that is effecting its flight or at the very least how it exits the barrel.

Personally, I am going to say that a small amount would be better than none.

[Wolfer]

I've never tried it. I've always felt it would lead the barrel. Perhaps if fit was good maybe not.
I am a firm believer that you can have too much lube.
I use LLA in rifles up to 1800 fps. Two very thin coats is accurate with no leading. Two thick coats don't lead but accuracy definitely is not as good. I've been trying to go faster with two or three heavy coats but accuracy is still not where I want it.

A person could always shoot a few for group and keep an eye out for leading. Worst case you might have to clean your gun.

[aspangler]

Don't think I would try it. Even 22LR has lube on it.

[Walter Laich]

Go for it...

just take a few pictures after for us to see the results

[JSnover]

I have heard of people doing it at slow to medium velocities. One of them claimed no leading but admitted he was new and had no idea what he was doing.

[Bzcraig]

Go for it...

just take a few pictures after for us to see the results

My thoughts as well

[Retumbo]

At least use bacon grease...

[tazman]

I actually tried that long ago.
I was shooting Lee 358-150-rn in a model 19 S&W. They were extremely accurate for about 12 rounds. After that I didn't know where the boolits were going to go. Leading was terrible. It wasn't all that hard to clean out since the bore in that gun was very smooth but it certainly built up quickly.
I decided not to try that again.

[Scharfschuetze]

I guess one could argue that paper patching is shooting without lube, but the steel barrel is still protected from the soft and smearing lead.

The wrong or bad lube leads to leading most of the time. No lube? Well...

[freebullet]

I tried it a couple years ago with a couple alloys.

With soft lead it can smear & cause unusual obturation shown in recovered boolits fired into medium that doesn't deform them much. I did that in a 38spcl with loads around 6-700fps. I switched to a harder alloy still only in the 11-12bhn range. It worked in 38 up to medium velocity loads. Did leave minor traces of leading.

Then I tried it in 9mm & the leading was worse with any load that came close to functioning an autoloader. Accuracy was not on par either. I believe it could be done to some minor extent with low pressure rounds.

I also tried a using a quick wipe of earwax and additionally forehead oils on a hot summer day. With the same boolits in 9mm it worked & furthermore removed the lead the naked boolits left behind. It also worked on some blazer 38spcl swaged bullets that were giving minor leading.

Some of my whacky experiments have shown just how little lube is required. Must be why BLL & other tl have such a following. It also showed me the easiest way to remove lead from a bore is to use lead boolit rounds that don't lead the bore. Works like a champ.

[Messy bear]

What you said- a small amount would be better than nothing. I agree. I tried no lube in 45 colt loads with 310 gr acww and ball powder at 1200 fps. Not as bad leading as I would have thought but it was different, a!most like solder in the barrel. I'm sure it would have built up worse if i shot more rounds of it. Cleaned out with properly lubed rounds shot in it.

[bangerjim]

Let us know how long it takes to mine all the lead out of your barrels!

If you want to get away from traditional greasy lubes, use powder coating. Thousands of us on here are doing it. I have been doing it for several years now and have not had a bit of lead in barrels after many MANY thousands of round...9 thru 45 cal. Check out the threads in the "alt' coatings" section on here.

But NO lube................I don't think so.

banger

[dikman]

Nope, haven't tried it, nor will I. The closest I got was at the range recently. A colleague had some .38sp that he'd loaded ages ago and wanted to use them up so gave me some. I'm guessing that they were lubed,'cos he wouldn't have made them without any, but the lead that I dug out of those barrels......(2 Uberti Remington 1875's). I was still finding traces a couple of sessions later! (So was he). That alone proved to me the value of a good lube.

I'm now using Hi-Tek, much better than wax lubes .

[Walla2]

I believe you are setting yourself up for a lot of time at the cleaning bench.

[Maven]

newton, Google Ken Mollohan (Molly here)* and Cream of Wheat or COW loads for some interesting ideas on shooting CB's without lube.


*Mollohan (sadly, no longer living) was one of the founders of the Cast Bullet Association.

[MSD MIke]

Interestingly a cheap springer air rifle can shoot soft unlubed lead pellets over 1000fps all day long without leading.

Mike

[longbow]

I've done both ~ no lube and too much lube. Neither worked well.

I decided to try the no lube idea (as presented by Molly) in my .303 British as I use COW filler anyway. Molly (and I believe others) said that when using COW filler you don't need lube. I had noted that my bore is dead clean and dry after shooting using COW filler so no detectable lube left in the bore after each shot. I loaded up a few rounds with boolits cast from range scrap, which is what I was using successfully lubed, and loaded them unlubed over the usual COW. Within a few rounds accuracy was gone and the bore was leaded. I stopped there.

As for too much lube, I have been hot tumble lubing with a home made lube and that works quite well for me. I melt some lube in a cast iron frying pan then roll boolits in it like tumble lubing with LLA. When pan and boolits are fairly hot I get a nice thin coating of lube and the boolits shoot very well. One day I didn't have everything quite right up to temperature at first and got a thicker layer of lube on the boolits but figured I would leave then as is and try them out.

Accuracy was "normal" for a few rounds then I would get a flier. This happened several times and I could have sworn I saw some "spider wed" like strands in the air after the occasional shot. When I posted results the conclusion from the lube experts we "lube purging". Too much lube builds up in the bore until a boolit pushed the extra out the as it goes.

So, in my experience:

- no lube or maybe too little lube = leading even when using cereal filler
- too much lube = inaccuracy/fliers possibly due to lube purge or too much lube build up at least

These were all normal cast boolit loads in the 1600- 1800 FPS range and work just fine with "normal" lubing.

YMMV

Longbow

[Scharfschuetze]

So, in my experience:

- no lube or maybe too little lube = leading even when using cereal filler
- too much lube = inaccuracy/fliers possibly due to lube purge or too much lube build up at least

These were all normal cast boolit loads in the 1600- 1800 FPS range and work just fine with "normal" lubing.

Pretty much says it all.

[gwpercle]

Do it !
Post an in depth report on how well it works and put an end to this " need to lube " myth once and for all.

[dudel]

Not quite ready to try it myself. However, there's no lube on jacketed/plated projectiles, and they generally go faster than lead. There's no lube on lead pellets, and they move out in the 1200+ fps range.

May have to do with the hardness of the projectile, don't know.

Give it a try, and report back. Be safe.