minnie lube

[410-er]

Got a 45 cal minnie mold and thinking about trying it in the boredom of winter.Do you lube the hollow or dip and lube the sides?

[Daryl]

Wipe lube into the lube grooves in the side of the bullet. Use a REAL Black Powder lube - not an Alox lube. Alox is a smokeless powder bullet lube.

Lyman's Black Powder Gold and SPG are both good BP lubes. If you want to make your own, use high quality Beeswax and Vaseline - 60/40 mix works well on bullets and wipes in with your fingers - good for the skin, too. I have not had good luck with Paraffin, ie:modern candle wax. Others say it works for them. I do not like it at all - it's accuracy stunk - for me.

[Daryl]

Further to my post above, I'll add this.

I bought a Lee R.E.A.L. bullet mould for my .45 rifle just to see how they shot in the 60" twist 42" GM .45 barrel. The Lee mould was for the lighter 200gr. R.E.A.L. bullet.  Lee also makes that design in a 220gr. weight in .45 cal.

I fired 10 shots with them, using Lyman BP Gold lube at a 50yard target using 75gr. 3f GOEX.  The bullets struck the target some 2 1/2" low of the point of aim.  The accuracy was fair, as I ended up with 2, 5 shot groups of approximately 2" each. They were not as tight as this rifle does with patched round balls. I had no difficulty in loaded them - easy is the best way to describe the loading. I do not know if they would maintain stability after impacting an animal - might be ok for small game like a deer or smaller black bear, but I would not use them on elk or moose. You need a stable bullet for straight line penetration on large game. The rifling twist in my rifle is just to slow to accomplish that task.

After shooting the 10 shots with the bullets, I loaded 75gr. of 3f GOEX and a .022" Lehigh Valley lubed, patched round ball and fired that. It struck centre. I finished off the day by shooting a number of 3/4" to 1 1/2", 5 shot groups at the same 50yard range - never having to wipe the bore, during ALL of the shooting, that day.
Whatever fouling was in the bore after the first 10 shots with the bullets, was removed by the loading and first shot with a patched round ball.

[blackbruin]

Northeast trading co, mcm lube, muncy pa. 

[410-er]

Might use Bear Oil and Bees wax.
Not sure if I should dip or pack.

[Maven]

You can also try Emmert's Lube, 410-er.  Just google Emmert's and you'll find plenty of information and recipes.

[stuart cee dub]

I start with about 60% Beeswax and 40% bore butter then heat in the microwave in a covered  dish,
mine's plastic  .When liquid stir and let cool. I'll adjust by adding one or the other to get the consistancy I like,softer in the winter harder in the summer heat .
I hand lube my projectiles scraping the base of the minnie acrioss the cooled mixture and then thumbing the scraped bit into the grooves.
IMHO Beeswax is necessary ,use crisco only if you have .Crisco  does not last as long as the borebutter lubed stuff .

Ask a hundred people ,get a hundred methods  

In the old days they used animal fats .
Look up the Sepoy Mutiny in India.The Brits ,so the story goes were using beef lard and pig fat to lube their Enfield prerolled cartridges . The colonial troops in India, Hindu and Moslem weren't so happy about this .On the other had the Enfield arsenal always did their ballistic homework and the old Enfields shot like a house afire .