Casting - Bore Butter, Lee Liquid Alox

[Erik550c]

Hey there, got a question. I'm casting .454 balls with an 88% Bismuth and 12% Tin ingot. Do I need to rub the casted balls in bore butter or in Lee Liquid Alox (recommended by Lee for firearms and lead cast bullets, not muzzleloader balls)? What's the cheapest, most natural and clean method to lubricate cast balls? Or do I not need to because I am using the 88% Bismuth and 12% Tin?

Thanks!

 

[mooman76]

I would use something. Crisco is cheap but not so clean. I don't think you're going to find anything both cheap and clean.

 

[BrownBear]

...454 balls....

I'm assuming you'll be patching those and shooting them from a rifle. In that case, you won't lube the balls at all, rather you'll lube the patches. There are only two bazillion patch recipes at the moment, but by mid-morning it will be up to three bazillion I'm sure.

Everybody has a favorite, and often individual guns have favorites, too. Part of the fun of shooting round balls is figuring out which combo of lube and patch works best for you and the gun.

It's even more fun to ask which lube is best and watch folk spin themselves into the ground pimping their picks. :wink:

 

[coloradoclyde]

The big question is, what is he loading them in....If it's a revolver this could be interesting.... :hmm:
op:

 

[necchi]

The big question is, what is he loading them in...

Yup, need more info.

 

[BrownBear]

....If it's a revolver this could be interesting....

I discounted that because I don't really want to think about swaging those bismuth-tin balls into revolver chambers.

 

[coloradoclyde]

And how!

 

[mooman76]

In another post he mentioned using them in a revolver for hunting. I assumed it was the same project.

 

[coloradoclyde]

op:

 

[BrownBear]

Boy, with those balls I'd sure be thinking about removing the cylinder from the revolver for loading. A little extra persuasion and enthusiasm might be needed to swage those balls home.

But in truth I'm talking through my hat (or whatever). :wink: It's the purest guesswork because I've never tried it.

Keep us posted on the seating Eric, cuzz I'd like to know. There's a lot to learn with these lead subs, so you're our in-house pioneer! :hatsoff:

 

[coloradoclyde]

It's the purest guesswork because I've never tried it.

Keep us posted on the seating Eric, cuzz I'd like to know. There's a lot to learn with these lead subs, so you're our in-house pioneer!

:thumbsup:

 

[Terry Fairchild]

When I cast pure lead balls for my revolvers:
After casting 25 or 30 balls I put them in an empty, metal almond can( about the size of a tuna fish can only twice as deep),squirt a dallop of Bore Butter on them, snap the plastic lid on and shake,shake, shake.
When cool it leaves a nice, even coating on the balls.
The only negative I can see is a little messy during loading. Although that doesn't bother me, it causes my daughter to say "yuk" but I force her to reload her pistol anyhow!

 

[Cowboy]

I'm assuming you'll be patching those and shooting them from a rifle. In that case, you won't lube the balls at all, rather you'll lube the patches. There are only two bazillion patch recipes at the moment, but by mid-morning it will be up to three bazillion I'm sure.

Everybody has a favorite, and often individual guns have favorites, too. Part of the fun of shooting round balls is figuring out which combo of lube and patch works best for you and the gun.

Aint that the truth!

I've tried hundred's of different lubes. Of course they all claim to be the best thing since bread and butter!

Was out at a muzzleloader shoot last sunday. The last couple of different occasions I shot with Jethro, I always noticed he uses good ol spit!

So this last sunday, instead of using one of my new lube contraptions, I simply put the patch in my mouth. It worked great!

The only negative was thinking about all the money and time I wasted on all those so called miracle lubes.

I realize you will need a lube that wont freeze up in the winter during hunting season. I don't hunt anymore and am strictly a range shooter these days.

For a normal every day lube for me it's now Spit!

I realize the OP was possibly talking about lubing balls for a CB revolver. Of course I'm only talking about long arms.

Respectfully, Cowboy :hatsoff:

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Erik,

Thems .454's being almost pure bismuth, are gonna give you fits trying to load them into a cylinder...as they will be hard and brittle. :shocked2: That's why the boys are joking about watching you load them up. :haha:

You might try either Roto281-338 alloy from RotoMetals...which is more tin than bismuth, OR you might try adding silver/tin solder to your alloy to give you close to a 50/50 mix.

LD

 

[Billnpatti]

I am a bit confused by your post. You are asking what to lube the balls with. There is no need to lube the balls, lube goes on the patch not the balls. Perhaps that is what you are asking. If that is the case, you do not use Liquid Alox on patches. There is no end of lubes that will work on patches, Bore Butter being one of them. Lately, there has been a lot of discussion on the use of Olive Oil for patch lube. It seems to be one of the better natural patch lubes but certainly not the only one.

However, if you are asking if you should lubricate your balls to prevent them from oxidizing I have found that plain old motor oil does a great job of doing that. I just put some balls in a jar or other container that you can close and add just a tiny bit of motor oil and roll them around to coat them. Another idea is to put a rag coated with motor oil in the jar with the balls to coat them with a light coat of oil. Once they are lightly oiled, put them into a container with a piece of oil coated rag on top. I have kept balls like this for years with no sign of oxidation.

On the other hand, if by "balls" you happen to mean conical projectiles that are loaded without a patch, I would use something like Crisco. It is cheap and effective. But most people find that when using Crisco, each projectile has to be lubricated just before loading because the Crisco will easily rub off the projectile. Bore Butter is a good lube for conicals but it, too, must be applied just prior to loading. It is possible to prelube your conicals with either of these lubes if you wrap each one in a piece of paper to keep the lube in place until you are ready to load. Then you just unwrap the conical and load it. I don't know about using liquid Alox as a lube for conicals. It may work or it may form a lot of fouling. I just don't know since I have used it only for modern pistol bullet lube. It is fine for that but I just don't know about using it for muzzleloading conicals.

 

[Zonie]

I think Erik550c is talking about balls for a Cap & Ball pistol. Note the .454 size.

My take on the question is no. Lubing the balls will do little for them.

Cap & Ball pistols shear off the balls material when they are forced into the chambers.
The area of the ball that is going to contact the bore is automatically made bare, free of any lube that might have been applied to the outside of the ball.

Yes, the tiny amount of lube right in front of and behind the sheared area might provide a little bit of lube but it would be so small it isn't worth thinking about.

As for coating the balls with something to prevent oxidation, that's a good idea if the balls are pure, or almost pure lead.

In the case of bismuth or tin, oxidation shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Erik550c]

Sorry it took me awhile to respond. Let me clear up the confusion. This is for a BP revolver. I will be using lubed wonder wads, but not patches (a la rifles). The Lee .454 mold said to lube the balls with Lee Liquid Alox after casting. I don't know the reason why, oxidation or otherwise. So what is going to happen when I use 88% bismuth and 12% tin in my revolver? I think it sounds like I don't have to lube the balls after casting, but that I should put bore butter on the top of the ball to prevent chain firing. I have to use non-lead for hunting in California.

 

[AZbpBurner]

Read around a little more & you'll discover that the old "goop up the cylinder face with ball lube" procedure has been proven to have nothing to do with chain fires - poorly fit caps ("pinch them if they're too loose") do.

Ditch the Bore Butter. Go get some beeswax, and then go over to Ralphs, Von's Safeway or whoever still has a real meat counter & ask them for some beef fat. Even in California, they should give you as much as you want for free, since they otherwise pay someone to haul it off.

Add the fat to a pot of boiling water to render out the tallow (which is stiffer than lard). The tallow will float to the top and when cool, hardens. Toss out the rest of the meat & tissue remaining, since even the dog won't eat it.
Boil, melt & cool again to remove any remaining impurities.

Mix 3 parts tallow to 1 part beeswax. It makes a great bullet lube and stays solid in the summer heat better than a lot of other commercial lubes.

While Alox is great for smokeless powder loads, it's not any good for BP.

With a hard alloy such as you want to use, anything with a long bearing surface is going to be difficult to load, and you can eventually break the loading ram arm on your gun. Best to get a benchtop loader, as others have already mentioned.

I've found that even the soft lead .454" Lee conicals to be too difficult to load in several Colts & Remingtons. To use a harder alloy would be frustrating and a waste of time.

If I were still in California and felt compelled to follow all that faux regulatory ¢rap you're compelled to obey, I'd either move, or reload for .44 Mag. to hunt with. Jumping thru hoops to make tin/bismuth work right in a gun made run on soft lead is gonna make you waste time you could be otherwise putting to more productive use reloading or shooting something else.

When you decide to do it anyway, you'll at least have the satisfaction of being able to give the next newbie, sometime in the future, practical advice on why it is folly & won't work.

 

[azmntman]

Sorry it took me awhile to respond. Let me clear up the confusion. This is for a BP revolver. I will be using lubed wonder wads, but not patches (a la rifles). The Lee .454 mold said to lube the balls with Lee Liquid Alox after casting. I don't know the reason why, oxidation or otherwise. So what is going to happen when I use 88% bismuth and 12% tin in my revolver? I think it sounds like I don't have to lube the balls after casting, but that I should put bore butter on the top of the ball to prevent chain firing. I have to use non-lead for hunting in California.

You might bend your loading lever? Use a loading stand if not pure lead.

 

[Zonie]

I think the reason your Lee molds said to use Lee Liquid Alox is because the instructions were written for all of the molds they produce.

For cast bullets, their suggestion is OK but cast bullets aren't sheared off when they are loaded.

Also, the Lee company is trying to sell more Lee products. :hmm:

If you were shooting bare, cast bullets, in a muzzleloading rifle the big guys usually use SPG Bullet Lube which works much better with black powder than Alox does.

In any case, as I said before, the chambers in your C&B pistol is going to shear off the lube in the area of the ball that will be contacting the bore so don't bother with it.