Be careful with crayons and your beeswax lubes

[Grizzlie]

So I made some beeswax lube (with a formula more or less 3 tbsps mineral oil, 1 tbsp castor oil, 1 tbsp liquid paraffin, 1 tbsp lanolin, and beeswax) and after going +/- with some of the ingredients I threw in a crayon. I got a nice lub with a slight bluish tint that coated the lubegrooves in a 38 special semiwadcutter fairly nicely and I could pop the bullets out of the wax with ease (panlubing).

So I got greedy and scoured my daughter's crayon box for 'leftovers' because I wanted a more intense colour! So I put in two more darker crayons.

Aaaaaand my lub turned to somekind of mush resembling play-doh 

That stuff was a semi sticky mess with an intense greenish/blueish colour. And adding ingredients (like more wax) only wasted more wax as this stuff simply did not want to be diluted (as seen in the picture below)



You can see the blueish crap near the sides of the pan.

So be warned

*I don't yet know if I can use it to flux. A quick experiment in the garage with putting a smallish chunk in my casting pot looked like someone through a smoke bomb.

[ReloaderFred]

I used to make my own bullet lube many, many years ago, but with so many good ones on the market these days, I just buy it in bulk to use in my machines.  I never did pan lube, though, as my volume even back then was more than I cared to mess with pan lubing.  Generally, when working with any recipe, when you add one ingredient, you have to add a proportionate amount of the other ingredients to keep the recipe true.

It appears you're trying to this as inexpensively as possible, but a lube/sizer is a good investment that will probably outlive you.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[noylj]

1) LLA or 45/45/10 tumble lube (lsstuff.com). Very light with both so you don't even see it.
2) Today, I wouldn't be surprised by what China would put on their fake crayons?may not even be paraffin.
3)  1 part Petrolatum/1 part beeswax/1 part paraffin is a good lube, but lsstuff.com BAC is better
4) I stopped sizing my cast bullets in the mid-'70s and never looked back?went to pan lubing just for that reason
4) Go to Cast Boolits forum for discussion

[Grizzlie]

I used to make my own bullet lube many, many years ago, but with so many good ones on the market these days, I just buy it in bulk to use in my machines.  I never did pan lube, though, as my volume even back then was more than I cared to mess with pan lubing.  Generally, when working with any recipe, when you add one ingredient, you have to add a proportionate amount of the other ingredients to keep the recipe true.

It appears you're trying to this as inexpensively as possible, but a lube/sizer is a good investment that will probably outlive you.

Hope this helps.

Fred

I'm starting to think a lube/sizer is a good idea. As to the inexpensive part, the natural ingredients are [relatively] expensive where I'm living. Commercially available stuff isn't quite available all the time (for example Lee Alox) and most often than not it will be slightly more expensive. Lee Alox runs about 9-10 USD per bottle + shipping.

[ReloaderFred]

Supply can often be a problem.  We in the States often forget that readily available items for us may not be as readily available in other parts of the world, and often more expensive than what we pay.  Sometimes it's just the reverse, too.  I once bought two cases of Armscor .38 Super ammunition on close out for $6.00 per box.   A person on one of the forums I'm on lived about 20 miles from the Armscor plant in the Philippines, and said the best price he could get the same ammunition for was $19.95 USD.  It baffled us both that the ammunition could be manufactured in the Philippines, shipped to the U.S., and sold at 1/3 what it sold for back where it was manufactured.

It's a strange world we live in....

A lube sizer makes it so much easier to size and lube bullets in volume.  If you used a soft lube, such as 50/50 Alox/Beeswax, you wouldn't need a heater for it.  Of course, the trade off is it's a little messy, and you can't bulk package bullets that have been 50/50 lubed, but they can be neatly stacked and they won't get nearly as messy.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[recoilguy]

It is not always what the cost of something is that determines its price its the "value of it to you" that determines the price.