a double decker lube cake....

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Well I finally got around to making my second attempt at "baking" a "lube cake", having high hopes since I snuck a 9" Teflon coated pie pan into the grocery cart a couple weeks back (another reloading expense deftly disguised under the grocery category in Quicken :cool:)...

This time I did things a little differently....

After casting WDWW in a Lee 312-155 mold.... I snapped on Hornady .30 cal gas checks by hand, put a smear of Imperial sizing die wax on the bullets and sized them to .311" with the handy dandy Lee sizing die.

I put (my only) two sticks of 50/50 beeswax/alox into a coffee can (the older type without the flange on the top) and dropped the can into a sauce pan (while wife was working in basement office). Filled sauce pan with water until coffee can was afloat and bobbing. Torched off the stove under my "double boiler" and said to self "now I'm cookin' with gas" :).

Whilst the wax was melting, I carefully lined my little soldiers up in the pie pan, while hoping the 50/50 wouldn't stink up the kitchen to much and get me busted.

carefully put pie pan onto newspapers on the kitchen island and poured the molten wax in.........

UH OH!

Not enough wax to cover the lube rings....:(

commence kicking self....I knew, I knew, I knew I should have ordered a box of Laars red........:banghead:

But wait....Hmmmmm....I did get two tubes of Speed Green from the Bull Shop to fill the one price USPS envelope, when I ordered their "world famous" sprue plate lube.....

Think, Think, Think........:confused:

should I pull the bullets out, break up 50/50 lube cake, re-melt, mix in Speed green, realign the regiment and pour.......and.......I'll be up to 1 a.m.

or.....

melt speed green and pour it right over the 50/50 for a "double decker" lube cake :eek:

Heresy is an easy decision when it's 11:45 and you don't want to wait a week+ to get more lube delivered. :neener:

Melted both sticks of speed green and poured them on top.......bringing the wax just up to the crimp groove. Wallah!

then comes the minor complication......the lube cake won't drop!

O.K. , toss it in the freezer for 10 min.,

Darn! still won't drop. O.K. looks like I'll have to cookie cutter them out with my home made tool (slightly belled case with head cut off).

But not tonight.......wife comes up stairs ..... "what stinks" ... darn ... BUSTED!!! :eek:

Lessons learned....

1. w/ 75 bullets in a 9" pie pan, it takes four sticks of melted lube to cover the lube grooves.

2. speed green smells a lot better than 50/50

3. speed green doesn't contract as much as 50/50 when it cools, which is likely why the lube cake wouldn't drop.

4. Time to put an order in to Laars

5. Once again, I've proved to myself....... I really, really want a lube sizer.
 
SO, you got bullets with one Brown ring and one Green ring?

Sounds pretty High-Tech & Expensive to me if you bought them at the bullet store! :D

rcmodel
 
The Lee push through sizer rig is perhaps the best I've seen if you're only casting a small number of bullets--or, if you're making cast bullets meant for real accuracy. The base-first push is great for preserving the bullet. And, as an added plus, Lee will custom cut a sizer to your specified diameter. Costs a little more, and a bit of a wait, but they will come through. They made a custom .460 sizer for me that I use for my BPCR bullets.

Now, if you are going to be sizing and lubing a LOT of bullets, you need a lubrisizer. I'm a bit biased in this; I recommend you skip the others and go straight to the best:

www.magmaengineering.com

and order a Star lubrisizer. One lubing session with it and you'll fall in love with it.
 
I agree. Get a Lyman 45. You can find them for $45 shipped give or take $5. It will do the job quite well. I have one. I have the lee lube and size kits for .45 and .357 and I plan to sell them. They have never been used.

I used a friend's Start and it is really impressive. A lot faster than the Lyman.
 
I'd acutally find a tray that is flexible and use it that way.. Maybe those scilione cake trays? My thinking is that you could just pretty much pop the whole thing out and such.
 
doesn't the Lee sizer also attach gas checks? I thought it did anyway.
Click to expand...

Yup, checks were seated when the bullet was sized....

The Lee system is designed for tumble lubing w/ LLA though, and there is no means of putting hard lubes into the grooves.

I've tried this, and there was no leading, but there was quite a bit of LLA scraped off and accumulating in the action of the rifle (Saiga flavored AK).

Re. the Lyman 450 auctions.....I'll have to start tracking these again. There weren't so many auctions earlier in the year and I found the units were selling for pretty darn near what you can buy the new 4500 at midway.

Unfortunately....money is very tight (hence I'm casting and pan lubing) and I'll have to land a smokin' deal before I can justify caughing up the $$.
 
update....

with some add'l time for the lube to firm up and some twisting, I got the "cake" to drop out of the pan.....

bullets pushed out easilly with my thumb.

most are green, some are brown, and a few are "olive" colored....:D

9 out of 10 are perfectly lubed, with the remaining needing a smudge of lube added by hand.

So I guess I'll call this second attempt at making a lube cake a success.

Now to smelt some more wheel weights. :)
 
All I ever did years ago, or have read about doing, was done using a case with the head cut off like a cookie-cutter to cut them out of the solidified lube in the pan.
One bullet pushes the next one out the back end of the cut-off case.

While it was still in the melting pan!

That way, there is no need to get the whole cake out of the pan or mess with it.

Just cut the bullets out, re-melt the lube, and do it again.

It doesn't even have to be complety cold or solid, as long as you can cut them out of it.

rcmodel
 
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