Lube pellets?

[mikld]

Only been here a short time and hope this is in the right place!

Long time firearms reloader, bullet caster and shooter but short time air gunner. I was shooting my 2240 in my shop today and a thought hit me (OOPS!), I have used alox and 45/45/10 on many, many cast bullets quite successfully and wondered, "why not pellets?". Granted I'm not concerned with barrel leading, but wondered if the velocities would improve with lubed pellets. Also being an air gun (CO2) I wonder if there any ill effects on the gun. I lubed some Crosman "Piranha", 14.3 pellets with thinned 45/45/10 (45% Johnson's paste wax, 45% liquid alox, 10% mineral spirits) and letting them dry over night. I'll shot them over my chrony later this week. Google has several hits but opinions vary from "I never lube any" to "I use Pellgunoil" on my pellets", With a whole lot of "try it and see if accuracy improves". Not a lot of help so I'll ask on my favorite air gun forum...

Anyone have experience with lubed pellets?

[jkingrph]

Never though of that, I used to use the NRA beeswax/alox mix for cast bullets, always loved the smell.  I have "lubed" some with Hornandy one shot dry cleaner/lube but not having a chrony, cannot comment about velocity, nor have I shot enough to tell if it lessens any possible leading in the barrel.  I have also lubed some with spray silicone.

[Rezarf]

I've purchased 8.0gn Vogel wadcutter pellets in bulk - they come without any cleaning in a can of 6000, but they're cheap (and filthy). I wash the pellets in small quantities in a ziplock with Dawn Dishwashing soap and water, then spread them out and dry in the sun. Once dry, I put them in a clean ziplock with a couple of drops of Ballistol oil and roll them around, then put them in a tin with a paper towel to absorb any excess. Performance difference in velocity? Never checked, since they're wadcutters I use out to about 10 meters. I'm such a crappy shot that either lubed or dry, I can't tell a difference in POI anyway. 

[mikld]

Update;

Well this test turned out to be a huge comedy of errors. First I forgot to turn off my red dot sight on my pistol from the last shoot and the battery was dead. No problem, I have been shooting across my old Pro Chrono chrony a lot of years checking everything from 22 lr up to hot magnum handguns and 30-06 with narry a problem, and I'm a fair handgun shot and the distance was only 12' so I loaded up my pistol aimed roughly and very first shot hit the screen , a little right of dead center, OOPS! Checked local store and nope, no chronographs. Shopped around on line and found a Caldwell and ordered it. It may be in by next week. I luckily found another battery at the drug store and installed it in the sight and yep, got a red dot. But lost the battery cap. Decided to shoot a few anyway and found the lubed pellets difficult to drop in the breech straight, but managed, quite slowly. Fired about forty and determined accuracy of the lubed Crosman 14.3 HPs were the same as the pellets right from the tin. A bit frustrated by this time and didn't try cleaning barrel to see if lubed pellets were dirtier, I'll do that later...

[mr007s]

I dont believe much can be told from the 12' distance

[mikld]

FWIW, I have used my cheap chrony to check everything from 32 ACP through Magnum handgun ammo to 308 Win and 30-06. I used standard velocity 22 lr (CCI)  to "check" my old chrony, 1,100 fps, very consistent...

[RetatCDude]

Back to the subject of the post....
For my competition pellets, I wash them 8 minutes in a hydro-static machine.
Then rinse them in scalding hot water (to aid the drying) and place in the sun til dry.
Then into a zip-lock bag with a few drops of bicycle chain lube (Krytox, I think).
Shake, shake...
Does it help?
You can't judge by my shooting.
I do shoot with several world class FT shooters.
They don't do anything except open the tins and shoot.
To each his own.

[mikld]

Well, got a new chrony; Caldwell Ballistic Precision Chronograph. I like it once I was able to get it to work with my phone and tablet. So far the improvement of alox lubed pellets is very slight, if any. After working on my gun to improve performance I am getting roughly 430 fps average with my Crosman Premium 14.3 gr HP w/lube and all my other 14.3 gr pellets (but averaging 5 fps more with Crosman pointed pellets). Didn't find any fouling or leading with any. Oh well, it was fun testing...