White Lightning Bullet Lube

[SchuetzenDave]

One of the items that turns brass green and will corrode brass with time is salt.

Many people do not realize many tallows and rendered animal fats (lard) that are commercially sold contain salt as a preservative.

[Kurt]

When I render out the tallow I use just water I run the hard fat through a meat grinder to break it down and a slow boil for 6-7 hrs then I let it cool over night and the first cook will be a cake floating on the water I take it out of the pot scrape off the bottom, it's like a jell and re boil it for another 4 hrs or so and again let it cool over night and clean off the jell again off the bottom. There should be just a very little after the second cook down and it will be hard enough for making a candle.
There is no salt and I keep the lube and tallow in an old refrigerator that unplugged. My lube and Tallow does not spoil or grow moulds.
I have lube and some tallow that has been there since the turn of the century maybe longer

[JonnyV]

I'm starting to wonder if WL really had ozokerite in it or not.....

[gunlaker]

I think Dan really enjoyed having people try to figure out what was in White Lightning bullet lube. I remember him posting that you could buy all of the ingredients in a health food store. I don't know if they sell Ozokerite Wax in health food stores. It's been a while since I was in one .

I talked with Dan a few times on the phone, once was specifically about bullet lubes. At that time he told me that everyone was chasing their tails about wax and that to make the best lube, a wax wasn't even required.

I do know that later he cooked up a lube specifically for smokeless, and it ended up being pretty much identical to one of the lubes listed in Charlie Dell's book.

One interesting thing about Dan is that I understand he was a triathlete. He would have known about the most popular bicycle chain lube used in competition at that time, which was White Lightning Chain Lube . I wonder if that's where he got the name from.

Chris.

[JonnyV]

I think Dan really enjoyed having people try to figure out what was in White Lightning bullet lube. I remember him posting that you could buy all of the ingredients in a health food store. I don't know if they sell Ozokerite Wax in health food stores. It's been a while since I was in one .

I talked with Dan a few times on the phone, once was specifically about bullet lubes. At that time he told me that everyone was chasing their tails about wax and that to make the best lube, a wax wasn't even required.

I do know that later he cooked up a lube specifically for smokeless, and it ended up being pretty much identical to one of the lubes listed in Charlie Dell's book.

One interesting thing about Dan is that I understand he was a triathlete. He would have known about the most popular bicycle chain lube used in competition at that time, which was White Lightning Chain Lube . I wonder if that's where he got the name from.

Chris.

Appreciate the clue!! He sure might have got the name from there, but I doubt he used any of this in the lube recipe though. Below is a link to the SDS sheet for White Lightning Clean Ride chain lube (their original formula), and the hazard section is an interesting read. Can't eat it, get it on your skin, or breathe it. Also, highly flammable.

We'll keep this one on the side just in case!

[Coltsmoke]

Dan told me in a conversation one night that you could buy all the ingredients in your local grocery store. He also said you could eat it but you probably wouldn't like the taste, but it would not hurt you. We were not even talking about bullet lube, I didn't even ask about it, he just threw it out there. Dan didn't want to hear about your theories, he wanted results from a test that was done. He also believed that most people didn't have the knowledge to properly do a descent test. This is not my opinions, this is what Dan has told me. Maybe the reason we don't have the recipe is to get shooters off their but and start testing and learn like Dan did. :wink

[JonnyV]

Dan told me in a conversation one night that you could buy all the ingredients in your local grocery store. He also said you could eat it but you probably wouldn't like the taste, but it would not hurt you. We were not even talking about bullet lube, I didn't even ask about it, he just threw it out there. Dan didn't want to hear about your theories, he wanted results from a test that was done. He also believed that most people didn't have the knowledge to properly do a descent test. This is not my opinions, this is what Dan has told me. Maybe the reason we don't have the recipe is to get shooters off their but and start testing and learn like Dan did. :wink

Good point! After talking with several shooters who have/are still used/using WL, plus burning through a bunch of materials trying different mixes, I'm pretty well just going with the idea that Dan's recipe is lost. There are a couple individuals who claim to have the recipe, maybe they do, maybe they just think they do...no matter. Part of Dan's legacy died with that recipe, nothing I can do about it.

The thing is to come up with a lube recipe that outperforms the Emmert's Improved I've been using:

50% beeswax (not toilet rings, sorry to anyone offended. Slack wax is not beeswax, check the MSDS sheet on it)
40% white crisco
5% canola oil
5% anhydrous lanolin

Not so easy to do. I had a great day shooting Sunday with my rifle over at Sun Valley Shooting Park in Moxee. I was able to engage many of the small steel targets the precision rifle guys use out to 600 plus yards in heat over 90 degrees, humidity at 20%, and no issues with fouling. Admittedly, I wipe between shots.

When you consider some of the ingredients given in the recipe above, improving on any one of them isn't so simple as just swapping in a new ingredient. There might be other jellied oils besides Crisco, but they might not be all that safe around kids. There are some oils that might be be better than canola, but not many. Canola is a very efficient lubricant. Might be a wax better than beeswax, but it might be harder to mix too. There may be other binding agents besides lanolin, but you have to run the ammo to find out....

It's raining here this week and I'm still on lockdown per Dr's orders. Got nothing better to do than mix up things to try....

[ole pizen slinger]

There is one person who knows the recipe for Dan’s lube. Dan gave it to him right before a match and told him that the ingredients could be bought at the local grocery store. Dan swore him to secrecy and as far as I know he has never divulged the details of the lube. His name is David Barfield and his Shiloh handle is “deer hunts heat me up”. As far as I know he no longer is involved with the shooting sports. Haven’t seen or talked to David in over 5 years. I think he and his wife had a lot of health issues last I heard.
OPS

[JonnyV]

I saw the comments that deerhuntsheatmeup made years ago and they were pretty interesting. He may have the recipe, but I don’t know him and I’m not gonna try and contact him to find it out. He prolly wouldn’t like that.

As it is, I might be closing in on a workable solution…just need to figure out how to make it a little less crumbly…think more kokum is the answer.

[desert deuce]

Well, for what it's worth, I have all the ingredients that Dan T mentioned to me for White Lightening. Don't know that it is a complete group or not.

However, I have meandered through many commercial lubes and even more recommended recipe's and so far, 4065 at this point, have found nothing noticeably better here in Southern Arizona, than SPG Tropical.

Started last month expanding the use of SPG Trop to the .44 & .45 Calibers and so far so good but have not arrived at any definitive conclusions.

[gunlaker]

Well Zack if it works for you, particularly given the climate where you shoot, and the scores you put up, it ought to be good enough for anybody.

Chris.

[JonnyV]

I've given up the idea of figuring out Dan's recipe or "re-creating" WL. To my mind, the one guy that we know for sure had the recipe is now dying/maybe has already died in a trailer somewhere and several others think they have the recipe but their recipes all appear to be different.

The takeaway here is that we have identified several good ingredients for a lube. If we take those and maybe mix in some other good performing ingredients, maybe we can come up with a new lube that will do well. By that I mean, do better than Emmert's Improved, which is a fair bar to get over. That portion of this whole thing is going well. Should be ready for some range testing this week if we're lucky....

[ian45662]

Well, for what it's worth, I have all the ingredients that Dan T mentioned to me for White Lightening. Don't know that it is a complete group or not.

However, I have meandered through many commercial lubes and even more recommended recipe's and so far, 4065 at this point, have found nothing noticeably better here in Southern Arizona, than SPG Tropical.

Started last month expanding the use of SPG Trop to the .44 & .45 Calibers and so far so good but have not arrived at any definitive conclusions.

I know we don’t have the climate that you guys have but I just started using it and I like it. Probably going to just bite the bullet and get 6 pounds of it.

[Aviator]

I've been using SPG Tropic for at least 3 years, and can't think of any reason to look elsewhere.