Thread: Diy case lube - isopropyl alcohol and lanolin

So for those that use a DIY lube.
How many cases do you do per year?
How do you remove it from your dies and your cases.
What do you think the cost saving is, if that is your measure of success.
I enjoy making DIY solutions for jobs and the "because I can" I totally get. Many items are expensive or hard to get as well. I have not found Imperial sizing wax to be worth the trouble though and continue to use it.

I think your making it too hard. I ran out of lube and have been using the lube I had made for black powder shooting. It's literaly just chefade with a bit of beeswax melted into it to stop it from going off.
You could, of course, just use a bit of chefade each time and dont worry about the beeswax.

To be honest it works better than the Lyman case lube I have been using.

Originally Posted by Seventenths

After running out of Dillon spray I decided to try and make my own and won’t go back as it’s far far cheaper.

I bought lanolin from

http://https://nz.iherb.com/pr/now-f...E&gclsrc=aw.ds

I bought some spray bottles for bugger all from TM and mixed 10% lanolin, 90% isopropyl alcohol.

If your not sure how to do that, just use a ruler along the bottle… 1 cm of lanolin and 9 cm of isopropyl

I just put a bunch of cases in a plastic bag, spray a few pumps of the bottle, blow air into the bag so it’s inflated, roll and shake bag to get cases lubed and resize… way faster than applying sizing lube by hand which I also use to do.

Does this lube inside the necks sufficiently and how do you get it off ?

Yes, it lubes everything fine, you need very little of it. Hardly any. After I size the cases I make sure I wipe out the inside of the case neck with a piece of cotton cloth - poke it in wrapped over a little allen key or a matchstick, and swipe it round to clean it out.

I couldnt tell you how many cases I reload a year. A lot. (But less than people who shoot pistol competitions.) I dont use this lube because it's cheaper necessarily, although it definitely is, it basically costs nothing. I have had this batch of lube for probably four years. But it works fine and saves the trouble of going to town and buying some real lube. Or finding my wallet and buying some off the internet. Then waiting for it to arrive. I dont have time for this carry on. I have ammunition to make right now.

Originally Posted by John Duxbury

Yes, it lubes everything fine, you need very little of it. Hardly any. After I size the cases I make sure I wipe out the inside of the case neck with a piece of cotton cloth - poke it in wrapped over a little allen key or a matchstick, and swipe it round to clean it out.

I couldnt tell you how many cases I reload a year. A lot. (But less than people who shoot pistol competitions.) I dont use this lube because it's cheaper necessarily, although it definitely is, it basically costs nothing. I have had this batch of lube for probably four years. But it works fine and saves the trouble of going to town and buying some real lube. Or finding my wallet and buying some off the internet. Then waiting for it to arrive. I dont have time for this carry on. I have ammunition to make right now.

So this doesn't appear to be for labour saving either then.
I apply lube by hand and tumble off. I find tumbling more reliable than trying to wipe lube off. Especially internal.

Far out let the man make his own case lube if he wants too. Hes only asking if anyones done it and where to get ingredients...

Originally Posted by johnd

So for those that use a DIY lube.
How many cases do you do per year?
How do you remove it from your dies and your cases.
What do you think the cost saving is, if that is your measure of success.
I enjoy making DIY solutions for jobs and the "because I can" I totally get. Many items are expensive or hard to get as well. I have not found Imperial sizing wax to be worth the trouble though and continue to use it.

I reload maybe a thousand rounds a year, sometimes less, sometimes more.

After sizing, I run the cases through a stainless steel media tumbler which cleans inside and outside making the cases like new, prior to stainless media tumbling I just used a walnut media tumbler and if I didn’t have a tumbler then I wouldn’t worry about what’s inside the necks as it’s minimal and never caused me any concern.

Cost saving is great, the lanolin ($20 for 118 ml bottle), I have a large bottle of isopropyl already here, the four spray bottles ($12-$15), that all makes up just over 1 ltr of lube.

A bottle of Dillon spray on lube is around $30 for 200-250 ml bottle so there is a massive saving.

The labour saving is also great, as mentioned previously, no need to individually handle and apply lube… just spray in bulk.

Good luck for those who are going to try it, I wish I’d done this years ago.

If anyone in auck wants some lanolin I have heaps

At the chemist it’s called andhydrous wool fat from memory. I just rub a bit into a foam (RCBS) pad and roll my cases on that.


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Originally Posted by 7mmwsm

So this doesn't appear to be for labour saving either then.
I apply lube by hand and tumble off. I find tumbling more reliable than trying to wipe lube off. Especially internal.

Well, I didn't know that was part of the requirement, I thought this was about making your own case lube. But I do the same with normal lube, so it's all the same for me, you can still use your own process, whatever it is.

I'd like to be able to save time by not individually rolling on the pad and lubing the inside of the neck. The inside of the neck especially so, incl cleaning it out. So much so I switched to a body die and neck die for a couple of my rifles.
This spray in the bag thing could be a goer for me.

I dont actually bother cleaning it out and my ammo still goes fine

Where does one get the Isopropyl alcohol?

Originally Posted by Tararua Phil

Where does one get the Isopropyl alcohol?

Supercheap auto, hardware stores, etc