Does lubing pellets increase accuracy and extend cleaning interval in your PCP?

[Fred J]

Does lubing pellets increase accuracy and extend cleaning interval in your PCP? I have found that lubing pellets with Pledge for my springers (TX200 and D34) actually reduced accuracy.

I have a Marauder .177 that I have tuned to shoot JSB 10.3gr pellets at 891 fps. It was tuned to shoot at 835 fps, but the accuracy was less than stellar. When I tuned it to shoot 891 fps yesterday, I found that the accuracy really improved, which really surprised me.

I originally lube pellets for my MRod to extend the cleaning interval. It really did nothing for the accuracy. I have used FP10 and Gamo oil to lightly lube my pellets in the past. I still have to clean the barrel every 150 shots.

So I am tempted to try shooting my re-tuned MRod without lube for a while to see how long the barrel cleaning interval is.

By the way: I am sizing my pellets with PelletGage. My rifle seems to like 4.51mm and 4.52mm the best.

Thank you for your help!

[wimpanzee]

I use fp-10 on my jsb pellets for my .22 mmhf barrel. It went from definitely needing a cleaning every 50 shots to maybe needs a cleaning every 200 shots.

I end up shooting the same pellets in my mutant. i had about 500 down the tube and pulled a patch through...barely a smudge on the second patch.

For me at least, fp-10 greatly extends my shooting between cleanings.

[elh0102]

Same here, FP-10 has worked well for me. I don't have any quantifiable records, but I seldom clean barrels. I have just tried Hornady One Shot lube, because I have heard good things about it. If it works well, I'll probably switch just because of its ease of use, and lack of residue.  Depending on the specific barrel and lube, it may cause a change in velocity, so you may need to tune accordingly. Fred J, I'm not surprised at your accuracy results, I have always found 880 or so to be the best velocity, at least for mid-range weight pellets. With really heavy pellets, I believe it is sometimes not possible to achieve enough velocity to stabilize the longer projectile.

[Tonykarter]

Yes. 

I use fp-10 on my jsb pellets for my .22 mmhf barrel. It went from definitely needing a cleaning every 50 shots to maybe needs a cleaning every 200 shots.

Me too, in the same barrel, with similar results.  In addition, IMHO, and restating the obvious, using JB paste and doing a good polishing of the bore also contributes to extended cleaning interval. 

[swish]

I always lube my pellets and use White Lightning chain lube. It's silicon based so it's not oily or tacky at all. But I do polish my barrels with Flitz as well and between the two never need to clean my barrels.

[nervoustrigger]

Fred, I agree with these guys, lubing your pellets will indeed extend the amount of time between cleanings.  Barrels with a tight choke will tend to benefit the most.  Next up would be those with a poor surface finish (fretting) left behind from pulling the rifling button through.  Most barrels can be improved improved by deburring/polishing the bore.  Needed tools and supplies are a good ball-bearing cleaning rod, suitably-sized cleaning felt pellets like Brownell’s VFG (or for .177, a jag and cotton patches), and a fine friable abrasive like JB or Flitz or rottenstone.  If interested, there are a couple of links on the subject included in the barrel troubleshooting and accurizing link in my signature.
 
In terms of affecting accuracy, the consensus I’ve gotten from voraciously reading every topic I’ve come across in the last 5 years is that it sometimes helps, sometimes hurts, and sometimes makes no difference at all.  I think that’s not altogether surprising.  Most of us have had experiences where a slight change to some parameter made things better or worse…a slight change of velocity, the torque on some fastener, etc.
 
However my personal experience differs slightly.  For the last two years or so, I’ve made it a habit to test new tins of pellets straight away and then again after cleaning and lubing with White Lightning (dry wax lube).  I have yet to have any pellets do worse afterwards and several have done significantly better.  Within that myriad of different pellets, what I’ve noticed is it makes no clear difference with JSB pellets.  With H&N and RWS, the effects are mixed…with some it makes no difference (H&N FTT in particular) but others it may improve or remain unchanged.  Then with Crosman, Gamo, Eun Jin and others, accuracy typically improves.
 
Granted those 3 levels of brand groupings are generally rank the best to the worst straight from the tin as well.  As we move down that brand ranking scale, I find more molding defects on the pellets like parting lines and flashing.  So for those types of pellets, I started more aggressively tumbling and swirling them in a wire strainer as I wash them.  The thinking being maybe that would help break up the flashing and soften the parting lines.  The improvements have been almost uniformly positive.  If you’re interested, I opened a topic on it in the General gate
https://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=134454
 

[nervoustrigger]

Swish, your comment about White Lightning being silicone-based reminded me there are multiple types.  The one I use is the wax type.  Results are what matters so if the silicone type is working well for you, definitely stick with it.  I just wanted to mention I remember reading something from a well respected tuner, Motorhead I think, talking about silicone lube gunking up a barrel.  That might have been from excessive use though, I don’t remember the particulars. I just tend to avoid silicone because it is a poor lubricant for metal on metal.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the White Lightning product is a blend of some kind so that may be all the difference.

[swish]

Swish, your comment about White Lightning being silicone-based reminded me there are multiple types.  The one I use is the wax type.  Results are what matters so if the silicone type is working well for you, definitely stick with it.  I just wanted to mention I remember reading something from a well respected tuner, Motorhead I think, talking about silicone lube gunking up a barrel.  That might have been from excessive use though, I don’t remember the particulars. I just tend to avoid silicone because it is a poor lubricant for metal on metal.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the White Lightning product is a blend of some kind so that may be all the difference.

Sorry, I miss spoke. The one I use is the wax based.

[nervoustrigger]

Ed, just a comment about velocity as it relates to pellet stability.  As Bob has pointed out on a few occasions, stability does not improve at higher velocities, it only worsens.  Granted, it may not affect the pellet in any meaningful way until the velocity is up over 950-1000fps, but for example a pellet going 650fps is not less stable than one going 850fps.
 
However it’s perhaps worth pointing out the slower projectile is more susceptible to wind drift and also to cant error, both of which make it harder to hit what you’re aiming at out at ever increasing distances.
 
Instability tends to show up as either tumbling or spiraling.  Tumbling can usually be picked up as keyholing in paper.  Spiraling is best observed at distances >50 yards (though sometimes less) with high speed scope cam footage.  You can see it in some of Hajimoto’s pesting vids, for example.  Or one way I’ve checked for it is at night with a bright focused flashlight pointing downrange.  The skirt lights up like a firefly.

[Fred J]

Thank you for your advice. I will lube my pellets!

I suspect that my accuracy problems at the lower velocity had something to due with stabilization. At the slower velocity (835 fps), I had nice round holes at 30 yards, but key-holing at 50 yards. At the higher velocity (890 fps), all holes are round, regardless of the distance. The wind conditions were identical (as much as possible) for both velocities when I tested the MRod.

I will keep the velocity at 890 fps.

[BSJ]

I use Slick 50 One Lube.

I don't need to clean my barrels.

[nervoustrigger]

Fred, I will defer to Bob’s expertise on this but my guess is your velocity adjustment affected the barrel’s harmonic vibration in a positive way.  I’m just a little surprised it would be a key contributor to keyholing at only 50 yards.  Wide dispersion of the groups, yes, but keyholing, not so much.  Interesting!

[elh0102]

Ed, just a comment about velocity as it relates to pellet stability.  As Bob has pointed out on a few occasions, stability does not improve at higher velocities, it only worsens.  Granted, it may not affect the pellet in any meaningful way until the velocity is up over 950-1000fps, but for example a pellet going 650fps is not less stable than one going 850fps.
 
However it’s perhaps worth pointing out the slower projectile is more susceptible to wind drift and also to cant error, both of which make it harder to hit what you’re aiming at out at ever increasing distances.
 
Instability tends to show up as either tumbling or spiraling.  Tumbling can usually be picked up as keyholing in paper.  Spiraling is best observed at distances >50 yards (though sometimes less) with high speed scope cam footage.  You can see it in some of Hajimoto’s pesting vids, for example.  Or one way I’ve checked for it is at night with a bright focused flashlight pointing downrange.  The skirt lights up like a firefly.

Jason, I'm sure your comments are valid, at least it is beyond my competence to challenge them, and that is not my intention. But, if a pellet of a given length requires a certain spin rate for stability, and it is not reaching that rate at a given velocity, why would not a higher velocity contribute to reaching that gyroscopic stability, and thus better accuracy? Unless it was just coincidence, I believe I have seen this result.

[nervoustrigger]

Fair question, and I will freely admit that I lack a thorough understanding of the various stability criteria.  I was just citing analysis that Bob had given.
 
That won’t stop me from speculating though   Are you perhaps exchanging twist rate (1 turn in 16in) with spin rate (revolutions per minute)?  Your statement about a pellet of a particular length needing a certain _____ for stability is usually cited in terms of twist rate rather than spin rate.
 
Pellets rely quite heavily on being flare stabilized (often erroneously called drag stabilized) by the classic shape of the wasp waist and flared skirt.  Unlike bullets, they don’t need much spin.  A good example is the very slow spin rate of FX’s original Smooth Twist where the effective twist rate is measured in feet, not inches.  In fact, the instability that pellets sometimes experience at extended distances is aggravated by having too high of a spin rate.  That’s because it’s shedding velocity much faster than spin rate, meaning its RPMs are now too fast with respect to its now much slower velocity…which is different than if the pellet had started off at that same low velocity.
 
Hopefully this distinction isn’t a complete non sequitur!

[Fred J]

I had a chance to test whether lubing (FP10) helps the accuracy of my MRod. I tested at 30, 35, 40 and 50 yards. Lubing the JSB 10.3gr pellets did not help the accuracy out to 40 yards, but did not make it worst, either.

I had a chance to shoot two 50 yard 10-shot groups before the next T-storm came in. I shot a quarter-size group (shown) in an 11 mph wind coming across my range from a 1:30 direction with FP10 lubed pellets. For comparison, the un-lubed pellets only manage a 1.5" group.

So it looks like it worth while to lube my pellets. Thank you for all your advice!

[elh0102]

Fair question, and I will freely admit that I lack a thorough understanding of the various stability criteria.  I was just citing analysis that Bob had given.
 
That won’t stop me from speculating though   Are you perhaps exchanging twist rate (1 turn in 16in) with spin rate (revolutions per minute)?  Your statement about a pellet of a particular length needing a certain _____ for stability is usually cited in terms of twist rate rather than spin rate.
 
Pellets rely quite heavily on being flare stabilized (often erroneously called drag stabilized) by the classic shape of the wasp waist and flared skirt.  Unlike bullets, they don’t need much spin.  A good example is the very slow spin rate of FX’s original Smooth Twist where the effective spin rate is measured in feet, not inches.  In fact, the instability that pellets sometimes experience at extended distances is aggravated by having too high of a spin rate.  That’s because it’s shedding velocity much faster than spin rate, meaning its RPMs are now too fast with respect to its now much slower velocity…which is different than if the pellet had started off at that same low velocity.
 
Hopefully this distinction isn’t a complete non sequitur!

A thoughtful post, and I appreciate it. Ballistic statistics have always interested me, but beyond my academic capacity to ponder much. And yes, I guess I do associate the twist rate with spin rate. If they do not directly correlate, then I guess I just need to add one more thing to my list of math deficiencies, which is quite long.

[nervoustrigger]

Well, you’re in good company   My attempt to explain the difference is rather comparable to the blind leading the blind.  But just to put some quick numbers to it, a “standard” 1:16 twist rate will produce the following RPMs:
 
At 900fps muzzle velocity:  40,500 RPMs
At 600fps muzzle velocity:  27,000 RPMs
 
We know a pellet sheds velocity quickly due to its high drag.  The RPMs don’t, though.  I don’t have a quantifiable sense of how well the RPMs hold up at a distance but just for a the sake of discussion, let’s just say it doesn’t decay at all.  And let’s imagine we were to look at the pellet fired at 900fps out at some distance where its velocity had fallen off to 600fps.  It’s still spinning at nearly 40,000 RPMs…which is a different situation than the one leaving the muzzle at 600fps spinning at only 27,000 RPMs.
 
That’s all I was trying to convey in the previous message.  I don’t have a grasp of how this relationship applies to the gyroscopic stability of each.  That’s why I didn’t attempt to elaborate any further.  Intuitively, it seems to me a pellet spinning at a really high RPM wants to wobble but if it’s moving at a high velocity, that produces a strong axial force (high drag force) that counteracts the radial force that is attempting to make it wobble.

[Dbez1]

I hesitate to call it a quote, but if my memory serves me correctly, Motorhead mentioned that he simply uses a mixture of synthetic 2 cycle oil and gasoline. I can’t remember the ratio 50:1, 32:1???  Someone correct me if I’m wrong please. I don’t want to pass on bad information and my memory isn’t quite as sharp as it used to be.

[skorec]

That’s because it’s shedding velocity much faster than spin rate, meaning its RPMs are now too fast with respect to its now much slower velocity…which is different than if the pellet had started off at that same low velocity.
 
Hopefully this distinction isn’t a complete non sequitur!

YES and therefore much higher BC of  Piledriver .177/21gr  can help at larger distances too.
Only  one of ten hit the target a little bit side ways at 77 yd and muzzle speed 880 FPS .


Notice. 
At JSB heavy and Monsters redesigned   (.177 + .22 ) but also at Piledrivers  any  PTFE lubing  did not help me at all.  Just I have to add that I use  long choked  not polygonal  LW 1:17,7” barrels  ( .177 and .22 ). 

[skorec]

My attempt to explain the difference is rather comparable to the blind leading the blind. 

I not agree. You are day by day more clear.