Villiers,

I have been having pretty good luck just lubing the bullets by hand. Currently I am using a flat-base Lyman about 385 gr. in my 45/70 rolling block and trapdoor rifles. Previously I did load and shoot .43 Spanish a lot.

When I was a kid I would buy water pump grease, a heavy petroleum grease that came in a can. Nobody greases water pumps any more and you can not get that product. Lately I've been using this stuff called "Bore Butter." It smells good and you can get it into the grooves pretty easily with your fingers. It comes in winter and summer grades.

I don't size bullets. Actually for the Trapdoor I cast them hot enough to look like they are frosted, on the theory that hey will be larger diameter, for the trapdoor. 20-1 lead to tin. and a compressed charge. I use a greased felt wad, mainly to keep the powder in place while I'm charging a bunch of cases prior to seating the bullets.

I choronographed some of my loads last year. The maximum variation on 10 shots was 17 fps, but most of them were closer to the mean than that.

HTH

jn