bees wax and deer fat for lube

[buttonbuck]

was wondering I have some raw bees wax and deer fat to render into one of the bullet lube recipes on the forum. How many times do you boil the wax and the fat, seperately of course, to clean it? I was figuring 3 times each will do it any tricks for doing this. I figure to use 1/3 wax, 1/3 rendered fat and 1/3 crisco or olive oil for this mixture.

 

[jtmattison]

I boil my wax once. That's good enough for me. Can't say what to do for tallow, I've never used it.

HD

 

[29caliber]

My lube consists of 4 parts deer tallow, 7 parts olive oil, and 1 part beeswax, all by weight and mixed together in the microwave. The finished product is poured into tuna cans where the lid has been removed by a can opener that cuts under the lid's lip. When cool, it looks and feels a lot like the butch wax I used as a kid. I've got some from 2003 that's still good and has not turned rancid. When used in my .29 caliber flintlock squirrel hunting, I can go all morning without wiping the barrel after shooting several times.

 

[paulvallandigham]

To clean them? If you strain the oil from the deer fat, or the liquid wax from the raw beeswax, through a strainer with cheescloth in several layers and coffee filtersin the bottom of the strainer, you should catch 99.9% of all foreign matter that might be present in each. Most of the foreign matter will float to the top of the rendered liquids and can be skimmed off with a spoon.

Use a double boiler arrangement with each, which means, put whatever pan in which you are " boiling " the fat or wax, in a second pant that has at least one inch of water in it. The lower pan boils water at 212 degrees, well below the flashpoint of either of the oils, but above their melting temperatures. THIS IS A SAFETY MATTER, and should never be skipped. I use a skillet with water in it on the fire, and then use a saucepan to actually contain and melt the wax or fat. I use a large spoon to press more rendered fat or wax out of my cheesecloth so I don't waste it. ( I am cheap!) :shocked2:

Use a measuring cup to measure your proportions for best results. Later, after you have done it a lot of times, you can probably do it by eye just as well. What ratio are you planning to use for combining the two products? A 1:1 ratio( half and half) seems to work okay as a patch lube.

 

[Greenmtnboy]

Deer or elk tallow by it's self is to stiff for a lube, bees wax would only make it stiffer. You need to cut it with a liquid lube.
I use marmot oil( rendered marmot fat) I found it has the same consistency as bear oil.
I have never tried olive oil.
but get very good accuracy with a two to one
Elk tallow to marmot oil.
I am going back home to VT this fall to moose hunt.
I plan on harvesting a woodchuck or two and rendering the fat off that and mixing it with white tail tallow to test for accuracy.

 

[smokehouseman]

From the responses I would agree with 29caliber's method and formula. I have never felt it necessary to do all the straining and draining others do, my method works for me. :wink:

 

[BrownBear]

I'm only guessing, but I would think mixing only beeswax and tallow would result in something harder than you want. Deer tallow by itself is way too stiff, and beeswax would seem to make it only harder.

There's a direct tie between mixture ratio and softness with liquid oil and deer tallow. I have only tried olive oil, but 2:1 tallow to oil gives you something about as soft as vaseline or tubed bore butter at room temp. It goes to liquid almost instantly with the warmth of a finger. A 3:1 tallow to oil mix is about as hard as the tubbed version of bore butter, but still quite a bit softer than straight tallow. It's just about right for lubing at the muzzle. I haven't tried it on conicals, but that's a good possibility, too.

I'd say the 2:1 is just about right for prelubing patches and winter use. The 3:1 is likely to be a great summer lube, but summer hasn't happened since I made up a test batch.

I didn't go to as much trouble rendering my deer fat. Just hacked it into chunks and slow cooked, then decanted off the good stuff. It's over a year old now and there's no smell or other sign of deterioration.

 

[Bountyhunter]

I melt the beeswax a couple times to get the honey and crud out of it. I melt it in an old pan because it will gunk up a good one. I like an old eight quart stew pot, they are cheap at the good will stores. I like to have it at least half full of water then bring it up to boil and melt the wax over the water. Then cool. Pour off the water. Scrape off any gunk from the bottom of the wax cake, then melt it again and do the same.

I render my deer tallow until it is pure white.

Then I use a mix like mentioned above tallow/wax/oil. Without some oil, the tallow wax mix will be stiffer than a wedding candle.

 

[boar]

I use my deer tallow with out anything else. But I only use it in winter time to deer hunt. Do most my shooting in summer hunting groundhogs. Used to use groundhog oil and beeswax till few years ago. GRhog stays oil at room temp so would add beeswax so it didn't run out of the tins. Bear,skunk stay oil too at room temp. I just grease up a hunk of ticking and cut at muzzle with deer tallow. No problem getting a deer last 2 years with it. I carry a two hole bullet board when I hunt with the patched balls in it. I don't believe D. Boone used anything but aminal fat. Dilly

 

[buttonbuck]

I got done with the first boil for the wax, the wax on top is a deep brown or amber color and is harder than the wax on the bottom layer. The bottom layer is colored like the "bitter honey candy" (remember those candies) a drab oker color. The fat has just boiled for an hour. It is cooling outside I plan to skim the white tallow off the top,and clean off the junk off the bottom of the tallow. I will reboil the fat chunks to extract more tallow should the bees wax all be the deep amber color, or is that a result of oxidation? I was hoping for the consistency of bore butter for some and will cut it with more oil for prb patches

 

[Greenmtnboy]

Ya Brownbear,
tallow by it's self is to stiff.
I tried many variations of marmot oil mixed with elk tallow, but settled on two to one tallow to oil. for best accuracy :thumbsup:

 

[mazo kid]

I render my deer fat like BountyHunter does his beeswax; boil it in water about 3 times, letting it harden between times and scraping off any odd stuff from bottom. Pour off the water each time and use fresh. This gets all the animal salts, etc. out of the tallow and makes it nearly pure. I have also found that putting the fat through a meat grinder before rendering it cuts the time by quite a bit, as opposed to just rendering chunks of fat. Emery

 

[gmww]

I believe Swamp rat did a post on this not too long ago. I render my deer fat and pour it through a strainer. I'll do this three times also. Those wire screen strainers work well. I think I posted some photos along with Swamp rat's thread.

Olive oil is the other ingredient I use. That you'll have to experiment with depending on your hunting condition. Where I'm at it's pretty moderate.

 

[Runner]

Three times and allowing it to cool will not only clean out the meat and other visable contaminates, it also leaches all the water soluable things like natural salts out of the mix. If it draws moisture, it will get scraped off the bottom. What you end up with is very stiff, but also very slick!

 

[boar]

All I did was use a cast iron skillet and pour of the liquid oil, fed the cracklings to the dogs. This was 2 yrs ago. Have more to render down when I need it. I keep the tallow in frezzer till I need it. Mine is same as when I rendered it. Use to keep pack of foxhounds and used a lot of tallow when I made my own feed, cooked it. Good stuff. Use to keep 18 hounds. Down to one beagle and a jack russell. Dilly

 

[rabjr]

http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/214992/

 

[Dphar]

Beeswax should only be heated in a double boiler and then only enough to liquify it. Direct or excessive heat will damage the wax for use for a BP lube and probably a lot of other things.

Dan

 

[gmww]

I've found a few seconds in the nuclear device seems to work well.

 

[buttonbuck]

I am on the third rendering of the wax and tallow. Once more on the tallow. I had boiled both with good results on cleaning it up. Notes for next time I will grind up the fat in the wifes kitchen aid instead of cutting it up in small pieces, the directions suggest using the large plate. I just rebuilt it this past weekend. It does great on meat and fat but not on 44 mag bullets it striped the gears but it was rebuilt for 30.00 in parts from the mending shed, no I did not use tallow to repack the gear box, just a can of grease from an old shell station. For the fat I would cook it on direct heat at first and then boil in water to seperate, strain it into buckets when cool enough through a strainer with cheese cloth and squeeze it out like paul said to get the fat out and repeat until fat is rendered scraping when cool. I will store this in a freezer. when I need it I will reheat in a double boiler and strain through muslin cloth, 90cents a yard. I figure from half a bucket of fat I will get a 70% return of tallow since there was meat chunks in it. The chickens will be glad to eat the scraps. I will have the material to develop lube o plenty. The bees wax I figure I got about 12 pounds. I figure the time I spent and will spend I could have bought a bunch of lube, but this is fun and gives more respect to the deer and bees, waste not want not.

 

[buttonbuck]

Ok made a bullet lube and salve made my dry hands not feel like 400 grit sandpaper. used 10 fluid ounces of rendered and filtered deer fat filtered through muslin cloth, 10 fluid ounces of olive oil, and 5 fluid ounces of melted bees wax. I measured and all of these in liquid off the scale on the side of the mason jar they were melted in the micovave. at room temp it remains the consistency of bore butter and stiffens up in the cold but is still workable. It also seems to displace any moisture from being poured into a metal altoid tin. Hope to shoot some today plan to use as a patch and bullet lube.