• Friends, our 2nd Amendment rights are always under attack and the NRA has been a constant for decades in helping fight that fight.

    We have partnered with the NRA to offer you a discount on membership and Muzzleloading Forum gets a small percentage too of each membership, so you are supporting both the NRA and us.

    Use this link to sign up please; https://membership.nra.org/recruiters/join/XR045103

BeesWax & Olive Oil

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
hey, camp...this thread is very interesting. The one thing that catches my eye is olive oil. Is there something magical about it or is everyone just trying to be PC. Seems to me any animal or vegitable oil would be the same...cold and snowing in da UP...woodtic
 
I imagine it's a combination of things. The flash point of the oil and how much residue it leaves vs. cost and availability. Some oils leave tar when they burn, and some have a lot of solids in suspension. Olive oil comes pretty highly refined and filtered.

I use castor oil after noticing it made it through the explosion/combustion cycle and muffler of small engines in good shape without junking up the works while leaving a protective and lubricating coating. It's been in trade since pre-Roman times; as has olive oil.
 
With that info I would stay away from Extra Virgin Olive Oils as thry have a low "Smoke" point, IE Burn. Plus they are much more expensive. The highly refined and mix'd regular grade Olive Oil is alot cheaper.
 
I have made several "lubes" with Bees wax and............

I just made up some 50/50 out of Olive Oil and Murphy's Oil Soap.

I shoots quite well in my new .62 cal. using pillow ticking and 80 grains of FF.

I loaded it up last Friday and left it loaded over night. Shot it Saturday afternoon, and the point of impact was perfect!

I did swab the barrel with a lubed patch after loading, and it seemed to work just fine!

I will do some cold weather testing soon!
 
How many shots can you get off with the beeswax olive oil mix without having to swab the barrel?
 
In the summer I was shooting 4 parts olive oil and 1 part beeswax and would shoot about 12 times before cleaning. Then it was not needed. I was shooting a flint .50cal T/C Hawkin. Now I am trying a .32 flint, in the snow and will let you know how things go. Bert
 
I mostly use a spit patch and can shoot shoot all day if need be without swabbing. Looking for something besides spit that will do the same thing.
 
Hey Navaho,

In my experience it does not effectively "season the bore". It seems to work well on wads and patches for general shooting but don't trust it for long term storage. I have a few guns that only see daylight every year or so and I bought into the "seasoning and protectant attributes". What resulted was a couple of bores that needed to be lapped and some light surface rust. My safes are in the house and contain a dry-z-air dessicant unit.

As far as swabbing between shots goes I usually dont do it. I do my days shooting and I clean them and put them away. I see a lot of mention of swabbing on this site and I just dont get it. If I had to guess (being out west) that in the mid-west and east the humidity plays a role in the fowling many of you lament. I use spit patch, it works. Someone in an earlier post mentioned murphy's oil soap. It sounds plausible. I'll probably experiment with it at some point.
Charcloth
 
Hi, on thursday i tried t/c natural lube 1000 bore butter and it was frozen hard so i did not shoot, It was -18C. Today i tried the recipe of wax and olive oil, with alot of olive oil. It looks pretty good and i hope i can get some shots tomorow. Thanks for the recipe!
Frank
 
Back
Top