Chemistry Question

[deerstalkert]

JD, being new you will try most of everything that all have mentioned.
the true beauty of black powder muzzle loader shooting is the simplicity of it.
Powder, Spit Patch, Ball,........ Shoot. Repeat. all else is fluff.

 

[Patched]

One thing mentioned was using a wad between powder and patch. Haven't tried that yet.

This technique is worth the effort…for accuracy pursuits….consistency is everything…an over powder felt wad works well for me….consistency.
As in bore condition,(amount of fouling present)…the exact same wiping technique after every shot…same loading pressure on the rod seating a load…same ball size and weight, the right patch lubed exactly like the previous patch.

bouncing your rod down the bore atop a spit patch ( before a sip of beverage lube as opposed to after a sip patch lube) while looking “mountainy manly”…. is not consistency...

Personally I cringe watching those ”spitters” and look away from the rod bouncers…you’re on the right track asking the right questions , pursuing a repeatable loading technique.

 

[French Colonial]

Try an over powder felt wad, and then try everything the same without the felt wad.

Off the bench on the same day and see which shoots the best, I tried it both ways on two different days and the load without the wad shot better. Others with different loading techniques have found the wad works for them.

FYI I was using mink oil lubed patches that day and some of the patches that I recovered had the felt wad stuck to the back of them...think a badminton bird flying backwards. My theory on the inaccuracy is that the stuck together patch/wad was steering the ball before falling off.

Others have tried it and liked the results, also FYI I was working up a hunting load where it may stay loaded for some length of time, for shooting at the range I have never found anything that works better than a spit patch.

 

[Juice Jaws]

Much of what little I actually learned in high-school chemistry has been lost to time. So was wondering if their where some here who could help me find an answer.

Murphy's moose milk being a surfactant stabilized oil in water emultion, how can I increase it's viscosity making it more effective as a patch lube?

You can't, moose milk is mostly water and the other thing is there are 1,001 ways to make moose milk.

 

[.36Rooster]

Leave out the water, rubbing alcohol, and the witch hazel, add some lamb tallow, heat the mixture, dip your patches, and squeegee the excess off like I do. The liquid mixture is mainly only useful for cleaning.

 

[JDBraddy]

You can't, moose milk is mostly water and the other thing is there are 1,001 ways to make moose milk.

Was going to try the recipe posted above using witch Hazel, caster oil, and alcohol in place of balistol as soon as I aquire the ingredients.

Also, have questions about using a wad, never have seen anyone else load with one, don't have felt or a cutter yet, some commercial ones seem to be cardboard or cork.

Do you just drop it in after the powder? How can you be sure it seats flat? If you use patch material with the ramrod, won't it come out on the jag like a patch?

Was trying to think of what I could try on the meantime and saw a bag of cotton balls under the sink, if I where to just stuff a cotton ball down the bore with a short starter after the powder, then seat the patch and ball on top to sandwich it between the powder and patched ball, would that work?

 

[Bnewberry]

Ok, put 8oz by volume in the blend jet, got about 64oz by volume, somewhere between the consistency of egg custard and Cool-whip topping. Going to leave it overnight and see if it goes down, just have to make sure my wife doesn't come by and put a dollop of it on a warm slice of pie.

A taste test would not lead to good outcomes I am sure! And since others are offering their patch lube of choice here is mine. Olive oil, which was known as sweet oil back in the day. As for applying it, I have two methods.

One is to cut square patches, put them in a faux rawhide pouch (ziplock sandwich plastic bag) add a drizzle of olive oil and squish it around.

The second borrows an idea from the late Dutch Schultz, add 4 parts 90% rubbing alcohol and 1 part olive oil to a lidded container. Put the lid on tight and agitate. Dip strips of patching material in the mix and then squeeze out the excess by running the strip between two fingers like a squeegee. Lay the strips flat on wax paper until the alcohol evaporates. The patches will feel oily but dry compared to the first method. These can then be cut into patches or cut at the muzzle as you load.

The second method lets you distribute the olive oil in a more consistent way, and you can play with the amount of oil to see if an oilier mix vs. a less oily mix changes accuracy. I use 4 to 1 as it lets me shoot a 20 shot woodswalk without needing to swab. A dryer patch may give better accuracy but you would need to swab the bore, perhaps even between shots as Dutch advocated.

 

[JDBraddy]

A taste test would not lead to good outcomes I am sure! And since others are offering their patch lube of choice here is mine. Olive oil, which was known as sweet oil back in the day. As for applying it, I have two methods.

One is to cut square patches, put them in a faux rawhide pouch (ziplock sandwich plastic bag) add a drizzle of olive oil and squish it around.

The second borrows an idea from the late Dutch Schultz, add 4 parts 90% rubbing alcohol and 1 part olive oil to a lidded container. Put the lid on tight and agitate. Dip strips of patching material in the mix and then squeeze out the excess by running the strip between two fingers like a squeegee. Lay the strips flat on wax paper until the alcohol evaporates. The patches will feel oily but dry compared to the first method. These can then be cut into patches or cut at the muzzle as you load.

The second method lets you distribute the olive oil in a more consistent way, and you can play with the amount of oil to see if an oilier mix vs. a less oily mix changes accuracy. I use 4 to 1 as it lets me shoot a 20 shot woodswalk without needing to swab. A dryer patch may give better accuracy but you would need to swab the bore, perhaps even between shots as Dutch advocated.

It did coaless back to liquid overnight, so just poured it back into a spray bottle and rinced out the blender.

 

[Patched]

To the OP…look up Idaho Lewis on YouTube….he shows exactly what to do to achieve accuracy specifically for round ball loads …the how and why of a over the powder patch…check him out…I’ve practiced his methods for about 30 years with great results.

 

[Greenjoytj]

Was going to try the recipe posted above using witch Hazel, caster oil, and alcohol in place of balistol as soon as I aquire the ingredients.

Also, have questions about using a wad, never have seen anyone else load with one, don't have felt or a cutter yet, some commercial ones seem to be cardboard or cork.

Do you just drop it in after the powder? How can you be sure it seats flat? If you use patch material with the ramrod, won't it come out on the jag like a patch?

Was trying to think of what I could try on the meantime and saw a bag of cotton balls under the sink, if I where to just stuff a cotton ball down the bore with a short starter after the powder, then seat the patch and ball on top to sandwich it between the powder and patched ball, would that work?

Watch the castor oil it is the slipperiest oil known, the slickest slipperiest doesn’t guaranty an accurate shot. If it did we would all be using it.

I shoot a 54 cal rifle. I use a 58 or 28 gauge felt wad. The mink oil grease is melted to liquid state. Wads are dipped in the liquid grease timed to allow the wad to full absorb/saturate liquid. Remove the hot wads with tweezers and place them on sheet of paper towels. The paper towels absorbs excess grease turning the wad back in to a piece of felt rather than a solid cylinder of grease.
When shooting, a is wad pushed flush into the muzzle. Because my wad is slightly over size in diameter the center of the wad cups slightly. A pre-cut and pre-lubed patch is centered on the muzzle then the ball (I’ve previously determined a .535” ball with my patch thickness will emboss patch weave marks all around the ball not just on the lands) a short starter is used to get the ball ¼” down the bore, then 6” leg of the short starter is used, then the ramrod is used hand over hand pushing about 10” down each time.
The wad goes down adhered to the patch by the downward motion of seating the ball, and by virtue of its over size dia. there is an inability of the patch to flutter down to land sideways. (Even if it did so what, the wad would just flatten out or embed into the loose powder. That shot might be a little off target). I have tried double wads but no better or worse data was seen so I quit wasting an extra wad. You mileage may vary.

Stuffing a cotton ball would work quite well to seal the powder gases behind the ball.
It would also likely start a forest fire. Consider half of western Canada‘s forest burnt down last summer it might be unwise to use a non fire retardant treated cotton balls.

 

[morehops52]

I'm kinda lost on the "effective" ask. The only way you would know if one is more "effective" than any others is trial and error. Not sure how much you would notice a real difference in accuracy but perhaps in loading. Considering that patch lubes varied from spit to bear fat over the centuries I'm not sure how long it would take you sort out the 29,644,368 recipes to find the Holy Grail of patch lubes that works for you.
I shoot Maxis so I don't need patches but I am working thru the 1,948 recipes out there for conical lubes.

 

[Juice Jaws]

Was going to try the recipe posted above using witch Hazel, caster oil, and alcohol in place of balistol as soon as I aquire the ingredients.

Also, have questions about using a wad, never have seen anyone else load with one, don't have felt or a cutter yet, some commercial ones seem to be cardboard or cork.

Do you just drop it in after the powder? How can you be sure it seats flat? If you use patch material with the ramrod, won't it come out on the jag like a patch?

Was trying to think of what I could try on the meantime and saw a bag of cotton balls under the sink, if I where to just stuff a cotton ball down the bore with a short starter after the powder, then seat the patch and ball on top to sandwich it between the powder and patched ball, would that work?

Don't made something easy hard. Best advice I can give you is watch some beginner youtube videos or better yet fine a local black powder club and get some hands on help from them.

 

[French Colonial]

Over complication, some live for it.

 

[bpd303]

Do you just drop it in after the powder? How can you be sure it seats flat? If you use patch material with the ramrod, won't it come out on the jag like a patch?

No the wad should fit snug in the bore, not just dropped in. Start it at the bore flat and push it down to seat it on the powder. The best loose wad material I have found is Kapok.

 

[JDBraddy]

Made some progress in today's shooting session, still haven't decided what to use, but can now eliminate some options, pointing me in a definitive direction.

This rifle displayed a distinct preference for a patch-ball combination totalling around 0.505"

Now, I can stop playing with these variables, and concentrate on determining the next set.

 

[Sparks of Dutch Glory]

Glycerin, probably.

Patch lube recipes are recipes. They have specific ingredients in specific proportions for reasons. Some are highly adjustable, some are not. There are, at last count, 29,644,368 patch lube recipes documented on this forum alone, if you don't like what you're using, pick another that seems like it would be more viscous.

As an aside, to increase the viscosity of spit, strong cinnamon gum or an Atomic Fireball stuffed in your cheek will do the trick. Levi Garrett also works.

So that's why Levi Garrett used to sponsor the Territorial Shoots!!!
Now I know

 

[Ed C.]

Try an over powder felt wad, and then try everything the same without the felt wad.

Off the bench on the same day and see which shoots the best, I tried it both ways on two different days and the load without the wad shot better. Others with different loading techniques have found the wad works for them.

Nice to know that someone else has had the experience of an over the powder wad reducing accuracy. We seem to be in the minority.

 

[snakebit]

Ok, I'm sure you can tell that I am fairly new to muzzleloading, have been experimenting with a lot of the cleaners and lubes posted here, as well as commercial products like Hoppe's, Muzzle Magic, Butch's Black powder Bore Shine. This one seems to cut fowling as well as any, is inexpensive, easy to make and use, but seems to be really thin and wattery like skim milk vs heavy cream when compared to the commercial products.

It doesn't feel as slick, or coat like they do. Patches often have unburned coernels of powder imbeded, wich I interpret to mean the wet patch is getting some of the powder wet. Would hope to keep it's cleaning and foweling reduction properties, without getting everything as wet. Also, it evaporates quickly, without leaving much of an oily residue on the patch. I can saturate a rolled strip of ticking, squeeze out the excess, and in an hour it feels dry, as if it was never lubed at all.

Are you washing the sizing (starch) out of your ticking with super hot water?

 

[JDBraddy]

Are you washing the sizing (starch) out of your ticking with super hot water?

Don't know about super hot water, I just threw the entire yard of cloth in the washing machine to with a load of white T-shirts.

 

[JDBraddy]

Stumpy's Moose Juice

A general purpose blackpowder solvent and liquid patch lube. Shake well before using

Castor Oil 3 oz.
Murphy's Oil Soap 1 oz.
Witch Hazel 4 oz.
Isopropyl Alcohol (91%) 8 oz.
Water (non-chlorinated if available) 16 oz.

I dip my patching in this twice and let it dry laid flat on wax paper in between. Makes a semi-dry patch material that's easy to carry & use. If you don't mind carrying a little bottle it's a GREAT liquid lube as is.

Finally found the ingredients and made a batch using this recipe, didn't fully imulsify, and separates with minutes. Thought I must have done something wrong, then I saw the instruction to "shake well before using" so....