Frog Lube

[Rifleman1776]

Rifleman,
You tried ballistol and were'nt happy as a rust preventative,I think.That's what is recommended by Dutch now for wso.

Yep, when I can find some of the liquid in a store I'll get it and try. But, I'm not about to pay $15.00 shipping for a $12.00 bottle of the stuff.

 

[Billnpatti]

To the best of my knowledge, Murphy's is about the same thing as Lestoil. I have a bottle of Lestoil that I found when we lived in Indiana but I haven't seen it on the shelves here in Texas.....but then, to be fair, I haven't been looking for it. I also have a bottle of Murphy's. I have used both and can't tell any difference in either their use in muzzleloading or in their cleaning ability in removing dirt and soil from my gunstocks.

I haven't tried either Murphy's nor Lestoil on our church pews. It seems that they have a real problem with letting me shoot the pews. :haha:

 

[stude 283]

Or pine-sol.Should be available anywhere.

 

I know about froglube and I have sold many bottles of it. Great properties. Really makes ar15 type rifles reliable. Once it coats modern guns fowling is easily removed or you dont even have to clean it agaain as it does protect metal and promote lubrication. But using it in muzzleloaders isnt a great idea. I use it on lock internals but lube inside the bore makes bullets do bad things. If I am gonna go shoot some glock 10,000 time without jamming ill go with froglube, but for the low volume out of a musket and the expense of froglube, id rather other stuff.

 

[Stumpkiller]

To the best of my knowledge, Murphy's is about the same thing as Lestoil.

If you look at the MSDS for each they are pretty dissimilar. Murphy's Oil Soap is vegetable oil with 5% Potassium Hydroxide, Lauramidopropyldimethylamine oxide (detergent) and little else.

Lestoil is 30% Stoddards Solvent (aka Dry Cleaning Solvent), 10% Pine Oil, 10% Tall Oil (wood by-product emulsifier) and

 

[stude 283]

Dutch recommends either pine-sol or lestoil in his moosemilk. No mention of Murphy's,although I believe other's formulas use Murphy's.

 

[Billnpatti]

So far as I can tell, the whole purpose for Lestoil in Moose Milk is to work as a surfactant. It may incidentally provide some lubrication but in as much as it is only 10% or less of the composition of Moose Milk, I would expect the lubrication it may provide will be only incidental. The water soluble oil is the main lubricant in Moose Milk. Since the Lestoil is primarily a surfactant, and Murphy's Oil Soap and Lestoil are similar products whose cleaning abilities are provided largely by their surfactant action, I would expect that either would work equally well as the surfactant in Moose Milk. Their compositions are somewhat different as noted in stumpkillers post but both are simple cleaners, not significantly different products. But, I must add this caveat, I have not compared one against the other to see if my assumption is correct. It might be an interesting test providing I can come up with an easy way to quantify the performance of each and a way of measuring this difference. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to quantify their performance and to measure this quantification so it can be evaluated statistically? Compare velocities? Compare group sizes? Compare how much fouling is removed by observing wiping patches using each of the products? If the latter is used, how could one compare the amount of fouling on each patch in such a way that provides an accurate and true measurement? The only balance that I have is a simple power balance that may or may not be accurate enough to weigh the differences in the weight of the patches.

Shall we do this or just speculate as to which is the best cleaner to use? Another alternative would be to simply do it Dutch's way. I am one who holds Dutch in very high regard and would have no objection to simply doing it his way. But doing an experiment such as I have proposed is certainly tempting.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Although lubes are likely modern concepts I like to keep to period components. Beeswax, soft soap and castor oil have all been around long term. Murphy's is just a soft soap (add salt and it would form bar soap).

Don't know what Dutch has up his sleeve, but if it is authentic it's likely petty well known and tried, and if it's not I'm not interested. ;-)

More than likely it was saliva, possibly bear, woodchuck or raccoon grease or whatever residual cooking fats that were on hand were what was used.

Clean up - water and a few drops of soft soap if you had some available.

What I did do was compare components and lubes on steel plates and repeated with powder flashed plates left outdoors. I then made up a lube with the components that prevent rust and then based final choices on the one that shot best in my rifles. Put a couple months effort into it. If you get bored search up the thread(s) "Lube Wars" I, II & c.