Home brewed lube.

O.k., o.k., 'nuther lube thread. Sorry, just cain't hep mawslef!
Most nearly every patch lube, in fact ALL the homebrewed patch lube recipies I've seen have a solid of some sort for a base. Crisco, Beeswax, lard, newt droppings, bat doo-doo, etc,
Yet some of the most popular lubes are liquid.
LeHigh Valley, Ballistol, even what-ever-that concoction is that birddog6 sent me is liquid.
I've heard it said by people here that lubes with a wax base don't perform as well as non-wax base lubes.
True?
Who has a fromula for a liquid base lube that works, has been range tested, and wants to share it with us?
I only tried one liquid lube, leHigh and it was great.
Stumpkillers is also great and has more uses than just lube.
I'd like to hear about homebrewed liquid lubes.
Any of you in-line sabotshooters find a lube that works well with condom bullets??

 

[Stumpkiller]

When you get right down to it, a liquid lube should be better at keeping fouling soft and moist because it is liquid. I used T/C #13 for many years and had good results. Spit/saliva is a darned good choice. My favorite 'store bought' is Lehigh Valley Lube. My beef with them is that they are messy and inconvenient to carry in a small hunting bag (well, except the spit - but I never did get multiple-shots-without-wiping with mine). They also don't work too well in pre-loaded bullet blocks. I even tried little, corked "patent medicine" bottles to try to appear semi-politically correct. I now use a little, flat 1 oz. glass bottle that vanilla extract came which I "antiqued" by grinding off the threads on the neck and fitting with a natural cork (the rubber cork wouldn't stay in the bottle a second - a good sign that it is slippery :. I'd love to learn of any authentic containers of the flint period that were known to contain a liquid lube.

Of the 1,500 variations on moose milk out there, I add mine as follows:

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

Most use NAPA water-soluable oil, or mineral oil.

Ya know, I gave some thought to why we keep coming back to lubes. Of all the components, it's the one we have the most control over. Lead Balls: you either buy them or cast them. They are what they are. Patching: pretty boring. You buy a couple year's supply once you find a suitable cotton material. We've had some interest in silk lately. Or, you can just but the pre-lubed, pre-cut and go shooting. Powder: most of us are confined to what is available. Goex. We all work up a charge or two based on what we're hoping to put a hole in.

So, lubes is where the excitement is! Maybe later we'll get into "How long is your vent pick?" or "How many #11 caps do you put in your capper?"

 

How long can a vent pick be anyway? :snore:
What's a capper? :snore:
Now LUBE, well that's interesting! :applause: :applause:

 

[Birddog6]

Maxi: Oh, you didn't tell me you want a solid type lube.. I have one of them I make too... ha ha ! It is for wet crappy cold inclimate type deer hunting weather...

 

[sse]

I wonder how well rendered bear fat works. I have to believe it works better than about anything else other than whale oil. I've got another batch coming next month, so if'n anybody is hot to try it, lemme know.

Regards, sse

P.S. maxi, the little gem is on the way.

 

Bear's OIL is different than bear grease. I know, I've had and used both. The grease works well in above freezing weather, but bear's ol is needed(of the two) for shooting in well-below-freezing temperatures as the gease becomes hard.
; To get the oil, use only innards fat, from around the kidneys, and guts and very low heat. Too much heat and you will get grease. Fat from the outside will render some oil, but mostley semi-hard white, grease.
: I believe a mix of murphy's and castor oil will make a good cold weather lube & may try it if the moose snot doesn't work well in the rifle. It seems to work just fine in the Bess, so far. If moose snot gives me the accuracy I require, I don't see a reason to change.
: I may also try melting down the mink oil, adding some castor &/or Murphys to see what comes of that mix.

 

works realy well, doens't freeze, is almsot impossible to wash from your hands, etc, etc.
; You can take a handfull of innards fat, and simply rub it into your boots for waterproofing & I mean WATERPROOFING. It is good stuff. The oil content of this fat is incredible. The marmots I used were shot on Hudson's Bay Mountain in Smithers, B.C. BEFORE they becasme a protected species- better check the regs in your area. This was during mid September so they had on a full store of fat for the winter.
: Even handling the fat coated my hands and dish soap didn't want to cut it. It's very slippery - perhasp too much, but it did work in the .58 Hawken I was using in those days, for a block full of shots (12). As with any oil I'd used up till then, it didn't keep the barrel as clean as loading with spit, but of course, spit isn't suitable for hunting due to rusting the breech.
: I also tried ordinary crisco oil, not grease, for a winter lube, but it didn't work well enough for more than 2 shots - needed something else in it.
: I will go out on a limb and say that innards fat from bear or marmot could be squeezed (lots of pressure in a press of some sort) to extract the purest oil, without heat that might degrade it. Cooked, hoever will have a longer shelf life. Mine got a bit rancid after about 6 years.(my wife said it didn't take that long /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif), however she did use bear grease for baking after 2 years in the can without problems :shocking:- actually those bear grease pie crusts were her best ever light and flaky - lovely.
: I still haven't found a prepared or comercial lube that will allow unimited shooting without having to swab the bore at some point in time, other than spit.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Bear oil is arguably the most authentic choice. Whale oil would probably be the best, but I wonder how available it was in the interior, when they were lighting with betty lamps and fat tapers because they couldn't get it. One of the things that turned me onto castor oil is that it (and jojoba oil - price 4 oz of that!) is one of the only vegetable oils that share certain properties with sperm whale oil. Oilseed crops (Zzzzzzzzzzz)

I'd love to try some bear oil, but am afraid it might spoil me and leave me stranded because I have no repeatable source.

 

[sse]

Daryl - Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of butchering the beast and hand picking my bear fat. One of these years I will, though. Don't know about next year, but maybe the next, I'll get a shot at an Ontario bruin for myself, just have to pony up the cash and make the call. In the meantime, it'll be hand-me-down bear fat.

Regards, sse

 

If you can get bear fat at all, perhaps you could question about the stuff from the inside of the cavity? It is bubbly full of oil, so rich in it, you won't need much.
: From what I've seen so far, this moose snot might be better or at least work as well as bear oil. Bear's oil is thin, and I personally like more substance in the lube as this helps keep the fouling soft.

 

[sse]

Stump - All you need to do is hook up with a guide. Do they hunt bears in NY? That's what I did, and I call him about now for the fall hunt. He brought me some last year and stuck it in the freezer. He gave it to me and I left it in the garage and some critters got in it, so that was not good.

Regards, sse

 

[Stumpkiller]

We're getting more and more locally. Two of my co-workers have brought in pictures of black bear in their yards! Each year NY blesses me with a bear tag (comes with the deer tag) but I've never seen one. Just as well, as they can only be taken in the Adirondack, Allegany and Catskill regions (NE, SW & SE portions of NYS). I'm right smack between them all in "Closed" territory. Seems like a lot of expense & effort to harvest a quart of oil. The bear meat I've eaten tasted like beef bullion in a sponge.

 

[cayugad]

Today I wanted to try a bunch of different lubes to see the effect they had on accuracy. I tried the following lubes;

Bore Butter - Stumpkiller's Moose Milk Receipe - Stumpkiller's Moose Snot Reciepe - Out_a_Huntin's bullet lube - my personal bullet lube made out of paraffin wax and pig lard.

I set the bench up at 50 yards and used my .58 caliber Green Mountian Barrel with 1:70 twist. I was shooting Speer Round Ball. I was using cotton pillow tick as a patch material. Powder was 100 grains of Goex FFg.

The best of all the patch lubes was Stumpkiller's Moose Milk Reciepe WITH OUT A DOUBT!!! :imo:

this four shot group was the best of the day and was around 3/4 of an inch. Needless to say I was very pleased.

The next best lube out there was Bore Butter. It actually did a real good job of holding the rounds in there. The group was a little over an inch.

The worst of all the patch lubes was Stumpkiller's Moose Snot. This stuff had balls flying all over the place. I would have had about a five inch group.

The next test will be trying the same lubes with conical bullets out of my .54 caliber Renegade shooting 300 grain REAL conicals.

I have decided that Stumpkiller's Moose Milk will be the only round ball patch lube I am using from now on. They ball loads very easy, and fowling is nothing, even using Goex FFg.

 

Wow, great shooting. What's your formula for Stumpy's Moose Milk?

 

Well , if I'm reading that caliper of yours right that a 47/64" group, :imo: that's Purdy hard to beat. :master:

 

[Griz]

I was afraid to do this in a post but since you started it :hmm: I did the same test over the last weekend and had much the same results. I shot at 25 yds, 80 gr FF Goex, .015 patch, .495 RB. stumpy's moose snot's group was about 4"- 4 1/2" wide and after the 4th shot I could NOT get a ball down the barrel. I had already started the 5th ball down before I relized it was fouled that bad and I was left with no other way to get it down other than the old tree push method. :nono: I was using my TC Pennsylvania Hunter. Then I cleaned the barrel well and went back to Lehigh Valley. My group immediately went back to 1" and I shot 14 shots without swabbing and my last shot was off hand at 50 yds and I centered a 8" steel plate, I do not usually do that. To shakey. While I am inserting :m2c: after the 14 shots I cleaned with TC #13 and after 12 patches total I was done all but a 2 patches of Sheath.

 

Oh well, manure- I really was hoping the moose snot would be an accurate lube-
: Perhaps it's too slippery with the heavy content of castor oil in it.
; Guess I'll have to try it in the flinter and musket too. Initial musket shooting with it, rendered the barrel easy to load without swabbing, almost like spit in that regard, but another test is going to have to be made.
: The first time I tried bore butter was in the grooves of my 450gr., 50-70 bullet and it shot amazingly clean. 10 rounds of fouling pushed out the bore with a dry patch, leaving a clean bore. That shows it works as a lube - too bad it freezes which is no good for the ML.
; As for normal range shooting, I use spit, but need something for a hunting lube.
: Is Lehigh Valley lube suitable for freezing weather lube?

 

[Charles/NM]

My problem with T/C yellow tube lube is just the opposite - it's too runny in hot weather. In cold weather I carry the tube in my jacket pocket to keep it pliable. I was hoping Moose Snot would solve that problem. I'm going to make up some Moose Snot with beeswax, castor oil and MOS. I'll make it more juicy and soft and see if it helps grouping. Right now I'm getting 3/4" groups at 50 yards with T/C lube and PRB. Works good on Maxi's but is way too runny in the desert this time of year.

 

[Stumpkiller]

The worst of all the patch lubes was Stumpkiller's Moose Snot. This stuff had balls flying all over the place. I would have had about a five inch group.

Stumpy's moose snot's group was about 4"- 4 1/2" wide and after the 4th shot I could NOT get a ball down the barrel.

That is disappointing. I'm getting 1 to 1-1/2" groups at 25 yards with my .54 (with a 1:48" twist). Your PA Hunter is a 1:66" isn't it. Both your results taken together would indicate the slower "proper" twists don't like it. I'm a bit baffled that Griz gummed up with so few shots??? I run a lubed patch down & up a few times before the first loading to pre-coat the bore. If you're not totally disgustipated with the mix give that a try next time. You're not mixin it too thick are you? 8 parts castor oil, 2 parts beeswax, 1 part Murphy's Oil Soap (plus a teaspoon added as it cools and stirred in fast to make it smooth & foamy). How much you dabbin on the patch? I rub the patch around well and then squeege it off on the edge of the can, leaving just enough to fill in the weave and leave a smooth coating with no "clumps." I've gone 15 rounds without wiping between shots but haven't tried more. My goal was 10.

Daryl, Please let us know when you get a chance to try it - I'm hoping it's not a bust in the slower twists. I've got a 1:66" coming (still months away - groan) and I don't like futzin with little bottle and corks when I load in the woods. My driving purpose was a lube for pre-loaded bullet blocks that gave multi-shot capability, but if it ain't accurate it ain't worth squat (or snot, either). :cry: It's workin fer me, what can I say????

 

Interesting - I shot some Moose Snot day before yesterday in my 1-66 .45 and it did well. In fact, I was able to use a thinner patch than normal and that allowed me to load easier. Usually, this .011 patch material blows out so I use .016 exclusively. I shot about a 1-1/2 to 2" groups at 50 yds and was not using a solid bench rest - only resting my elbows on the truck hood. I did notice that different ball diameters and different patches shot to widely varying points of aim. The .440 balls shot to POA, but the .445's shot about six inches high with the same patching. Going to a different patch thickness put the .440's about eight inches low but the shots always grouped and were centered for windage. I wiped every five shots for no reason other than I was changing variables but I believe I could have gone to 10 in the string...Anvil