Home-made Lube

[wwfeatherston]

Made up a batch of 'poor man's bore butter' last night. Melted down some beeswax candles and added equal parts cooking oil.

Played around with the mix a bit, getting it soft, but not too messy. Kneading the mix by hand, the wife tells me this is the same stuff as her expensive hand cream, that she pays a fortune for!

Talk about killing two birds with one ball!

 

[Stumpkiller]

You should be able to get a still-fairly-thick lube with 1/3 or even less beeswax. I use 8 to 2 to 1 parts castor oil, beeswax and Murphy's Oil Soap in my grease lube. That's less than 1/5 oil to wax and it's about the consistancy of Kiwi shoe polish.

 

[Slamfire]

I've taken to using Sno-Seal right out of the jar. It is bee's wax that we used to melt into leather boots to waterproof and preserve them.

sno-seal

 

[shmrck1]

WW,
Stumpy's stuff works great. Made several batches of
it and never had a problem. :imo: :results:
snake-eyes

 

[longshot47]

Slamfire / Sno Seal,
Now that sounds like a righteous idea.

Longshot :thumbsup:

 

[Bearbait2]

Mr. Slamfire,
If you will please:
What were you using before?
Have you noticed any difference in loading, cleaning or accuracy?
Best Wishes

 

[loishd]

http://www.ctmuzzleloaders.com/mlexperiments/honeylube/honeylube.html

This is an interesting article for lubing a patch! :imo: :results:

 

[wwfeatherston]

Beeswax and oil worked a treat!

 

[Stophel]

I use beeswax and olive oil. I'm gonna GUESS that the ratio is about 2 parts wax, one part oil. If it is too thick when cool, I reheat it and add oil. If it is too thin, why then, I reheat it and add wax. Good for parched lips too.

 

[Killitgrillit]

1 lb bees wax
64 oz olive oil oil
double boiler
yellow food coloring if wanted
and a few tablespoons of wintergreen oil or what have ya if desired but not needed
this is the only thing that touches my muzzleloaders inside and out. been doing this for the past 20 years and not a problem yet.
got 15 inches of rain last month In Ga and no rust problems here. :m2c:

keep the powder dry and shoot low they might be riding shetland ponies

 

[wwfeatherston]

I started out with 50-50 wax and oil, but the mix was far too thick. Went to about 1/3 wax to 2/3 oil and that seemed to work OK

 

[jtmattison]

I make my lube with beeswax and olive oil also. Drop in a bit of wintergreen oil to make it smell good and you've got yourself some "bore butter".

Happy shooting,

Huntin

 

[rabbit03]

OK my two cents again! But the question I had was, Is all this stuff PC that yall are making here? What did the old timers use? I have no clue as to what they used two or three hundred years ago for patch lube. When I shoot competition I use Teflon patching, I know I know not PC but I never claimed to be either. But that is what I was brought up using at the shoots.

I am going to start using rendered pork fat in the future. The reason is I like how my skillet gets an even coat of carbon on it and it is slicker than any teflon coated skillet I have seen. I believe with the heat generated by the fire of the charge that the bore will eventually be coated and impregnated with a fine coat of carbon. The benefits are obvious to me and it is all natural too. Might put a little esential oil in the fat to make it smell nice I guess but I don't plan on putting anything else down the barrel at all, no parifin or anything else just plain ol' pork fat.

Actually we have a hog outback that will be the major contributor to my endevor once she is sent to hog heaven this fall.

Now I am not sure if this would work for rondevous or reenacting since it may be too soupy without adding anything else to thicken it up. But being on the firing line all day shooting 10x's of course :crackup: that would not be of concern to me since it will be a controlled environment. But I believe that if I can create the same environment inside the barrel that I have made in my skillets then the results should be just exactly what I am expecting them to be. A very slick surface that has a coating of carbon. I also am thinking I will get an added bennefit when I am cleaning my rifle. I will leave the carbon in place while removing the rust making salts from the powder residue. The theory is once I have this even coating of carbon that I could simply use cold water and patches to clean the bore, much as I do my skillets here at home. The carbon would remain and the hamfull residue would be removed.

The reason I was driven to this maddness was one day while cleaning one of my skillets with like I said, cold water, I then took a clean paper towel to the surface and tried to rub it hard enough to try to get the towel to turn black from the carbon left in the skillet. Well I was amazed to find the towel still just as white as when I started. That meant that the skillet was clean and free of all residue and the only thing left was obviously the carbon that had been impregnated from all the heating and cooling while having the lard in it. That lead me to think why could I not make the inside of my barrel like that so that is why I am going to try and use the rendered hog fat.

Any comments?

 

[GregC]

Vegetable Oil does the same thing to a cast iron skillet.

Save the HOG!

 

[Stophel]

I think olive oil COULD have been used ("sweet oil"), but was likely not. Bear grease was considered the best, though I'm told it REALLY stinks. Beef or mutton tallow would be better than hog lard, as the hog lard is more prone to going rancid. BUT, 200 years ago, finding fresh lard/tallow would have been an almost everyday thing! We have to keep our stuff over a period of time, whereas, back then, they really didn't have to for the most part.

Hog lard (UNSALTED) should work fine, just keep your eyes, and NOSE on it! Never actually tried it myself, but many people do use it.

 

Bear grease was the first choice. Well refined bear oil/grease does not smell bad or taste bad according to everything I have read. It does not turn rancid like other animal oils. The colonials often ate the grease , used it as a butter substitute, cooked with it, lubed with it, used it like we'd use vaseline, used it as hair pomade, etc, etc....it was much used and valued enough that industries grew up in the backwoods to kill bears and render tallow/oil for export. For example, Arkansas area of "Louisiana" was a major supplier of bear oil for the French and later Spanish and even later Americans from the early 1700s into the mid 1800s.

 

P.S., I guess I am missing out in all of these lube discussions (and we've had a lot of them!). I started out many years ago with plain ol' spit. Real cheap except on a hot day in August in Oklahoma. Then I used Crisco for several years. Readily available but not PC. A couple of years back I tried Lehigh Valley Lube for the first time and said, "ho-hum..." BUT it works great as a final cleaning step after a water rinse in my MLs. Then I bought some Ox-Yoke pre-lubed (Wonder Lube) patches on a whim and they worked real good. Still have some. Not PC. But, I guess I am not clued in to all this experimentation (and not a little hype) with lubes. Spit works just fine on the range. I tired plain olive oil and did not like it, plus it seemed to rust my guns if I used it as a final coat. What is PC is some sort of tallow, bears oil/grease being the best. I use mink tallow (from TOW)when I am trying to be more PC. And I coat my bores with mink tallow to protect them. :m2c:

 

[rabbit03]

Well once again I have been upstaged by others, seems to be a trait with me instead of happening I suppose.

And here I thought that I had really uncovered something worthwhile in my thoughts on Hog lard. I was even going to save the environment according to a friend of mine who had read my post. Oh well such as it is I will bow to the bear fat idea and will instead of rendering my hog (poor soul) I will instead make a treck north in search of a bear instead to render.

HMMMM hog lard that turns rancid huh? That would be bad when I start cooking hummingbird eggs inside my barrel!

:master:

rabbit03

 

[oomcurt]

Now this may sound a wee bit far off...but...I wonder...be it a hog or a bear (preferably a bear in a zoo that has gotten a wee bit to fat (after all..if humans are concerned about weight maybe we should be concerned about captive bears also (Please..do not tell the dolts at PETA about this). So...why not get a vet to do some lipo suction on the critters..sort of like a fall harvest.....hmm...talk about renewable resources..... :shake: :crackup:

 

[rabbit03]

Well now a horse of a different color I think since I now have been looking into Hog Lard. Hog Lard it seems, when rendered properly will be about 99% pure fat and will be free of repulsive odors. The best fat to render from the unfortunate hog in question will be the fat from around the Kidneys called (Leaf Lard).

Hog lard is also free of any nitrates or corrosive materials as far as I can tell at this time. Not only that it actually contains substances such as Uranium, Selenium, Zink, Vitamin E, and 100 grams of Lard will usually contain about 902 calories. So it seems that I may not have been too far off in my wonderings about using Hog Lard for lube especially considering the afformentioned. And if it doesn't work as well as I think it will I can always use it in my buscuits it says to make them particularly flaky.



rabbit03 (The Happy Luber)