lube opinions

[tnlonghunter]

I'm curious for peoples' opinions on different lubes. I've used Wonderlube, and like it pretty well but hear that it freezes at low temps. How low? I'd really rather not have my lube freeze while hunting here in Michigan. What about the mink oil stuff from TOTW? Is that stuff any good? I'm willing to try Stumpy's Moose stuff, but I'm not sure where to buy bees wax.

I know that every rifle is different, but is there one lube that y'all generally find produces better accuracy than another? I'm shooting .490 roundballs with .018 pillow ticking. Generally 50 gr. 3f (GOEX) for out to 50 yards and 75 gr. for longer range shots. Just looking for opinions, and I know there's lots of those!

 

[rabjr]

Have you scrolled through previous pages in this forum? Theres a lot of threads dealing with lubes.

There are a couple of beeswax suppliers listed in the links page here.
http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/222426/#Suppliers

 

[grizzy adams]

I have used wonder lube , and it does get real stiff when its cold out . Now I just make my own lube ( moose snot ) it works real good for me , and wiff mink oil from totw , its good to , it dont freeze and get stiff from the cold.

 

[paulvallandigham]

For hunting in freezing conditions, simply take a half teaspoon of Wonderlube, put it in another container, and add an ounce of alcohol. Now mix the two together, and close the container to keep the alcohol from evaporating. Lube your patches with this alcohol based lube mix, and you should have no problems. You still will need to clean the barrel between shots, and using alcohol on your cleaning patches is the way to go. So. get a small bottle- I found an Antique medicine bottle that holds about 2 0z of fluid, cleaned it up, and bought a cork at an antique store that fit the bottle-- to use to carry your alcohol in your hunting bag. Isopropyl works fine. That is the 91% stuff. Rubbing alcohol is in the 70 % range. You can also use denatured alcohol, which is near 200 proof, but its a lot more expensive and I never found a justification for spending the extra money for cleaning a MLer. If I had a can of denatured alcohol for some other use, and didn't own one of the cheaper alcohols, you can buy in most grocery stores, and drug stores, I would probably go ahead and use the denatured alcohol.

 

[Dave Markowitz]

My last two times out shooting my customized Dixie TMR, I used the mink oil lube from Track of the Wolf. It's given me very good results with a ticking patch, .480 round ball, and 80 grains 2Fg.

 

[catman]

Birddog6's Patch Grease custommuzzleloaders.com

Good stuff..

 

[tnlonghunter]

Paul,
the WonderLube I used was someone else's and only for a few shots. Like I said, it seemed to work fine, but I don't have extensive experience with it. It sounds like you recommend swabbing the barrel between each shot. Is that correct?

 

[MikeC]

Hunting...TOTW Mink Oil

Everything else...Spit

Keep it simple. :thumbsup:

 

[paulvallandigham]

Yes, I do. I learned this the hard way after fighting with a percussion rifle for a couple of years through different temperatures and humidity levels. Not only does failure to clean between shots affect the ease of running the next ball down the barrel, but it also affects accuracy. Now, I was NOT PLINKING with that gun. I was doing some precision shooting, and Trick Shooting for my gun club to entertain the public, and impress them with how accurate these guns could be. If you are casual shooting, at reactive targets, then go ahead and risk getting a ball stuck half way down the barrel. When I was miles from home, and standing in front of a crowd of tourists, doing trick shots, I could NOT AFFORD for anything to go wrong with the loading of my gun, or do anything that would lessen the accuracy.

Because I carefully cleaned my gun and then carefully loaded my gun for each shot, I soon gained a reputation among my own club members as the " Go-to-guy" when they wanted to show someone in the crowd that SOMEONE in the club COULD actually split a playing card on edge, or split a ball on the edge of an axe, and break to clay targets leavning against each side of the axe. Or snuff a candle flame out without cutting either the candlestick, or the wick. I was not the only shooter in the club who cleaned between shots. But, there were certainly two distinct groups of shooters in the club- those who did, and those who didn't. The new members eventually would wind up in our group of shooters, after having their own fits and screw-ups with their guns when they didn't clean.

You should know that one of our members here, Mark Lewis, is a huge advocate of using undersized balls and thicker patches, so that he doesn't have to clean his gun all day long. He lives in Florida, where it stay warm even in the winter months, and where the humidity tends to be a bit higher than in most of the rest of the States. I envy Mark that ability to NOT clean between shots, and still get good accuracy( he says). :hatsoff:

 

[tnlonghunter]

Okay, thanks for the tip. I generally clean every 6-10th shot, depending on temp and humidity without noticing any problems, but then like you said I'm mostly shooting reactive targets and using undersized balls and thicker patches.

 

[dlpowell]

Pauls recemmendation for cleaning and lube should be followed. I fought a GPR for years by only cleaning after every third shot when the ball got VERY hard to seat.

Stay away from Denatured Alcohol tho, it'll screw up your stock finish if you get sloppy.

Use a beeswax based lube in hot weather and moose snot or some other liquid based lube when it's cold.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

as many here do I wipe between shots with a loose fitting patch - a piece of old flannel shirt. the lube I settled on useing after trying several (many actually) different is common mechanics hand cleaner - the white stuff.
but I don't shoot much PRB now that I got a Lee REAL slug mold.

 

[flinthead]

Ordinary Crisco seems to work good for me with patched round balls. I did experiment with olive oil an bees wax but went back to Crisco.