Mink Oil for Smoothbores (shot and roundball)?

[shaman]

I'm going back now to the early 80's. That was when I started muzzleloading with a TC Hawken roundballer. At that time, the general consensus around me was that Crisco did about as good a job as any product out there for lube. It held up to high temps. It didn't have any salts in it, and it seasoned the bore the same way it seasoned a cast iron skillet. It was also dirt cheap. My first little container of the stuff-- some 40 years old now is still sitting on the shelf, and my son is dipping into it for his smokepole.

About 10 years ago, I was working for a logistics company and we had a skid of Butter Flavor Crisco break open at one of the warehouses. Insurance covered the loss, and the warehouse employees got the salvaged product. I walked away with a lifetime supply. However, all my muzzleloaders smell like somebody just made popcorn.

I was just wondering how this mink oil product stood up to what used to be the gold standard-- certainly one of the best things to ever come out of Cincinnati.

 

[Brokennock]

and it seasoned the bore the same way it seasoned a cast iron skillet.

 

[Grenadier1758]

@shaman,

Read this thread from our Tables and general Information in the General Information Forum.

https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/why-we-dont-season-barrels.61745/
40 years ago it was a common belief that we could season our barrels just as porous cast iron skillets were seasoned. It took a bit of shooting to realize that steel rifle barrels are not porous like a cast iron skillet. What was thought of a "seasoning" in a rifle barrel is little more than the buildup of fouling and burned grease that will fill the grooves and ultimately ruin the accuracy of a barrel.

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

What was thought of a "seasoning" in a rifle barrel is little more than the buildup of fouling and burned grease that will fill the grooves and ultimately ruin the accuracy of a barrel.

I have witnessed this time and again … 1st on my own ‘target’ rifle and usually with people using Bore Butter! They believe a little is pretty good, so more must be better! Accuracy goes to crap …

 

[Brokennock]

Oh! Was he serious?

 

[tenngun]

I use mink oil as I stated above, but in all honesty I can’t say it works better then lard. It just makes me feel good to have mink.

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

For what it’s worth I’ve seen little smoldering patches start a fire using Crisco as a lube, but I have never observed that with mink oil patches.

Now that I think of it, I have observed a bore flare up from depositing the next charge, where Crisco was used as a lube, but I’ve never, ever heard of that occurring with Mink oil either.

I recall others cautioning that Crisco can leave smoldering embers in the bore … In fact, in usual conditions, Crisco seems not flammable, but it can turn into flammable material at a particular temperature range. It can ignite at around 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

[shaman]

Good to know! Thanks. I'm glad I asked.

 

[nhmoose]

I have got to see a barrel get that hot!!! Wow you be one fast loader.

I season cast iron cooking pots and pans. I use wiped on Crisco in my oven at 350-375 degrees none have ever caught fire. From my fire investigating days ignition temp is above 500 degrees so I doubt it will be a concern to any ML.

 

[shaman]

I too season pans with Crisco in the oven: 1/2 hour at 300F. I looked it up: it smokes at 360F. That's about right. If I have a barrel that's getting above 300F, I need to be taking a break. I never slathered it on, but I did grease patches with it and later used it for Minie Ball.

Starting about 30 years ago, I had a 10 year stint at a solder factory. We made all sorts of welding, brazing and solder products.

The process of making our best seller included casting billets of bronze alloy and then shoving these billets into an extrusion press. If you ever played with a Playdoh Fun Factory on the spaghetti setting, you've got some idea of how we made the resulting wire. The fun factory in this case was an 80 ton press and was as big as a bus.

Although the formulation was secret, I do know that the billets were heated to 800 F before going into the press and that they were swabbed with a water-soluable animal fat solution. The nickname for the stuff was "bear grease." It acted as a high temp lubricant. The whole place smelled of this stuff. I'm not surprised that somebody came up with an animal tallow-based patch lube.

I once ran into a couple of guys at the range who were classics. They came in a rickety truck with KY license plates. The rear quarter panel was attached to the vehicle with fence wire. They were sharing a caplock rifle with the barrel painted in red primer and the nipple was expoxied on. I doubt they had a dozen teeth between them. They laughed at my can of Crisco. Their recipe for patch lube went as follows:

"Ya take yursef an ammuminum pie pan and ya set it on the stove and then you put in some beeswax and some deer taller or some hawg taller and ya melt it all down and then you set yer balls down in that until they gets hard."

That required more dedication than I was willing to invest.

 

[Brokennock]

put in some beeswax and some deer taller or some hawg taller and ya melt it all down and then you set yer balls down in that until they gets hard."

That takes "manscaping" to a whole different level.

 

[Art Caputo]

I have been an avid user of TOTW Mink Oil for PRB in both rifles and smooth bores for many years….I have personally achieved my best accuracy, number of accurate shots between swabbing, excellent stability across and wide range of temperatures, and a very long shelf life.

 

[Grenadier1758]

@shaman, you will find that Kentuckian version of bullet lubrication or a very similar variant discussed frequently here on the forum. Although, I would use that mix of tallow and wax as a patch lubricant or conical bullet lubricant. Rub the patch, not the ball.

T/C advocated the use of their product, Bore Butter, as a lubricant that seasoned the bore. If you removed all that crusted up fouling and burned grease during clean up so that none of it was in the barrel, it worked okay and used a rust inhibiting lubricant to store the clean gun, then your gun is well protected, and you could pretend that you were "seasoning" the bore.

 

[shaman]

I frankly never gave the bore seasoning idea much credence. I was a camp cook, and I knew how to season cast iron like it was second nature. Nobody was going to bake their barrels at 300F for a half hour.

I think Bore Butter was what I was when I first got the Hawken and switched to Crisco after that ran dry.