Mutton Tallow........

[Jim Blair]

If anyone is interested I found another place that has mutton tallow,it's more expensive than Dixie but I have been informed it's of a cosmetic grade purity and comes from Australia.$10 a pound plus shipping.

Contact person is Anita Baker-

[email protected]

I ordered some after reading a couple of reviews on Dixie's.

 

[Billnpatti]

What is it about mutton tallow that makes it worth $10 a pound? I have never used it. A friend gave me some bear fat to make bullet lube with. I made some up and tried it and I'll be darned if I could tell that it offered any advantage over plain old lard. I have tried several home made concoctions over the years but still come back to lard mixed with bees wax with a little bit of Murphy's Oil Soap in it for consistency. I only use this for conicals which I very seldom use. My lube of choice for round ball patches is straight Ballistol. Anyway, back to the mutton tallow. What advantages does it offer over more readily available animal or vegetable greases? This is not a challenge, I really do want to know because I have never used it. Who knows, I may be missing something good and want to order some. :thumbsup:

 

[Jim Blair]

I have been told it doesn't spoil or become rancid with age.Many old bullet lubricant specifications called for it over beef tallow and other animal fats combined with beeswax and other components.I've never used it before but wanted to re-create some historical lubes for experimentation purposes.

 

[Zonie]

I've heard that using mutton tallow can turn a baaaaaaa'd shooting gun into one ewe can be proud of.


:rotf:

 

[rafterob]

It will become rancid with time if left exposed to the open air. That wouldn't really affect its use as a lube though. What it is about mutton tallow is that it's smooth and firm. It is the firmest of the domesticated livestock. The other tallows have a kind of granular consistency. Mixing them with a little beeswax makes them more homogenous, like mutton tallow.

 

[paulab]

Come on Zonie.....don't you feel a bit sheepish saying that? :haha:

 

[cynthialee]

and you can look yourself in the mirror after telling such a poor joke?

:shake:

 

[Zonie]

I avoid looking into mirrors.

I don't know who the old fart that's in them is but he doesn't look too trustworthy to me.

 

[Captjoel]

Isn't lanolin the ingredient made from mutton tallow? I have been using a product made of mostly lanolin called Bag Balm that works well for many purposes including patch lube.

 

[George T.]

That was what I was thinking. I wonder what would have to be done to the tallow? A pound of lube is quite a bit. Geo. T.

 

[Jim Blair]

Most of the information I have found calls for various mixtures of beeswax and tallow from 1 to 1 to the 3 parts beeswax two parts tallow used initially to dip the bulleted end of the Enfield P1853 RM cartridge in and everything in between.A lot of the information concerning the use of mutton tallow seems to point to the fact that the lanolin in it keeps the lubricant viable a lot longer especially when used on grease groove type bullets.As a patch lube for muzzleloaders using round balls there is probably not enough,if any,significant advantage over any other lube to make it worth the extra expense.

 

[RAEDWALD]

Mutton tallow is the default when just tallow is mentioned. It becomes rancid less easily that pig lard or beef fat and burns at higher temperatures with less fouling. Hence it was the preferred candle fat if you could not afford expensive beeswax.

Enfield mixed it with beeswax for two reasons. One was to cope with the temperatures of tropical summer storage that caused the fat to become liquid and both leave the paper bullet cartridge dry and also migrate into the powder. The other was that prolonged storage when in contact with lead, causes the fat to react with the lead to form a soap that has poor lubrication qualities. Beeswax was period available alternative.

I have several kilos from a very fat elderly sheep that I keep in glass jars in my freezer. Seems invulnerable to age and I use it 2/3 to 1/3 olive oil on patches for my pistol and generously alone on my .577 Burton bullets for my 1863 contract Remington rifle musket.

I have never had to wipe out the bores of either in a shooting session or competition so far and the fouling I clean off afterwards is deep black and soft.

Ask your butcher nicely for some (mutton ideally but lamb more likely) fat trimmings. Put them in a pan with the same amount of water, bring to the boil and simmer for 1/2 an hour scooping off any detritus that floats to the top. Leave to cool and break out the hard fat now on the top. Dry off any water then gently melt and pour into your preferred container. Seal and pop into the freezer.

Halal butchers are more likely to have mutton as their clientele have the good taste to prefer the fuller flavour of mutton to lamb and much of the (european at least) mutton trade goes to this source.

Or get to know a sheep farmer with elderly sheep.....

BTW. Lanolin is from the grease washed off sheep wool. Not from the fat.

 

[Jim Blair]

Redneckistan is hog and cattle country.The only sheep you'll find are those very few raised as 4H projects the kids do.

You're right about the lanolin,that was part of an old recipe for bullet lube I was reading about the same time as I posted that.I should have said the addition of lanolin to it instead of in it.

 

[AZbpBurner]

Lanolin is the grease in sheep's wool, while tallow is the fat in the meat & under the skin.

If you're not rolling in disposable income & can't afford that $10/lb imported sheep tallow, the free beef fat you can get at any grocery store meat counter works just fine after you render it down & mix it with beeswax.

 

[Jim Blair]

I've always found it interesting people will spend hundreds or thousands on a firearm then use the cheapest sh*t available to shoot in it and maintain it.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

sometimes it isn't the cheapest but the most traditional. From the old tax lists for colonial Pennsylvania it seems most farms had sheep, usual to have pigs, not but about half had cattle.

My preferred patch lube is spit, and you can't get much cheaper than that.

Going through the hassles to get tallow and mix up your own special magic formula really isn't "cheap"

And frankly most of the commercial patch lubes I tried were over priced manure.

A pound of lard is about a buck around here and works in most red neck guns. Perhaps your gun has eastern European tastes and prefers Olive oil. Those who buy Indian guns are probably better off using Shea butter or neem oil.

I really don't think any particular substance is all that magic as a patch lube and there are probably 20 others that work just as well.

Frankly, I raise sheep and can't stand the smell of them when closer than 20 feet. I don't eat lamb or mutton, again, because of the smell. But they do a great job of mowing the grass and I got $2.70 a pound live weight for lambs last December at the stock auction. If the tallow has an odor like them darn smelly sheep, I'd give up shooting.

 

[tom deinek]

Free? Supermarkets here charge you two bits to use a shopping cart.

 

[Kapow]

That was really terrible. You mutton do it again.

 

[Kapow]

Sheeps wool lanolin is an amazing product. I use it on my boat as a barrier between dissimilar metals, for example putting a stainless steel bolt through aluminium. I don't know how you would use it as a lube but I am guessing it would just about leave anything else for dead. It isn't cheap though so that could be a problem.

Lamb is just about our national dish. Australia was built on the back of the sheep. You would think they could spare a bit of lanolin! Does anyone know how wild American sheep (bighorn etc) compare to domestic mutton, taste wise?

 

[nkbj]

Got a five pound bucket of the stuff from a chemical supply house down by Mickey Gilley urban cowboy petrochem country (Pasadena,TX).
Use it mixed with olive oil and beeswax as a do-all type lube for muzzleloaded bullets, percussion revolvers and for patches when a barrel is being troublesome.