Patch Lube -Oh, god (small G)!

[Splais]

Ok, I know I can buy some $2 an oz premade miracle stuff; and I know I can use Crisco, but I have a question on Moose Juice.

I have been using a 50/50 mixture of Murphy's Oil Soap and water, recommended to by someone for range use and it has worked very well. But as an inveterate tinkerer I'm starting to have questions.

What is the theory behind Moosejuice as it relates to adding Castor Oil, Witch hazel and alcohol. What do those ingrediants do to improve a basic MOS/water mix.

Another question - I have been soaking my patches and letting them sit, sometimes for several days, in a sealed container before using. If they feel a little to wet I just wipe them off on my pants before raming. Would anyone care to comment on this practice.

 

[wvbuckbuster]

Are you pre-treating your pants before washing them? :rotf:

 

[rafterob]

I guess Stumpy is the expert here but let me venture a guess. Alcohol is a solvent which would allow for blending of the various ingredients. Used on a patch right out of the container it would aid in cleaning. Pre lubing patches it would evaporate quickly leaving only the lubricants. Witch Hazel is an astringent and depending on if it is in essential oil form it would add some lubricating properties, it may be in a alcohol/water infusion also. Either way it smells good and adds an alternate use -hemmorhoid remedy. Lube up that patch and tuck it right in there :thumbsup:

 

[J.D.]

I have also used Stumpies moose juice, but stopped using it when a very accomplished shooter on another forum mentioned that he was getting a dark residue that he could not completely remove in normal cleaning. I also experienced that dark brown residue after using moose juice, but didn't think much about it.

Testing suggested that the culprit was the MOS. Apparently, MOS will build up in the bore, similar to the yellow miracle lubes, to eventually reduce or destroy accuracy.

After reading his post, I remembered some old timers who used MOS and water, for years, and who also complained about that same dark brown residue that would never go away. Their guns eventually lost accuracy. The process was so slow that they thought that it was old age creeping up on them. However, after someone suggested that their problem was a build up of MOS, a long and thorough cleaning of their bores restored accuracy.

Someone, possibly the Mad Monk, gave a breakdown of MOS and explained what was happening in the bore and why, but I don't remember the details.

I suggest experimenting with simple green and water or one of the citrus cleansers and water or alcohol, or even Windex. Plain old spit works as well as anything I have tried.

I have also tried Castor oil alone, or mixed with water or alcohol with poor results.

God bless,
J.D.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Ghettogun is on track. Castor oil dissolves in alcohol but not water. The witchhazel (suggested by member SuperFlint as I recall) really helped with the smear test in working up the mix. Reduced the tendency of the oils to bead up and instead stay spread out on the barrel. The water is mostly to mechanically dissolve and wash away the old fouling and is cheaper than using all alcohol (which would also evaporate out very quickly). The Murphys is good for the detergent properties of binding up the fouling residue ("surficant emulsification" or some such thing). It also has some vegetable oils in it that help lube & protect.

The alcohol also helps displace and chase off the water after clean-up.

Truth be known the Moose Juice was originally intended as a blackpowder solvent for cleaning up after shooting and as a wet patch lube. I found later you can soak the patching (twice) and allow it to dry overnight between dunks and it makes a good "semi-dry" lube for pre-lubing patch strips.

Don't know about the "dark brown residue" but I also wipe the bores after cleaning with Beechwood-Casey Sheath when putting my rifles away and use an alcohol patch followed by a lubed patch to wipe before loading the next time out and that might help remove such things.

 

[Splais]

Ok, so let me try to summarize and ask followup question.

There is a chance that over time the MOS may leave a deposit that requires deep cleaning; but since I do a pretty deep cleaning after every session i'm not sure the MOS will be a problem.

From what you say about the MJ, I'm hearing that it is best if the patch is not wet until immediately before use. The way I'm doing it everything ( not sure about the witchhazel) but the water, castor and MOS will just evaporate; and of course there are those people who think alcohol is a no no because it can cause instantaneous rust.

When you talk about vegetable oil, why not just use it; but then are we starting to just talk about Crisco again, correct. I may try the Crisco for my pre-lubed patches. But I did used to use it years ago as a front lube in my navy colt and it did get messy.

I know I’m starting to sound totally confused here. I want a homemade lube I can pre-lube the patch with, keep in a sealed container and use maybe a week later; that allows me to fire 10-15 rounds without giving the bore a wipe.

 

[musketman]

Another question - I have been soaking my patches and letting them sit, sometimes for several days, in a sealed container before using. If they feel a little to wet I just wipe them off on my pants before raming. Would anyone care to comment on this practice.

I simply squeeze the patch between my finger and thumb to get any excess out, then load as usual.

 

[paulvallandigham]

I agree. I think using ONLY a lube when CLEANING the gun at the end of the day is bound to leave behind a residue of whatever is in it. In this case, its MOS. When you clean the gun at the end of the shoot, Use PLENTY of water- lukewarm-- to dissolve the soap residue.

I use a liquid detergent- whatever is on hand, on my damp patches to dissolve the black powder residue and fouling in the barrel of my gun. Then the barrel is rinsed well, and several dry cleaning patches are run down and out, and INSPECTED and FELT to determine what, if anything, DIDN'T get dissolved by the soap and water. I don't want any soap left behind from my cleaning. Using Alcohol to do the final drying gets anything that wasn't dissolved by the water rinse, and the evaporating alcohol takes out any remaining moisture. I used to use WD40 to do this water displacement, until I found it leaves behind oils that congeal and make matters worse. Its a fine lubricant, but Not a good compound for storage. I use Bore Butter for protecting the barrels during storage, but have one gun right now being "tested" with ballistol to see how well Ballistol will work to fight rust. I am expecting good results based on comments made here on the forum.

It also would not hurt if ONCE a year, you give the bore of your BP rifles a good scrubbing with a bore brush. Maybe nothing will come out. Maybe something will. A Bronze Bore brush is not going to damage any steel barrel, but those bristles can and do get down into the corners of the grooves and dig out stuff rather well. If you shoot your gun more than 50 shots a month, then use the bore brush more often.

Most of the " crud" build-up I have witnessed, or cleaned from other people's guns is the result of NEVER cleaning the gun when its taken from storage and has whatever went down the barrel after the last shoot.

Of course, there are many shooters out there who don't, and will not clean their guns. Those are the ones that end up in pawn shops, or on the used gun racks in gunstores, for anyone with the knowledge to restore them to firing condition.

Fortunately, those kind of shooters have basically migrated over to buying the cheap, Zip Guns we don't discuss here, falling for the hype that these guns also don't have to be cleaned, that the substitute powders and plastic shoes for the modern copper jacketed pistol bullets, and the modern primers, don't leave behind residues that will corrode the barrels.

What was that quote from P.T. Barnum about "suckers"?

 

[longcruise]

I also experienced the brown crud phenomenom when using any lube containing MOS. Have always cleaned with water with good results no matter what lube is used. That includes crisco and bore butter. Sometimes a bit of soap is added to the cleaning water but there seems to be no difference in the results other than that adding soap leaves soap in the barrel that needs to be wiped out.

I have battled the brown residue with lengthy cleaning sessions that included bore brushes. When you think it's clean, the brown residue shows up after the barrel is wiped dry. Once dry, running a very tight patch in and out of the bore will produce a brown residue on the patch.

Have never experienced a build up of anything from the use of bore butter. Maybe this has something to do with how much is used. The biggest critic of bore butter attacked it all across the web at every opportunity. Eventually the belief grew that bore butter will leave a build up of gunk in the barrel. Interestingly, this same person was also marketing his own lube! :haha:

My patches are lubed very sparingly when using crisco or any other grease type lube. When using any grease type lube, the bore is always wiped between shots. While the bore butter (and 1000+) lube maker marketed it as the lube that would end wiping, I found that one must use too much lube in order to get the *no wiping needed effect*.
On some higher humidity days one can get away without wiping using dang near any lube. But, come a dry low humidity day, the bore must be wiped. So, in the interest of keeping the bore condition the same from one shooting session to the next, I wipe between shots when using any grease type lube.

Lube is one of the elements of our shooting that, IMO, is surrounded by way too much unwarranted mystery. A properly conditioned bore that is wiped after each shot can be shot without any lube on the patch providing the patch material is of adequate quality. It's a bit harder to load without lube but it will work.

The simplest and cheapest thing I have used so far is plain water with about 10 or 15 percent liquid dish soap added. The only purpose the soap serves is to make the patch slide down the barrel more easily (guess thats why it's called a "lube" ). Plain water would work just as well. Sorta like spit, which works pretty good too. This lube and other wet lubes will allow shooting without wiping. Hoppes patch lube and solvent does the same thing as does Lehigh Valley lube.

BTW, don't waste your money using Hoppes as a solvent cause it is no where near as effective as plain water. I proved that to myself on several occasions by comparing the two on the powder residue that builds up on the stock and lock during a lenghty shooting session.

 

[Stumpkiller]

I did some home rust tests and the one substance that was worse than just leaving the burned blackpowder or hosing same with water was the liquid TC#13. For me it rusted within half-an-hour. A day sooner than tap water!

Vegetable oil may work - but again the danger of a "tar" buildup (which I assume is the residue mentioned earlier). When I first got into m/l the rage was variations on Crisco, mutton-tallow and beeswax. Crisco contains salt so there is some concern, but burning blackpowder produces salts and acids so you have to deal with that, anyway. Water solves it. (That's a chemist pun).

As J.D. said - plain 'ol spit works well so how wrong can you go with ANY liquid? Just be mindful that some may contribute to rust, build of of tar or other compounds or your rifle just may not like them. I got started on the castor oil from cleaning up my model airplanes. The fuel contains 80% alcohol (plus some nitromethane in some) and 20% castor oil and, once burned, the castor oil is still all over everything. "Hey!" says I, "It's just as hot in a rifle as in an internal combustion engine so why not . . . ?"

 

[brubincam]

-----ingredients in CRISCO--soybean oil-fully hydrogenated cotton seed oil-partially hydrogenated cottonseed and soybean oils-mono and diglycerides-tbhq and citric acid-----

 

[Splais]

Let me throw one other thing out. I use Windex for cleaning-seems to work great. anything wrong with that? Has anyone tried windex as a patch lube?

 

[paulvallandigham]

There is nothing wrong with using water, spit, or any other liquid for lubing patches, PROVIDED you are going to take a shot fairly quickly. Otherwise, the water or liquid begins to foul the powder, and the longer the gun stands with the damp patch, the more powder is fouled. That reduces the amount of gas produced when the gun is finally fired, and changes the POI. waiting also allows the water in the liquid to evaporate, and for rust to begin where the patch presses against the lands and grooves of your barrels.

I shot using Hoppe's #9 Black Bore Solve and Cleaner for years, until I ran out, and then began using spit for patches, at the range, and at club demonstrations. The first time I took my MLer Deer hunting and put a spit patch down the barrel at about 6 A.M. where it sat all day long, is cold dry air, I left a small rust ring where the ball had been sitting. It took several hours of scrubbing with a soft( patch) lap and fine abrasives to get rid of the "ring". I bought a jar of the then new, Young Country 101 lube, which later was sold and became, first, Natural Lube 1000, then WonderLube, and then T/C's Bore Butter after that, and only use spit patches at the range, or when doing exhibition shooting- and only because its faster to wet a patch in my mouth, than just about anything else I have tried.

Spit contains both salts and enzymes, in addition to water, so you don't want to be leaving a spit patch in your barrel for those reasons, too. And, when you are through shooting, you want to wet a cleaning patch with water to flush even the spit out of the barrel!

I do like using Ballistol to remove the water from the surface, and it has chemicals in it designed to neutralize the old mercury primers that were corrosive, and widely used in WWI( 1914-1918. It seems to work just fine on neutralizing a lot of salts and acids in the barrel, in addition to displacing the water.

 

[Stumpkiller]

-----ingredients in CRISCO--soybean oil-fully hydrogenated cotton seed oil-partially hydrogenated cottonseed and soybean oils-mono and diglycerides-tbhq and citric acid-----

I retract my salt statement! I'm sure someone told me there was salt in Crisco but by Jiminy they don't list it as so. Wonder if the "old" recipe had it????

I still roll my shotgun wads in a 1:1:1 mix of Crisco, Beeswax & mutton-tallow.

 

I hope you are happy now that you ruined my semi-religious belief that CRISCO was a pure as water from an Alpine lake! Another childhood myth destroyed. What next - no Sandyclause? :haha: Thanks for the info on the contents of CRISCO - good to know :thumbsup: !

 

[brubincam]

-----I just didn't want anyone to think Crisco would hurt their barrel-----

 

[Stumpkiller]

Hardening of the artilleries, maybe.

 

[steelerzzz]

How about just plain Ballistol for a patch lube and for cleaning? Or should it be diluted with water for a patch lube?

 

[paulvallandigham]

Ballistol is a bit expensive, and most shooter have found that you don't need that much Oil on a patch. Go ahead and use straight Ballistol if you have it.

Dutch Schoultz has popularized a " dry" Patch lube, where he uses a combination of water and lubes to soak the patches, then lets the patches, or patching material dry to evaporate the water. This leaves the oil well distributed through the fabric, but doesn't leave it OILY to the touch. It actually takes only a small percentage of ballistol to adeuqately lube your patching.
http://www.blackpowderrifleaccuracy.com/

The concern here is fouling your powder charge with the oil, if you use straight oil- of any kind- as a patch lube. You can use one of the drylube patch formulas, or you can load an OP wad or a loose filler to keep the powder from being dampened, and fouled by whatever patch lube you choose, from water and spit, to Ballistol.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

you ever try the hand cleaner in a white tub, the Go-Jo stuff? be sure you get the white tub.
works great and is good for clean up/wipe down.
just a dab on a patch does it.
after I get the PRB short-started I run it down with a jag that has a dampened patch on it. there is lanolin in the mix which prevents rusting.
if steaming hot water isn't available for cleaning I use windsheild wiper fluid for cleaning. get the winter mix has more alcohol in it. a buck a gallon on sale at K-Mart.