petrolium vs natural lube

[Mr Nick]

I have heard several times not to use petrolium products for cleaning BP firearms and not to use petrolium products for lubricants. Others have said cleaning with petrolium products is OK but lube with natural lubes. Others have said you can use petrolim products for cleaning and lube. The complaint against petrolium products appears to be that they make a mess when mixed with BP residue.

This can be very confusing to us newbees. What are some real life experiences?

 

[Charles/NM]

Lemme tell you! I shoot a .50 caliber T/C Hawken. I once used some kind of petro lube with Pyrodex and thought I was never going to get the baked on tar that was left in the barrel out of it. It was a very hard black crust. I feel that Pyrodex burns hotter than real BP. You might not have as extreme a problem with it.

 

[redwing]

Chas. NM
You are sooo! right. I used some Petro. in a .32 LR
and 777. The tar and black manure took for ever to get
it out. Only real BP, and no Petro.
Never Agin.
Redwing :redthumb:

 

[roundball]

I have heard several times not to use petrolium products for cleaning BP firearms and not to use petrolium products for lubricants. Others have said cleaning with petrolium products is OK but lube with natural lubes. Others have said you can use petrolim products for cleaning and lube. The complaint against petrolium products appears to be that they make a mess when mixed with BP residue.

This can be very confusing to us newbees. What are some real life experiences?

True oil based / petroleum type products in the bore do promote increased fouling...products which do not directly inject oil into the equation do not.

Wonderlube Lube, Natural Lube, are examples of "bore butter" which do not inject oil type chemicals into the bore...they minimize fouling, and keep what little fouling that's there very soft.

The benefit to that is the next time you seat a patched ball, the soft fouling is wiped off the walls and pushed down on top of the powder charge, and is expelled with the next shot.

Then that shot's worth of minimal fouling is left in the bore, and the cycle gets repeated...and with target loads of powder, using good non-petroleum products basically allows you to shoot without wiping between shots...not so with an oil type lube in the bore.

I used Natural Lube 1000 with Pyrodex for several years, now use it with Goex...

 

[cayugad]

I have heard several times not to use petrolium products for cleaning BP firearms and not to use petrolium products for lubricants. Others have said cleaning with petrolium products is OK but lube with natural lubes. Others have said you can use petrolim products for cleaning and lube. The complaint against petrolium products appears to be that they make a mess when mixed with BP residue.

This can be very confusing to us newbees. What are some real life experiences?

I personally would not suggest to lube with Petrolium based lubes. It really makes a mess. Moose milk, mink oil, bore butter, are all great lubes and will do a good job for you. Don't forget good old spit on a patch. It also works just fine.

Those of us that clean and protect with petrolium based products and solvents always remember one thing. We wipe out the barrel before we load the next time. Meaning we start on a nice clean dry bore.

I am treating a barrel right now with only bore butter. I am following the recommendations of Roundball. I suspect my problems with bore butter in the past might have occurred because I did not scrub the barrel with brushes and such, making sure all prior lube was removed, after each shooting and the bore butter might have built up in the barrel causing the accuracy to fall off. Time will tell if this test barrel starts to act up.

 

[Runner]

Believe it or not, WD-40 works very well to help remove the BB during cleaning.

 

[lockjaw]

...there's nothing in blackpowder residue that wont come clean with plain water... eace:

 

[Runner]

We were not discussing black powder residue. We were discussing BB that had been baked into a barrel. Water will not touch it and soap is little help also. People seem to forget that while black fouling will disolve in water, a whole lot of things people use as patch and conical lubes will not. People cleaning guns that have had BB shot in them with nothing but water is one of the ways how it gets baked into a barrel.

 

[Mr Nick]

Many have reported using Ballistol as a patch lubericant with great sucess. Ballistol is mineral oil which I believe is a petrolium product?

 

[roundball]

People cleaning guns that have had BB shot in them with nothing but water is one of the ways how it gets baked into a barrel.

FYI...I include a couple dozen strokes with a bore brush as part of my normal cleaning regimen in steaming hot soapy water, after every time I use the rifle...I keep the bore at it's bare metal condition every time to prevent any buildup of anything...works perfectly

 

[Runner]

I do the same. Try wrapping the brush in yarn so that it sucks water up behind it like a patch and jag. The key being the use of soap to cut the things that do not disolve in water. I have always used a solvent of some kind to remove BB if it was used. People try to simplify things about this sport. Cleaning a barrel is different if you use BP and BB, if you use Pyrodex and BB, and if you use 777 also. I used to shoot a lot of conicals over Pyrodex that were lubed with diluted liquid Alox. Try using water on that. Shoot 50 Great Plains bullets over black and try to clean the barrel with plain water.

If you use a spit patch and real black, then you could clean a barrel with nothing but water.

 

[roundball]

I do the same. Try wrapping the brush in yarn so that it sucks water up behind it like a patch and jag. The key being the use of soap to cut the things that do not disolve in water. I have always used a solvent of some kind to remove BB if it was used. People try to simplify things about this sport. Cleaning a barrel is different if you use BP and BB, if you use Pyrodex and BB, and if you use 777 also. I used to shoot a lot of conicals over Pyrodex that were lubed with diluted liquid Alox. Try using water on that. Shoot 50 Great Plains bullets over black and try to clean the barrel with plain water.

If you use a spit patch and real black, then you could clean a barrel with nothing but water.

Somebody made a post that I thought really explained why very hot water is useful when cleaning a muzzleloader...and they used left over egg residue on a breakfast plate as an example...hold a plate under the faucet with cold water and nothing really happens...switch to hot water and the sticky egg residue melts and slides right off the plate.

PS: Here's a tip...a couple of used barrels I've bought had that "tar" like substance in them from their previous owner and it was taking forever for me to to try and get it out with[url] brushes...in[/url] desperation I tried some "Shooter's Choice Black Powder Cleaning Gel" and it dissolved the stuff in minutes

 

[Mr Nick]

What is BB? Also, has anyone tried synthetic auto oil and grease? High flash point, hight viscosity index, very slippery and is not petrolium base.

 

[Bob J]

People cleaning guns that have had BB shot in them with nothing but water is one of the ways how it gets baked into a barrel.

FYI...I include a couple dozen strokes with a bore brush as part of my normal cleaning regimen in steaming hot soapy water, after every time I use the rifle...I keep the bore at it's bare metal condition every time to prevent any buildup of anything...works perfectly

Roundball, are you using a bore size copper brush or tynex brush? Wrapped in patch or bare?

 

[cayugad]

What is BB? Also, has anyone tried synthetic auto oil and grease? High flash point, hight viscosity index, very slippery and is not petrolium base.

BB is bore butter or wonder lube to Wonder 1000 (something like that) there are lots of different names for bore butter.

There are people that use motor oil to protect their barrels, but as a patch lube I do not know of any. If you want a good patch lube make some moosemilk or buy some bore butter. A good conical lube, bore butter again or make some of the homemade wax and oil ones out there. They all work well. I personally for a patched roundball like moosemilk. I was testing moosemilk VS bore butter today again, and the accuracy was much different depending on the lube used. Of course I did not try to adjust the powder charge I was using....

 

[roundball]

People cleaning guns that have had BB shot in them with nothing but water is one of the ways how it gets baked into a barrel.

FYI...I include a couple dozen strokes with a bore brush as part of my normal cleaning regimen in steaming hot soapy water, after every time I use the rifle...I keep the bore at it's bare metal condition every time to prevent any buildup of anything...works perfectly

Roundball, are you using a bore size copper brush or tynex brush? Wrapped in patch or bare?

I use bronze bore brushes...

 

[bezoar]

What about glycerin as a lubricant? Its slippery and is used as a soap since the early 1900s... In a way it seems like youd be cleaning your gun when you rammed a glycerin patch down it.

 

[Runner]

I am using a version of Moose Milk these days. Water soluble cutting oil from the auto parts store, Murphy's Oil Soap, and water. I am not adding anything else because I am trying to find the right mix to use with after letting the patches dry. It is simple to make and cheap. It can be used to swab your barrel clean. It will protect your barrel short term on a week long hunt or other such situation. Cold weather would require some adjustment of the recipe.
The pre-lubed patches work well in most guns, providing very acceptable accuracy. For hunting, I tend to use them for the patch and something else when swabbing between shots. The lube doesn't seem to hurt the powder, even if loaded for a long time. Windex or auto wiper fluid work well for swabbing and cleaning if you want really simple and cheap.
I guess my question is why use a petroleum based lube when there are other good options that are easily available?

 

[Old40Rod]

I have had great success with Hoppe's BP lube, kind of a thick liquid, a simulated moose snot if you will. I would use it before I use bore butter again. :imo:

 

[strongarm]

been thre and done that. Natural stuff is far easier to work with, but some petro items will give you far better accuracy than what most can imagine. Petro usually does create more fouling, not always. Check out a guy by the name of Dutch Schoultz at[url] bpaccuracy.com[/url] He has some very interesting things to say about water soluble oil.