Re-lubing Old Patches?
- Thread starter Down East
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Throw them out, the fabric will have deteriorated (from the lube) making them useless even with fresh lube.
Best to toss them. Patch cloth looses its integrity when lubricated too long. They will shred on firing and accuracy is lost.
You can relube and try a few to see if they are still good. Personally I make my own like most do. They are cheap and easy to make.
Can you give me your recipe for patches? Would love to try make my own. Thanks.
Relube and use them for cleaning patches.
A friend was shooting some old prelubed patches and they came out as long black stringy things. No resemblence at all to a patch. He couldn't hit anything, either.
No recipe. There are almost as many different things you can use as there are lube recipes. Most use pillow ticking or mattress ticking 100% cotton from a cloth store. It helps if you have something to measure with as sizes vary. No synthetics and needs to be tightly woven. I have used old But good shape dress shirts, a thin denim. I have even used flannel. Not the best but does work with light loads. Cotton remnants from the cloth store work also as well as linen. A really good strong cloth is drill cloth also called pocket drill.
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I would use them for cleaning not shooting. For fresh patches I make my own using Hoppe's 9 Plus (NOT the regular smokeless powder variety) their black powder lube and cleaner. Squirt some in a plastic bag with patches and smush them around until the Hoppe's has soaked in.
Jeff
Jeff
Pre-lubed patches seem to have an unpredictable ‘best if used by date’. Not sure I’d want to use old ones as cleaning patches. Imagine putting lube on top of fouling instead of cleaning/removing it from the bore. I’d toss them. Kind of like using both sides of a sheet of toilet paper to save a few pennies. Just an opinion.
hanshi
Cannon
So much easier and better to buy material and cut your own.
Even patches I lube myself with mink oil for hunting deteriorate and become unusable. I don't know for sure when they become unusable, but for sure they are kaput by the next hunting season.
Robby
Robby
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For range shooting use soapy water. Saturate them then wring them out. Try not to overthink it. None of the dozens of concoctions I have tried has done any better than plain soapy water.
For hunting something greasy. Mink oil, neat's-foot, olive oil, Crisco, animal fats, anything like that is fine.
