What lube is the best

[Tilford]

I have always used bore butter until this year when I was told to use mink oil instead because it is more consistant in cold temperature. I have also heard of people using crisco patrolium and beeswax. Which lube allows for the greatest precision and accuracy?

 

[coloradoclyde]

Which lube allows for the greatest precision and accuracy?

Seriously!.... :shocked2:
There is no "best" or "greatest" for most muzzleloading things....
It's a highly opinionated sport and everyone has their own opinion....
Currently I think there are 4387 different lube recipes

 

[cynthialee]

There are all manner of lube recipes. They are all functional.
Now the stuff that seems to get the most consistent great reviews is bear oil.

I'd get rid of that bore butter and make something more suitable.

Moose snot gets good reviews. There is a recipe around here somewhere.

Myself, I just use castor oil as there is a big bottle of it in the arts and crafts room in my spouses stuff.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Bore butter has a lot of haters.....The International Symposium of Bore butter haters was last month in Las Vegas....The place was packed... :grin:

 

[coloradoclyde]

Which lube allows for the greatest precision and accuracy?

For me that has always been "SPIT"...Every prize and every trophy I ever won was with SPIT.

 

[Zonie]

Moose Snot link:

MOOSE SNOT

Personally, I like Stumpkillers Moose Juice.

He created it back around '03 but his recipe made about a quart at a time.

I reduced his amounts keeping the same ratio to make a smaller batch and posted it back then.

Here is a part of that post for anyone interested:

Stumpy's Moose Juice

A general purpose blackpowder solvent and liquid patch lube. Shake well before using. Can be allowed to dry on dipped patching for a dry lube dry flat on waxed paper & dip twice for best saturation). Add ingredients in the following order and shake well after each is added.

Isopropyl Alcohol (91%) 4 TABLESPOONS
Castor Oil 1 1/2 TABLESPOONS
Murphys Oil Soap 1 1/2 TEASPOONS
Witch Hazel 2 TABLESPOONS
Water (non-chlorinated) 1/2 CUP

 

[swathdiver]

I have always used bore butter until this year when I was told to use mink oil instead because it is more consistant in cold temperature. I have also heard of people using crisco patrolium and beeswax. Which lube allows for the greatest precision and accuracy?

The best is that which you made yourself for your own purposes and works best for your guns.

For patching a round ball, our house uses the recipe offered by Dutch Schoultz and his "The System", best $20 you'll ever spend on shooting.

For lubricating the internals, our house likes our homemade bore butter recipe.

Our tallow recipe is for lubing over the ball when shooting sixguns and a stiffer mixture is used to lubricate the felt wads and conical grooves.

Variations of these two recipes, and sometimes the recipes themselves, also light our dinner table in the evening and turn dry elbows and heels soft as a baby's bottom in no time.

Always make some extra for your ladies.

 

[tenngun]

Lard, tallow, mink oil all work for me. I do not know if there is one best. Try several and see for your self. Although the amount of test might be overwhelming.
Let us say you try 70 grains 3f behind a .495 ball with .15 patch. Then you try moose milk, mink oil, spit, and you settle on moose milk as the best. But.... What if you dropped to 65 grains, or increased to 80 would moose milk still be the best? Oh my.
Your best cambo for one charge may not be the best for another. Then, seventy degrees might not be the best at thirty degrees. And so on and so on. Not to mention Swiss works better with moose milk, g o works better with mink oil and crisco works best with pyrodex, and so on.

 

[ohio ramrod]

there are as many "best lubes " as people who play this game. After over fifty years playing the game I have come to believe that any non petrolium based oils. That is any animal,or plant based oils will work equally well if you don't use too much. Which is most people's mistake. :idunno:

 

[Onojutta]

Seems like there's been a lot of these threads lately. Chances are if there's a substance that exists in liquid or paste form, someone somewhere has used it as patch lube. Can't beat equal parts naval jelly and muriatic acid with a dash of sea salt.

No seriously I've been having good results with olive oil and beeswax. Simple, proven, and for the most part HC. Still experimenting with different ratios. 50/50 seems to be common but I found that to be way too stiff. My results are improving as I decrease the amount of beeswax.

 

[tenngun]

We can say with out doubt or fear of contradiction ( dot-dot-dahha) it's sperm oil, but that's in short supply these days.

 

[Boomerang]

You guys lube your patches? :rotf:

 

[Crewdawg445]

Precision and accuracy.... love that line... Let's put it this way, even with a junk lube the gun probably will shot more precisely and accurately than you think. The biggest factory in accuracy is the shooter.

Lubes, been discussed a million times over, we probably should have a single thread just for lubes.

Each gun will shoot entirely different wit different lubes. What works for me, may not for you. There are however some common grounds. Bore butter is junk, 100% mink oil is go to, as is spit... free and always available. The biggest thing, you can ask all day but until you actually shoot and experiment with different lube combos you'll never know. :thumbsup:

 

[coloradoclyde]

greatest precision and accuracy?

That's only part of the lube equation...
Other factors to consider are:

Fouling reduction
Ease of loading shot to shot
Long term use
Temperature sensitivity
Availability
Ease of manufacture
Toxicity or allergy
HC/PC
Cost

I myself have at least 4 different lubes I use depending on the specific situations.

 

[ohio ramrod]

We can say with out doubt or fear of contradiction ( dot-dot-dahha) it's sperm oil, but that's in short supply these days.

Actually I still have about four ounces of the real stuff left from the early sixties. I have used the synthetic made from jobola beans and truth be told I cann't tell the difference between it and the real stuff. :idunno: :hmm:

 

[hanshi]

For hunting I use Mink Oil. At the range and elsewhere it's Hoppes #9 Plus BP lube.

 

[Ames]

Mink oil all around. Play with the charges up and down, and read the results. You will find that sweet spot for every gun, one gun at a time.

 

[nit wit]

Bear oil and bees wax, all natural. Squeezin the bear is hard and dangerous! :haha:
Nit Wit

 

[wattlebuster]

Try as many different lubes as you can get your hands on an then let your gun tell you which is best :hatsoff: