Lube

Ive read on here that many use olive oil and beeswax so last week I mixed up a small batch and put it in a old medicine bottle that had 100 round cut patches stacked in it. I set the bottle in the hot sun for a few hours so the lube would stay soft and get absorbed in the patches.

Went to the range with my .45 T/C Hawken. Using 60 grain of 3F, RB and these patches I proceed to shoot the best groups every. My groups shrank from 2-4" @ 60 yards to 1 1/2 - 2". Several groups had 2 shots that went into the same hole.

I had been using T/C bore butter saturated patches in both the .45 and .54 and I cant wait until I try them in the .54.

Bottom line is dont be afraid to experiment with different components as you might be surprised with the results and thanks to those who turned me on to this. Mike

:wink:

Good deal. Seems like we are always finding good or better things. I still have a few ideas I got that I haven't gotten around to trying yet.

get absorbed in the patches.

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First, congrats on doing it yerself and finding a lube you like.
Now, the wrist slap. :shocked2:
It really is not necessary to soak a patch with lube. Doing that is a waste of the lube. I know a lot of people do it but the practice is pointless.
I make my lube by mixing enough beeswax so that when the mix cools I have a cake about the hardness of a bar of soap. To lube (I cut at muzzle) I lay out my material (washed pillow ticking) on a flat surface and rub the cake over the light colored side until well covered. Then that is folded up and stored in a plastic zip bag, just like the real mountain men used to do. :grin: It is a very economical method of lubing and storing your patches.

Rifleman1776 said:

get absorbed in the patches.

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First, congrats on doing it yerself and finding a lube you like.
Now, the wrist slap. :shocked2:
It really is not necessary to soak a patch with lube. Doing that is a waste of the lube. I know a lot of people do it but the practice is pointless.
I make my lube by mixing enough beeswax so that when the mix cools I have a cake about the hardness of a bar of soap. To lube (I cut at muzzle) I lay out my material (washed pillow ticking) on a flat surface and rub the cake over the light colored side until well covered. Then that is folded up and stored in a plastic zip bag, just like the real mountain men used to do. :grin: It is a very economical method of lubing and storing your patches.

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A lube this hard would be problematical in the west when the Humidity can go single digit and the temp triple digit. Probably work OK if blowing through barrel until it heated. For hunting where shooting is limited.

But the idea of rubbing the bar in the cloth has real merit. I like it.

One of the best lubes I ever tried was Sperm Whale Oil and Beeswax mixed per the old Sharps Rifle Company formula for bullet lube made just a little softer. But the oil is hard to find now and I hoard what I have.

Dan

You can substitute jojoba oil for the spermaceti, and it works pretty well. Problem is finding jojoba in bottles bigger than 1 or 4 ounces.

One of the best lubes I ever tried was Sperm Whale Oil and Beeswax mixed

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That is my current mix. The whale oil was some I bought in the 1970s from Brownell's. The cans were starting to rust from the outside so I decided to use before it leaked our or I died. I also have a batch made up of beeswax and peanut oil as back-up.

I just got a "grab bag" bunch of stuff off of eBay and included is a full can of Famous Formula Patch Grease by Gahanna Gun Products in Ohio. It is quite old and in excellent shape. The lube is white and smells like it has tallow or lanolin as an ingredient and is very stiff like soap. I can't wait to try it out. Anyone have experience with it?

Sounds kinda crazy, but I have a big tin of leather preservative that came with my Dyer mocs, and I have used it for patch lube and seemed to work OK!

Per the girl at Dyer's a month ago their leather treatment is a beeswax and mink oil mix. It ought to work well.

The was because olive oil and at times beeswax being used as a bullet lube is older than the good old USA

I let mine wick in the hot sun also. I add patch material if it gets to wet. I get mine a little dryer than the OX-Yoke patches. This way I do not get any that are dry. I agree that it wastes some lube but compared to the other costs involved in shooting MLR's the lube is cheap enough.

Geo. T.

Being new to all this, and having done much reading on forums etc, I've been experimenting with patch lubes. I made some mutton tallow, and mixed it with olive oil. I dropped the cut patches in while it was hot and then spread them out to cool. My groupings were not good, but I think the lube was too thick on the patches. For my next batch I made a small "press" from an F-clamp and some wood. Once the patches had soaked, and while still hot, I stacked them in the clamp and squeezed out all the excess. The result is a patch where you can just feel the lube on your fingers, but can't scrape any off. Haven't tried them yet, but I'm optimistic.

I bought el-cheapo no-frills olive oil (which says "refined" on the label) but I noticed that it's thickening in the bottle now that the temps. have dropped (10C, give or take a bit), so I bought a 4 litre can of Extra Virgin - nothing but the best for my gun :grin: - and it worked out cheaper than the no-frills stuff!

I also noticed signs of burning on the patches, so I'm going to try a hard-wax "pill" over the powder. Should be an interesting experiment.

I like the idea of using natural products to make the lubes and bore protection stuff (I also have some Lanotec grease - highly refined lanolin - which makes it smell nice :grin: ).

Sounds good...it seems there are many, many lube types, amounts, and approaches that work well depending on different weather, different locations, different times of year, with different load components, etc.
For me with pretty high humidity most of the year here, precut / prelubed patches under the OxYoke or T/C label have shown excellent accuracy & consistency so they're all I've used for years...not having to make my own is one less thing to fool with.
In the colder, dry low humidity months of winter, I squeeze a a couple squirts of Hoppes Plus BP into a bag of patches to make them wetter for repeated shooting at the range.

Keep in mind, I have been Italian most of my life and consider using olive oil for anything but cooking a sin. :wink:

I also noticed signs of burning on the patches

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That is what led me to using peanut oil. It is real slickery stuff and has a high temp resistance to burning. And, I don't often run into peanut worshippers around here.

Besides, for the HC crowd, how many olive trees were growing here during the heyday of the flintlock? :wink: And one might be tempted to start nibbling on the patches.

Grumpa said:

Besides, for the HC crowd, how many olive trees were growing here during the heyday of the flintlock? :wink: And one might be tempted to start nibbling on the patches.

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Olive oil (also known as Sweet Oil) was imported into the colonies.

Jojoba oil is as close to whale oil as one can get, without actually killing a whale. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jojoba_oil

Black Hand said:

Grumpa said:

Besides, for the HC crowd, how many olive trees were growing here during the heyday of the flintlock? :wink: And one might be tempted to start nibbling on the patches.

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Olive oil (also known as Sweet Oil) was imported into the colonies.

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I use lanolin-olive oil- beeswax so the one bucket does everything.
PS: A place to export to is what a colony is. A lady on the flight back from Pittsburgh last Saturday night told me that's why she's brushing up her mandarin.

It's ok oliveoil lubed the wheels of the Roman Legions for centries