petrolium based oil

I have heard you should not use petrolium based oil on a muzzle loader. Why is that??

What should be used to protect the barrel instead?

Oil and black powder combine to make a black crud and I said crud not crude. :grin:
However having said that I still use a good gun oil. If I am going to store for a while I wipe the bore with a Hoppes gun oil on a patch and then I immediately go back with a dry patch and remove the bulk of that oil.
Wipe with a patch before shooting and/or pop a cap and its all gone. The theory is if you store your gun in a vertical postion instead of horizontal the oil may go into the flash channnel and gum it up.
Some folks say never use oil :shake: but, as long as you don't over do it and store on rack horizontally I personally have never had a problem! :wink:

Use a vegetable or mineral based oil instead. Olive oil, peanut oil, vegetable oil, are all candidates. Mineral oil is sold in drug stores, and some grocery stores. Ballistol is mainly mineral oil with some additives. Wonderlube is a vegetable shorening or oil mixes with beeswax. Wonder lube goes by several names, including Bore butter, and Natural Lube 1000. The stuff works well. You can mix your own lube by melting beeswax in a double boiler arrangement( put a small tin inside a frying pan that contains at least an inch of water) with your choice of oils. Take a look at the Index page at top and find the key to Stumpy's lube and moosemilk mix. Also, If you don't own it, buy a copy fo Cutch Schueltz's BlackPowder Accuracy system. Its onl $15.00, but is the best such money you will spend. He tells you in detail how to " read " your patches, after each shot is fired, to diagnose what you need to do to get the best accuracy.
[url] http://www.blackpowderrifleaccuracy.com/[/url]

Dutch prefers a waterless, or " dry" lubed patch, and makes a good case for it.

The only problem with petroleum based oils, is that you HAVE TO clean them out of the gun before shooting each time with alcohol. If you don't the stuff does not burn well, and simply grabs the crud and clogs up your flash channel, and nipple and causes misfires. With other kinds of lubes, Its an advisable precaution to use alcohol to clean out the barrel, nipple, flash channel, etc. if the gun has been stored for any length of time. I don't find a need to do so if I am shooting the gun within a month, or less.

I have found that a light coating of WD-40 in the bore is good to prevent corrosion IF you have the bore clean and dry before you apply. when preparing to fire you must patch the bore and clean the flash channel (caplock) with alcohol then blow thru or snap caps to dry it.

I do not lube roundball patches with anything petrolium based. I use Bore Butter type lubes for this.
I do however protect my muzzleloaders with Rem-Oil after cleaning.
Before shooting I snap a couple caps and swab the bore with a dry patch.
I've never had a problem with BP fouling using this practice.

HD

If you heat petroleum with sulfur, you get asphalt. Great stuff, really sticks to things!
Woodbutcher

I have started using synthetic gun oil made by Birchwood Casey. Been using it for a couple of years now with no problems.

When you shoot a gun with the pressures and temprature that occur in a ML your gun turns that oil to TAR hot soft tar on the bore. This hot tar will absorbe a lot of the crud from your Bp or substitute. when that stuff cools the tar stiffens creating a real mess.

Believe me way back when I used to shoot maxi balls with something called MaxiLube. Those bullets held a lot of grease and generated gunk like you would not believe.

When you shoot a gun with natural lubes those lubes melt in the same way but they form hot melted oil on the bore. When the powder residue from your shot coates the oil it absorbes the powder in much the same way.

The big difference is that when it cools the oil stays soft so the residue does not become concrete.

When you just wipe the modern oil out of the bore you will never get it all out. The main thing then is to go to Solvents ( that is more oil/distalates) to clean the crud.

Best not to go there. IMHO

I have been using "natural" lubes without problems but I find that some people recomends soluble oils and Alox as lubricants and both are petroleum based oil (I think). Also Ballistol is a petroleum based oil.
So I can not understand?
Have it to do with swabing between shots with peroleum based oils and not doing it with natural oils?
Thanks
Martin

:bull: :bull: I used maxilube till it ran out and now use BB (don't think its quite as good but OK) for PRB and maxiball. I shoot as much as I want and no swabing between . When I clean its boiling hot water, let air dry for 10 min. dry patch two times and then oil heavily with (uck) 3 in 1 oil while BBL is still hot. Before loading 2 dry patches down BBL and 3 cap fires then load what ever. Been doin this for over 35 yrs and works great. My .50 T/C is now loaded and waiting for an elk to walk by---- maby and maby not --?"

I've always used some sort of gun oil, petroleum based, in the many ML guns I've owned over the past half century and never had any complaint. I don't know what this tar business is about, I've never encountered it, nor have I heard about it other than on this forum. What I have encountered is rust pitted bores on every used ML gun I've ever purchased. That leads me to wish people used a lot more petroleum in their bores. :haha:

CRC power lube is GREAT. I use the best synthetic oil I can find.
Besides regular oil and vegetable or natural lubes confuse me.
Why, well I always thought regular oil was composted plant and animal matter.

So why is some "natural lube" :bull: any different.

Oil lube in the bore will not hurt anything as long as you clean it out before loading.

bpb said:

CRC power lube is GREAT. I use the best synthetic oil I can find.
Besides regular oil and vegetable or natural lubes confuse me.
Why, well I always thought regular oil was composted plant and animal matter.

So why is some "natural lube" :bull: any different.

Click to expand...

Here's the short answer. The organic matter goes though a process that forms long carbon chains as it "decomposes" in the earth. The resulting molecules are very long and tend to grab each other - making a tar. Makes it hard to get out of the bore when burned.

Think of it this way. The hamburger you eat Monday is different from what comes out the other end on Wednesday, but the source is the same.

my hamburger wouldn't take that long... :rotf: :rotf: :rotf: