Clarified Butter as a patch lube

Rusty_Nail said:

Alden,
You have all that butter stored, waiting for a shipment of grits? :rotf:

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Geeze, RN, we finally gt him drunk and quiet and you gotta mention a grit!!?? :rotf:

Merry Christmas you daft bunch of characters!

You need about 30% of your calories form fats/oils. Been camping with it forever. People like variety, ghee tastes good and lasts a long time, and I only buy quantity as well as look for sales...

Besides, nobody ships grits east of the Susquehanna. And if we really wanted some we'd just go scrape off what we leave behind for the upland game birds here...

colorado clyde said:

...or grease lamp?

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Don't the Nepalese use yak butter for heat and light?

Probably...not a lot of olive trees up there! And by-the-by gang, the Biblical story of the three foolish virgins and the lamp oil is olive oil! Yes, works fine...just ask my lamp! :wink: :haha:

From the title, I thought this was going to be a thread about bore butter!

Yak? Ever been to the Himalayas!? Loved her; hated him.

Clarified butter? Yak butter? What's next? Duck butter? Toe jam? Ear wax? Oh, what the heck. Go for it. Experimenting can be fun and who knows, you just might discover something of value. Besides, back in the day, they had to use what they had at hand so clarified butter ain't that weird if it what you have at hand to use. Keep us posted, Aran, because inquiring minds want to know.

Seems doubtful to me that it would have been used much, if at all unless you lived in a region that made it and that’s all you had. Lard, tallow, some oils, even beeswax are all byproducts of something else. Ghee would be very labor intensive. Ghee is also a transformed edible and by that I mean that every step in the process of its manufacture is an edible, milk, cream, butter, and ghee. I think I heard once that it was used as currency in Nepal , I know I don’t use dollar bills for musket wadding .

But it might be the best thing since sliced bread......or on it :rotf:

colorado clyde said:

Seems doubtful to me that it would have been used much, if at all unless you lived in a region that made it and that’s all you had.

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Just render some Windex berries, and you're set. :rotf:

Alden said:

Yak? Loved her; hated him.

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Oh, now I get it! It's the Tibetan version of "I Know I'll Never find Another Ewe" with you, isn't it? :wink: :haha: :rotf: :rotf:

Enjoying all the comments being made. :grin:

As to the stuff being used as a lamp oil, in India they use ghee in their oil lamps and say that it burns with the brightest flame. Havn't yet tried it myself, but maybe you could try it and see if there's any truth in such a claim. :thumbsup:

Aran

it is similar to lard and tallow in that, one it is an animal fat, two it is high in saturated fats and three it has a high smoke point/oxidation point meaning it doesnt burn easily.

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Isn't that also true for chicken, goose, duck and a myriad of other fats?

I think I will stick with sweet oil or lard myself.

LD

It is true for most animal fats, but not most vegetable fats. In fact an oil like olive oil can burn at a relatively low temperature as apposed to animal fats like lard and tallow, and clarified butter.

My reason for mentioning that clarified butter is similar to lard or tallow was just to give an idea of what the general consistency and characteristics of the grease is.

And of course, use any oil/grease which is most availlable to you and which works best. It may simply just be an interesting idea for most, as for me however, I don't have much access to lard/tallow etc. so this seems a good option for me or anyone else in a similar position too. Of course it still needs testing, which will be done in due course. But anyway, it's just another option at the end of the day...

Aran

Aran said:

It is true for most animal fats, but not most vegetable fats. In fact an oil like olive oil can burn at a relatively low temperature as apposed to animal fats like lard and tallow, and clarified butter.

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Try some avocado oil.

Approximate temperatures, depending on conditions:

Lard has a smoke point of 370°F.
EV Olive Oil 405°F
Avocado Oil 520°F.

I just knew an Avocado had a use !

Try Zonie's new Guacamole Patch Lube! :wink: :rotf:

Ghee or clarified butter has smoke point of 485°F. And avocado oil is not exactly the cheapest thing around... :grin:
Clarified butter is also a solid at room temperature which is handy.

You're right about the lard smoke point, however they say it still makes a good cooking oil etc. and it doesn't oxidise and change chemically unless heated to quite a high temp. Strangely enough avocado oil, with its high smoke point, can easily oxidise or go rancid at relatively low cooking temps... So it seems smoke point isn't that important, but rather the level of staurated fatty acids in the fat is? :idunno: :yakyak:
You can read more about it here if you want to...

What this all means for muzzleloading use, I've no clue. :haha:
Spose only trial and error will determine if clarified butter is of any use in smokepoles.

Aran

I am an experimenter at heart, but I see no reason to waste my good butter on a rifle.
Nope not doing it. Besides I need to get the castor oil out of the house, so I am shooting it down range a drop at a time.

I'm back to mineral oil which is cheap and has a flash point of around 235-degrees F.

I'd recommend Baby Oil too if you like the smell but I'm not sure how hard you'd have to squeeze them...