Mineral Oil?

[SimonKenton]

I hear that Ballistol is mostly mineral oil. If that's true how would you mix up a batch of "home made" Ballistol using mineral oil and water? Would mineral oil be a viable wet lube in very cold weather? I like Mink Oil and Neatsfoot myself.

-Ray

 

[paulvallandigham]

Use the same water to oil formula that is given for ballistoil. This varies based on relative humidity and temperature when you are shooting, a bit, but begins with a 1:1 ratio(50/50), and goes up from there. The water is merely a vehicle to help distribute the oil evenly throughout the cloth. When it dries the oil is left as a slightly dryer residue IN the cloth, rather than ON the cloth, as heavier lubes tend to do.

 

[tg]

I used mineral oil as a lube in the past but nothing spectaular stands out in my mind about the experience, like with most things, some testing would be in order.

 

[renovato]

In Ballistol, the mineral oil is merely the base. I used to have a listing of the formula and it had a lot of ingredients besides mineral oil. The MDS sheet doesn't list all the ingredients, whereas the patent does, if you can find it.

I know it has cetyl alcohol as an emulsifying agent. I remember several solvent sounding names such as octyl something or other. It also has several botanical oils, anise oil being one of them.

Remember it's original design called for it being antiseptic also. It also combines with the leftover acids from the tanning process in leather to form a waterproof compound. These might be clues as to what else it contains.

Sometimes blends like that aren't merely mixed together, but are reacted under heat and/or pressure to get the components to form new compounds. I don't think it would be easy to mix up a batch yourself.

Paul is right about mixing it with water, soaking the patches and letting them dry. I use a ratio of 1 part Ballistol to 5-7 parts water, depending on the gun. They each have their favorite ratio. When the water evaporates out, it leaves the patch evenly and lightly lubed. Something that is impossible to achieve using straight Ballistol.

You could probably lube up a bunch of patches with mineral oil and press out the excess to achieve something similar, if you want to test pure mineral oil as a patch lube.

 

[paulvallandigham]

When soaking any fabrics, use a hard rubber ink roller, you can buy at most art supply stores, and some office supply shops, to spread the liquids over the fabric evenly, and remove the excess.

 

[buckknife]

Mineral oil will not mix with water or rubbing alkey or most likely any liquid.Tryed it before.For mineral oil to be able to mix with water it must be put threw a proccess to make it water soulable.Some thing most of us are not able to do unless we own a chemical plant. :haha:
Really if you want to use something cheap that works go to napa and order a gallon of 765-1525 cutting and grinding oil.A 7 parts water to 1 part oil makes a good dry patch soak.dont keep em over a month or it will break the patch material down making a smoking patch.I use it mixed 10 to 1 for liquid patch lube and also clean my gun with it.I aint shot the flint lock for about 2 months or longer i reckon and a dry patch down the bore still comes out snow white.Didnt use any thing else.Just dry patched after using the moose milk to clean it with.At the rate i have been using it that gallon will last me the rest of my days.28 bucks for the gallon.Thats about $2.55 a gallon when mixed.

 

[mike alexandre]

some cutting/machining oils we used to have here in the UK have been linked to cancer forming chemicals.

 

[buckknife]

:hmm: i will add it to my list of good things that can kill me :thumbsup:

 

[mike alexandre]

well Ballistol wont. :thumbsup: