What to use for lube

[Ken Cormier]

I just finished up a 1861navy 36 caliber kit that I bought last year it is from the 70's was never put together. What should I use for lube,on the metal parts. Thanks in advance.

 

[necchi]

Gun Oil.
I use Ballistol on my revolvers but it's not a good storage/preservative oil, a little common sense goes a long ways here.

 

[cynthialee]

For shooting a revolver I use liberal amounts of bore butter.
For longer term storage I use Rem Oil.
Short term storage, 3 in 1 or WD-40 works great.

There are numerous good products on the market one can use for these purposes.

 

[bubba.50]

plenty of good grease on the cylinder arbor & a few drops of yer favorite gun oil on the movin' parts.

 

[ccmountainman]

As always to each his / her own.
Also depends what part of country you live in (humidity).
And whether you carry daily or not.
Mine is almost daily. From warm house to sunny / rainy day. to cold of winter and back.
I load paper cartridges and either a round ball with a dry or lubed wad under it or a lubed conical.
I mix beeswax and lard for general lube and cylinder pin and in the "guts" of my BP revolvers
On the outside Just plain old 100 yr old gun oil nothing fancy.
3 in 1 will gum after let setting a while so no.

 

[Ken Cormier]

Thanks folks I guess I should ben more specific what I meant was for the arbor. Some days dumber that a wet rock.

 

[bpd303]

I use white lithium grease on the arbor/cylinder pin and 3in1 oil on the internals. Been using 3in1 for decades from SE Florida, New England and now NW Arkansas. Never had a problem with it gumming up in all those years & conditions.

 

[Cleburne]

"I use white lithium grease on the arbor/cylinder pin..."

+1

Also use this as a lube over the top of each chamber after ramming my round balls home. Never ever a problem and clean up is no more difficult than when using any other lube.

 

[dikman]

Ahh, good ol' 3-in-1 oil. Guess what, it's nothing special, simply a petroleum distillate that's also used in many other oils. I thought I read somewhere that it's no longer made from the same distillate that was originally used in it, but unfortunately I can't confirm that (I spend far too much time reading all sorts of things about oils....).

In short, if it works for someone then that's all that matters, but it's no different to many other light oils.

 

[crockett]

Another vote for the white lithium grease. Grease and oil are not the same. Grease is heavy duty stuff and that's what you want on the arbor. Plain old gun oil is okay for the other parts.
Grease can and does catch grit, etc. so clean it up on a regular basis.
Then there is the "grease" some folks use at the end of the chambers over the ball- to prevent a chain firing. Crisco has been used for years.

 

[Treestalker]

There used to be a firm in Houston, Texas that the company I worked for dealt with. Get this; Climax Lubricants :shocked2: . I kid you not, they were for real and were experts in hydrocarbon organic chemical slickums applications. The name was a reference to the high quality of the products they brokered, not the end result of the world's oldest hobby. I wonder what they would recommend for 'frontstuffers' :rotf: Tree.

 

[Zonie]

Most of the "frontstuffers" I know would be well advised to use cooking oil.

Petroleum oils can cause serious gastric distress to the bowels if one is lucky and can be fatal for those with less luck.

Now, for muzzleloaders, the only time petroleum oils can cause a problem is if a heavy coating of them is left in the bore and then a black powder charge is fired in it.

 

[CaptainKirk]

Another vote for white lithium grease.

 

[cynthialee]

Another vote for white lithium grease.

Pretty sure they didn't sell that stuff in the General Store back in the pre 1900's....

 

[CaptainKirk]

They didn't sell Pyrodex either. Nor Piettas....

 

[robinsroost]

On the arbors, I use RIG, a light grease. On all of the other moving parts, I use CLP. CLP stands for cleans, lubricates, protects. While I have never used it for cleaning, it does a superior job of lubricating and protecting. Rem oil is also a good lubricant. Keep yer powder dry......Robin

 

[Heelerau]

Mate,
I use calcium based avania water pump grease on the cylinder arbor, I did use it to seal the chambers mouths after loading, now use greased felt wonder wads or my own wads soaked in beeswax and lard. Have found greased wads seem to reduce cylinder binding as well , and keep the bore nice and clean.

Cheers

heelerau

 

[m-g willy]

Bore butter on the arbor.
Makes it easy to hose off with soap and water.

 

[Mike 56]

I have used white grease, Bore Butter and Crisco on arbors all did a pretty good job. Six months a go i stopped using petroleum oil and started using Joaba on my cap and ball revolvers and started cleaning with just water no soap. Soap and water works good maybe to good after using it i noticed all the oil was striped from the metal. When it was time to clean my guns hot running water would remove 95% of the fouling. I shoot a few hundred balls a week after i get 60-70 fired thru a gun the hammer channel would foul out and i would switch guns. The cylinder face and forcing aren't a problem i keep them wiped down with a damp rag. I shoot with wads or wax toilet ring wax over the balls.

Recently i read some articles by John L. Fuhring (google geojohn)he writes in his articles about using filler or a lubed then a small amount of lube Bore Butter, his lube mix 85% Crisco 15% bees wax and in colder months lard. This week i tried his system out i used his bees wax Crisco mix. It worked great i shot eighteen rounds then i pushed a dry patch on a jag threw the barrel and it did not look like it was fired. I wiped a chamber clean with a dry patch same thing no hard fouling. I shot a hundred balls with no fouling issues at all. When it was time to clean there was only a small amount of hard fouling on the hammer and cap channel. I cleaned the hard fouling with some moose milk. I cleaned the rest of the as John suggests using just Joja oil even the inside of the nipples only had a little soft fouling in them. I have been checking my gun daily its been four days so far no rust anywhere.