BP lubricants; my recent saga; long

[2571]

Thanks Milsurps for giving us a Black Powder forum. Thought I'd tell this yarn to run up points on the Black Powder site.

40 years ago I bough an Italian cheapie pistol. Nobody around to teach me squat. Didn't know about lubing cylinders to prevent chain fire and learned the hard way. Boy is that scary.

30 years later, I wanted to by a SS Ruger Old Army. 10 years later, I found one at a good price last Mother's Day. She didn't want it and I couldn't take back a used pistol, so I had to keep it for myself. Darn, what rotten luck!

Decided that I would lube cylinders, although that is a messy business. Tried Crisco, commercial lubes, etc. Bought some Wonder Wads, found them too expensive. Tried making my own with my .45-70 punch & felt. PIA. Decided to find a home made lubricant from the internet. All the ones I wanted to try used mutton tallow as a base.

Here in the big city, one sees few muttons being raised. Eventually figured out that the big city market might be the place to look. I knew that they sold 'lamb' even though it's actually fully grown sheep (sheep is to mutton as deer & elk is to venison).

Nobody could sell me any mutton fat (tallow) as they buy their meat pre-butchered. Eventually someone suggested I try the Halal (Islamic kosher) butcher elsewhere in the market area. Thought I'd try that.

The Halal butcher deals mostly to Arab restaurants here in Detroit. I had a hard time explaining that I only needed a couple of pounds of fat but eventually they produced some guy who could half speak English. He went into the back and brought me out two pounds of fresh tallow and asked me why I wanted it. When I explained it was for my new gun, the guy got all excited and pretty soon I was standing in a crowd of 7-8 butchers who were listening through the interpreter and each of 'em was asking me a question or mimicking shooting movements.

Turns out they all liked guns and while they had never seen a black powder arm, they all had AK stories from their military service in the Mid-East. Eventually they all shook my hand and refused to accept payment for the 2# of tallow.

Seems that guys working in Halal/Kosher shop are all pretty conservative Muslims and the kind who are ****ed off with the the gangster punks who are taking over Islam. Most of these guys had done their military service in Yemen or Quatar before legally immigrating here. To a one, they all have big families and attend 'church' every week. Somehow, it seems a little odd that these immigrants are so adamantly pro 2A.

So, I got the tallow, had a god time finding it and even acquired a story to tell at deer camp while we clean bp rifles around the woodstove.

The tallow-based lube works but it still is a messy business & a PIA.

Information

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[kurt varga]

try 50% tallow(no salt) 50% beeswax great bp lube plus i lube all my cases befor reloading 222 to 50bmg cal works great, just apply with finger, don't need much

[kurt varga]

if your mixture gets to soft in warm weather put more bees wax in it, my understanding is when shooting bp use only natural lubes, so not to build up carbon with petro based stuff

[JB White]

There's a recipe for 50/50 or 60/40 beeswax and Crisco that's supposed to be just as good as tallow. I've never tried it, but we need to get this BP forum chugging along so I thought I'd add in.

BTW, I too have experienced a chain fire in an I-tie copy. Not a pleasant experience. No injury aside from the revolver itself. FWIW, I was using Ox-Yoke Wonder Wads, but they apparently don't protect against cheap/worn nipples and hot caps. duh.

[Patrick Chadwick]

Try Nivea cream. Your revolver will not only be easy to clean, it will smell pleasant! And you don't need to lubricate the cylinder as a separate operation. You load the powder and ball, then wipe on the cream to fill the area in the chamber mouth around the ball and (so it is claimed) prevent chainfires. Since I have read reports by people who had chainfires even with meticulously filled chamber mouths, there is a strong suspicion that chainfiring is actually spread around the back end (as may have been the case for the previous contributor) I wouldn't bet on the safety gain. But after shooting a target with Nivea, the Rogers & Spencer was basically clean after being wiped down. Still have to remove and wash out the cylinder, of course.

Patrick

Patrick

[2571]

Seems like chain fires should be prevented by using a rb which gets minutely shaved upon loading but that's not what the shooting literature says.

This is the first time I've heard a suggestion that problem occurs at back end. Makes sense, though.

Is Nivea that stuff that comes in a dark blue bottle?

[jamie5070]

I have to throw in my thanks as well. I'm always switching between my bolt guns and my BP rifles.
There is a web site: www.BPCR.net - Black Powder Cartridge Rifle that lists a bunch of lube recipes.
john

[threepdr]

I use beef suet that I get locally here in North Alabama. I render it down to clear grease then melt it with about 25 - 30% bees wax. After it has cooled some but not hardened I pour it into muffin tins with cup-cake papers in each. I made up about 3 or 4 pounds of it last weekend. The 12 cakes it made will last me a couple of years. I store the unused suff in the freezer sealed in a ziplock bag.

It works great on minnie balls and Smith Carbine bullets.