WANTED! Your Black Powder lube resipe

[John Barleycorn]

Im looking for easy to make at home black powder lube resipes. thanks JB

[Delmonico]

50% deer tallow, 50% beeswax.

[Sunwapta Haze]

Check the Dark Arts Child Board (top of Darksider's Den forum) lots of easy recipes there.

[Wallaby Jack]

50% Beeswax, 50% Lanoline Grease (woolfat) ... an' a dribble of Wintergreen oil (to keep it all together)

[Mad Mucus]

4 parts beeswax + 3 parts copha + 1 part olive oil ... and a dash of Wintergreen oil (to homogenise  Thanks for the tip WJ)

Mucus

[rickk]

2 parts parrafin, 2 parts sheep tallow, 1 part beeswax, all by weight. I throw a crayon or two into the mix while making it to add some color to it and make it look like some super duper commercial recipie.

Tallow is hard to find anywhere but Dixie Gun Works. Their price is not too bad. They don't guarantee an exact quantity, but he containers usnually have about 12 ounces in them (the low end of the advertized range). The other two show up alot on e-bay. I just got a 50#  box of parrafin on ebay for about $55 including shipping. I also got 5# of beeswax for under $15, shipping included.

I made up a batch a week ago. It was 5# total. I mixed it up in my lead melting frying pan on the outdoor propane stove (tallow really sticks up the kitchen... trust me... do it outside). 5# is alot... the frying pan can hold about 50# of lead, but 5# of lube pretty much filled it to the top. I filled up about a dozen empty cat food/tuna fish cans with the stuff.... should hold me a while.

I soak home made felt wads (made using a punch using felt obtained from Duro felt) in this melted concoction for use in percussion revolvers. For shotguns (I shoot BP in breechloading doubles)  I soak commercially produced fiber wads in the stuff.

For a patched ball, I havn't found anything yet that works better than Crisco. I use it in a custom 50 cal Hawkins style muzzleloading rifle that will shoot sub- 1 inch groups all day long.

[Grapeshot]

My first batch was made from 50 - 50 mix of Beeswax and vasoline.

Lately, the mix is modified to 50% Beeswax; 45% Vegtable oil and 5% candle wax. (Substance unknown)

I also have a batch I made up IAW Paul Mathews' mix of 50% beeswax; 48% Crisco and 2% Murphy's Oil Soap.

Be careful when adding the Oil Soip.  It causes the mix to bubble and fiz.  If you have molds ready so you can pour this mix into to use in a standard Lubricator/sizer.  Once it sets, it doesn't remelt.  At least not at any temperature I was willing to approach.  And No, a double boiler doesn't work after this wax, crisco, oil soap cools.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Making BP lube can be as complicated, or a simple as you want to make it. You can get esoteric, with all kinds of difficult to obtain components, or you can just keep it simple.

For years I made a mix of 50/50 Beeswax and Crisco. The proportions do not have to be exact. These days I usully buy SPG sticks for my lube sizer.

All that's really required of a BP lube is that it be soft and gooey enough to keep the fouling soft in the barrel, but not so soft that it melts and gets all over the place. It really isn't very difficult. If you go the beeswax/Crisco route, you can vary the 'gooiness' (technical term) by varying the proportions. More Crisco makes it softer. More Beeswax makes it harder.

[Hell-Er High Water]

I made a batch of Dick Dastardly's Pearl Lube, but found it a little too gooey (right Driftwood, this is a technical term).  Equal parts, by weight of toilet bowl wax rings, soy wax and cheap vegetable shortening (1 pound of each).

I then added 1 pound of beeswax and it works just fine with the 1:1:1:1, 4 part mixture.

After heating it all in a double boiler I pour it into hollow sticks to fit the Lyman lube-sizer.

The sticks are wrapped in wax paper and it stores fine until ready to use.

HHW

[Dick Dastardly]

HHW is right on.

Also, you can "stiffen" the original PL recipe with additional soy wax.  It's adjustable.

The new PLII is a different bread of cat.  It's hard to alloy, so I won't give out the recipe.  One thing it does is address the loose consistency of original PL.  Something that PLII does that I've found no other lube that will do is to put down a teflon like coating inside the barrel.  It still cleans up easy, but the fouling just can't get a grip.

DD-DLoS

[Black River Smith]

Mad Marcus,
I sent you a PM couple days ago but no answer so I guess I will ask here.

What is "copha"?

Never heard of that material before.

Thanks for any comments.

[Goatlips]

  John Barleycorn: "easy to make at home black powder lube"....

  Delmonico: "50% deer tallow, 50% beeswax".

  "Take one deer and render it for tallow, then find a friendly beekeeper...." 

Del, I love to hear what you consider "easy"! 

Goatlips

[Mad Mucus]

Mad Marcus,
I sent you a PM couple days ago but no answer so I guess I will ask here.

What is "copha"?

Never heard of that material before.

Thanks for any comments.

BRS,
Just now discovered your PM... so I'll answer your question here.

COPHA is an ingredient used in Australia to make yummy sweets like Chocolate Crackles and White Christmas. It's basically solidified coconut oil.

SEE this definition >>>---->  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copha

Mucus

[Cuts Crooked]

  John Barleycorn: "easy to make at home black powder lube"....

  Delmonico: "50% deer tallow, 50% beeswax".

  "Take one deer and render it for tallow, then find a friendly beekeeper...." 

Del, I love to hear what you consider "easy"! 

Goatlips

  Now that's funny! 

BTW, I made my very first bunch of "deer tallow lube" this past winter. It was surprizingly easy to render the tallow...a bit harder to get the deer in the first place!  I found less need for Bees wax as the tallow has a pretty good consistansy all by itself! So far I've shot a a couple of boxes of 38s lubed with this stuff, but I'm happy with it for now. I have some 45s loaded with it but haven't had a chance to get out and try them. I suspect that they will be just fine though.

[Black River Smith]

Mad Marcus,

Thank you for the info.

[Delmonico]

  John Barleycorn: "easy to make at home black powder lube"....

  Delmonico: "50% deer tallow, 50% beeswax".

  "Take one deer and render it for tallow, then find a friendly beekeeper...." 

Del, I love to hear what you consider "easy"! 

Goatlips

Living in an area where they almost beg you to shoot deer and being known as someone who can butcher one and a person who will take a properly tagged carcass off yer hands and put it to good use, I have no problems getting the fixings.  In fact I didn't bother to render this year because I still have lots of it. 

What is nice about it is that deer tallow has a higher melting point than most other fats used.  I gave a friend a box of lubed bullets one time, he left them in his pick-up in weather with the temps in the 90's.  When he remembered them he figgered he'd have a grease stain on the seat, nope the lube was still where I put it.

BTW this is also the best hand and lip balm I've ever used.  As a former industral painter I can tell you this is the only thing I could find that would keep my hands from cracking and bleeding in the winter.  Some of those now banned solvents will do a job on yer hands, or rubber gloves.

(Cuts, the raw material would be easier for you to get if you could just convince the folks that run your game dept. that shotguns are for shooting birds not deer. Nothing better than a good scoped rifle for just plain killing deer to fill the freezer.  BTW I ate two by myself last winter.)

[mtmarfield]

   Greetings!

   Equal volumes of beeswax and olive oil; add more beeswax for warm weather!

   Be Well, All!

      M.T.Marfield
          5-6-07

[Tommy tornado]

Anybody ever use glycerine soap?  I was going to try it sometime instead of beeswax with Crisco or lard.

[hellgate]

50/50 Beeswax and lard by melted volume.

[Brian Why]

Hey Grapeshot, got a weird question for ya. Does your lube recipe with the oil soap "weep" at higher temperatures? I'm looking for something I can use over powder in paper cartridges as an ultra hard lube cookie. Specifically a recipe I could cook up, pour into a tube to harden and then cut to thickness to put in papers.

If it works I'm gonna hire some of the neighborhood junkies to roll cartridges for me. Might as well let 'em use their talents for good.

_{(yes, I know I'm a hoople head. That's why my name's Why)}