Lanolin in lube??

[Doc O]

I'm messing with a new lube and may try some lanolin in it.
But, What does  lanolin do for the lube?
I've heard it used but not why it was used.
I'm also going with mutton tallow rather then my deer tallow.
The deer tallow works OK but want to try the mutton, it seems softer.
Doc

[Dick Dastardly]

They've got a lot of lanolin "down under" and it is commonly used in their lube recipes.  Lanolin is cheep there.

Used in bullet lube, anhydrous lanolin imparts a stickiness to the lube that helps it to cling to the gun's innards.  It's also nice to your skin.  I've tested it for use in Pearl Lube and found it to be a very good adjunct to the PL recipe, but too expensive here in the USA.

So, go ahead and use some anhydrous lanolin in your experiments and report back.  I think you will be favorably impressed.  You can get it at some natural product outlets and probably at your local pharmacy.

DD-DLoS  

P.S.  I just went online and found that Anhydrous Lanolin is running around Nine Bux a pound plus S&H.

[August]

<10% by volume seems to be about right.

[Gatofeo]

Definitely go with mutton tallow. It beats any other tallow I've tried, and those include the tallow and drippings from pig, turkey, elk, deer, beef and chicken.
Years ago, I began posting a black powder lubricant recipe for what was originally the old factory recipe for outside lubricated bullets, such as used in the .22 rimfire, .32 Long Colt, .41 Colt, etc. That recipe listed three ingredients: tallow, beeswax and paraffin.
I went one step further, without changing the proportions, and used specific ingredients:
1 part mutton tallow
1 part canning paraffin
1/2 part beeswax
All amounts are by weight, not volume.

The result was an extremely good and versatile lubricant. I use it for felt wads in my cap and ball revolvers, patches in my .50-caliiber percussion rifle, lead bullets for either and lead bullets for black powder cartridges. It also works for handgun bullets at mid to low velocity.
Deviation from the above listed ingredients results in an inferior lube.
Why canning paraffin? Because it's pure. Who knows what adulterates old candles, as some have suggested using? Though canning paraffin is a petroleum product, it doesn't create hard, tarry fouling like other petroleum products do with black powder. A chemist told me it's because paraffin lacks the hydrocarbons found in other petroleum products.
But I believe that the most effective ingredient is the mutton tallow. I've found references to it being used by the British Army as early as 1855.
the above bullet lubricant is now refererred to as Gatofeo No. 1 Lube; someone named it for me years ago.
Try it. It's as good or better than SPG, and much cheaper.
Mutton tallow is available from Dixie Gun Works. It's the cheapest source I've found.

As for lanolin, I've been told, and speculated, that there's lanolin in mutton tallow. I don't know. I just know that mutton tallow is wondrous stuff!

[Doc O]

Thanks fellas.
Gatofeo, Your right, do not devate from mix.
I tryed it with the deer because that is what I had. It was way to hard.
I'll try it with the mutton.
I still want to try a mix with either lanolin or jojoba oil, I've been told it works very well also.
I know there are many mixes and most work well.
Doc

[Fairshake]

Lanolin has been used in BP lube receipes for a long time with good results. Stay away from the lanolin in drug stores as they will rip you off. Better to look at health food outlets. Go to the Cast Boolits forum and punch in lube receipes on the search button. They have well over 100. Later Fairshake PS I use lanolin and sheep tallow myself

[fourfingersofdeath]

I'll have to do a check on the price of lanolin here (maybe do a group buy, but that may not be feasible). They don't give it away here either, I paid $AU12 for a plastic jar which would have held a pound or so. Probably cheap when you buy it by the drum, but I ain't seen no drums on sale yet. Inox was the brand, may be exported to the states, do a search on that name.

[Doc O]

Found some localy today at a health store.
$10.00 for 4oz. A little pricy but I don't think it probably take a lot
per batch. I make small batchs anyway.
And yes I will check out the cast bullet site.
Thanks
Doc

[Springfield Slim]

Go to some of the Beeswax supplier sites, they usually have lanolin also.

[Mad Mucus]

I'll have to do a check on the price of lanolin here (maybe do a group buy, but that may not be feasible). They don't give it away here either, I paid $AU12 for a plastic jar which would have held a pound or so. Probably cheap when you buy it by the drum, but I ain't seen no drums on sale yet. Inox was the brand, may be exported to the states, do a search on that name.

Mick,
SuperCheap sell tubs too.

MM

[fourfingersofdeath]

Here is the link to the Inox Company in Australia, who specalise in Lanolin lubricants:

http://www.inox-mx3.com/inox.htm

If you go to the retail outlet section, you can do a search for a particular product (Lanolin MX4 Lanolin Grease is the one we'd be interested in) they have distributors in the ststes and you put your state and town in.

They also have high temp and high pressure resistant greases and lubricants which might be interesting as well.

I didn't have time to mould BP boolits and just loaded BP, a circle fly card wad and a blob of lanolin grease followed by the commercially made polymer coated boolit. Worked fine, no leading. I will have to get the finger out and mould some Big Loobe Boolits and mix up a batch of beeswax/lanolin lube.

[Dick Dastardly]

Thanks 4 fingers,

I found one in Wisconsin off that web site.  I'll give them a call and ask prices.  They are not too far from here.

DD-DLoS

[fourfingersofdeath]

Thanks 4 fingers,

I found one in Wisconsin off that web site.  I'll give them a call and ask prices.  They are not too far from here.

DD-DLoS

If the prices are ok, it might be a good addition to your business, they have a section where you can enquire about becoming a dealer (just what you want, more inventory!).

PS, used the ROAs yesterday, great stuff!

[Noz]

I checked around also and Dixie has by far the best prices on mutton tallow. From the lanolin website it looks like you can go to a Harley Davidson store and find it.

[Pitmaster]

Not surprising.

Sticky, smelly Bag Balm: Problem-salving for all



  By JOHN CURRAN, Associated Press Writer John Curran, Associated Press Writer   – Sun Jan 31, 10:51 am ET

LYNDONVILLE, Vt. – Winter is most definitely here. It must be. The phones are ringing at Bag Balm headquarters.

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Everything, it seems, except for cows.

[COLOR="Blue"]"Some, you don't really even want to hear, but they're gonna tell you anyway," said accounts manager Krystina McMorrow, who is half the office staff.

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It is made in a one-room "plant" by the family owned Dairy Association Co., Inc. — six employees, two officers and no sales force — operating in a cluster of converted railroad buildings in this small (pop. 1,215) northern Vermont town.

Petrolatum is shoveled from 50-gallon drums into a large vat and blended with lanolin from Uruguay, then heated to 95 degrees. A machine quickly squirts the goop into metal cans that are cooled, capped and packaged.

The plant is inspected annually by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, though the product is marketed for use by animals, not humans.

Distributed by wholesalers and sold retail in farm stores, national drugstore chains and general stores, its popularity has grown largely with word-of-mouth advertising as converts becomes users and then devotees.

Imitators through the years have included Udderly Smooth Udder Cream and Udder Balm.

The Dairy Association won't divulge sales figures.

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To call the operation old-fashioned is an understatement.

The plant operates with one shift, Monday through Friday. The Dairy Association doesn't take credit cards ("Send us a good ol' check," says Allen). And the names of individual stores that buy directly are kept on index cards in file cabinets.

Long-distance bicyclist Andy Claflin says he started using Bag Balm on a cross-country race last June, when a teammate turned him on to it for saddle sores.

Claflin, 37, from Dayton, Minn., was suffering from saddle sores as he competed in the Race Across America. A teammate told him it was good for the sores, a bane of long-distance biking. So he slathered some on, down below.

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Marge Boyle, 62, a quilter in Paducah, Ky., keeps a tin by her sewing machine.

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And it's still de rigeur in barns, where it all started.

Dairy farmer Willie Ryan has used it since the '70s, to soothe the chapped teats of cows. And more.

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For all its myriad uses, there's one place its makers say never to use it.

"Never put Bag Balm in your hair, because you will not get it out," said Wilkerson.