Whadaya think?

[Noz]

I just mixed up 1.5 pounds of assorted colors and scented candles, 1 pound of toilet bowl rings and 1/2 pound of crisco.

Will it work for my 44-40 lube?

[Lucky R. K.]

I just mixed up 1.5 pounds of assorted colors and scented candles, 1 pound of toilet bowl rings and 1/2 pound of crisco.

Will it work for my 44-40 lube?

If the candles are beeswax it should work just fine.  An oldtimer once told me you shouldn't use any oil based products as an ingredient for black powder lube.

I make a lube with 50% beeswax, 40% Crisco, and 10% canola or olive oil.  It is called Emerrets Lube and works great for black or smokeless powder.

Lucky 

[Mako]

I just mixed up 1.5 pounds of assorted colors and scented candles, 1 pound of toilet bowl rings and 1/2 pound of crisco.

Will it work for my 44-40 lube?

Hmmmm, that depends.  What scents were the candles?  Oh, and what color did the mixture turn out?

~Mako

[Noz]

Surprisingly, the smell is not too bad. It's a blend of all the possible Christmas candle smells and is a lot milder than you would expect.  My last batch of lube had a distinct strawberry smell. One of my pards, Tightwad Swede uses used bathroom candles and his are entirely too girly.
Cooled a portion and it will be too stiff to run through the lubsizer. It's actually crumbly. Makes me think there was a lot of parrafin in the candles.  Before anyone gets too excited about the parrafin, I have used it before in Black Powder lubes to stiffen the consistency and it has worked well.
Added another 1/2 pound of Crisco.
Let you know in an hour or so if the consistency is correct.

[hellgate]

Just about all candles are paraffin unless labled as beeswax and then they are much more expensive. Most beeswax candles are dipped with that nice, yellow/tan color of beeswax or rolled sheets of beeswax medium brood core in various colors.

The only way of knowing if the lube is gonna work is to use it in both hot and cold weather to see how it works after about 50-60 rounds down range. I'd bet the toilet bowl rings have a fair amound to paraffin in them too. I remember making lube wads for my first "real gun", a Uberti '61 Navy, out of thin felt and candle wax and it was no good at all. Bore was fouled with rough hard fouling. Crisco on top worked better.

[Fingers McGee]

I just mixed up 1.5 pounds of assorted colors and scented candles, 1 pound of toilet bowl rings and 1/2 pound of crisco.

Will it work for my 44-40 lube?

OK, what was the recipe for the lube in the bullets you just made me?  Is my rifle gonna smell like potpourri now?

[Mako]

Surprisingly, the smell is not too bad. It's a blend of all the possible Christmas candle smells and is a lot milder than you would expect.  My last batch of lube had a distinct strawberry smell. One of my pards, Tightwad Swede uses used bathroom candles and his are entirely too girly.
Cooled a portion and it will be too stiff to run through the lubsizer. It's actually crumbly. Makes me think there was a lot of parrafin in the candles.  Before anyone gets too excited about the parrafin, I have used it before in Black Powder lubes to stiffen the consistency and it has worked well.
Added another 1/2 pound of Crisco.
Let you know in an hour or so if the consistency is correct.

Oh great...scented candles, probably a "nice" lilac or potpourri odor.  It better not be, it will also probably be a nice mauve color...Careful Noz, your "man card" may be subject for review.

I have found any more paraffin than about 45% by weight begins to make it crumbly.  I normally use the "traditional" Mutton tallow mix which is 40% Tallow, 40% Paraffin and 20% Beeswax by weight.  I have been using a "summer mixture" of 30% Tallow, 40% Paraffin and 30% Beeswax which seems to work well.  I tried upping the paraffin up to 50% first because it is cheap and available.  It got crumbly as you described, so I just worked out the new weight on the batch I had to make it the ratios I described.

Anyone shooting in hot climes may want to try the 30/40/30 ratio.  This is how you mix it by weight:

Tallow	9 ounces	(30%)
Paraffin	12 ounces	(40%)
Beeswax	9 ounces	(30%)

If you are using a lubrisizer in the winter loading for the summer you might want to use a lube heater to make it flow easier and save your elbow... I like the way the lube feels on the bullets and it isn't as sticky as the traditional Mutton Tallow mix.  I haven't done any qualitative test like running patches down the bores and weighing the resulting residue and patch after a predetermined string of shots comparing the two.  But "anecdotally" I don't see a difference in fouling or ease of cleaning between the two in the summer months.  You can really tell the difference in stiffness when the temperature hits the 50s with the lubricated wads, they still work, but they are definitely stiffer.

Maybe if you added some Ballistol to the mix it would make it a more manly odor...  

Regards,
Mako

[Noz]

OK, what was the recipe for the lube in the bullets you just made me?  Is my rifle gonna smell like potpourri now?

What you got was Pearl lube. Same as last year, just tweaked and colored differently.


That's essentially what I'm doing with the candle wax. I used soy wax in the pearl lube.
the new stuff is a dark red and the addition of the extra Crisco made it nice and smooth. It'll work.


Mako , my man card has been punched so many times that I don't worry about it any more. That's why I can wear blonde braids if I want to.

[Mako]

What you got was Pearl lube. Same as last year, just tweaked and colored differently.


That's essentially what I'm doing with the candle wax. I used soy wax in the pearl lube.
the new stuff is a dark red and the addition of the extra Crisco made it nice and smooth. It'll work.


Mako , my man card has been punched so many times that I don't worry about it any more. That's why I can wear blonde braids if I want to.

Will you STOP showing that picture! It gives me the willies every time I see it.

[Norton Commando]

I just mixed up 1.5 pounds of assorted colors and scented candles, 1 pound of toilet bowl rings and 1/2 pound of crisco.

Interesting mix--are toilet rings made from pure beeswax?  Assuming it's beeswax, why couldn't you use just the toilet-ring? In other words, why is Crisco and candle wax added to the beeswax/toilet-ring?

Years ago I used just Crisco over balls and notwithstanding the mess, it certainly kept the crud build-up soft. To eliminate the mess, could I just smear toilet-ring onto felt wads and place them between the powder and ball in place of the high $$$ Wonder Wads?

Am I asking too many questions?

[rickk]

Onces you have mixed up some sheep's tallow based mix in the kitchen and been banned for life from ever doing it again, a girly smelling lube would be a good thing.

[Fingers McGee]

What you got was Pearl lube. Same as last year, just tweaked and colored differently.

Whew  That's a relief

Will you STOP showing that picture! It gives me the willies every time I see it.

You got nothing to complain about Mako.  I gotta see it in person.  Good thing I wear tinted glasses at the range; or, I'd probably be blind by now.

[Dick Dastardly]

With Big Lube®LLC boolits, it's not exactly the mix of the lube but the AMOUNT of it that carries the day.  Lots of lube means continued foul out free shooting over long long shot strings.  It's the boolits, not so much the lube formulation, that make the day after day shooting without needing to clean between stages, or days that's the charm of Big Lube®LLC boolits.

Go ahead, put yer hard earned cash on the mahogany for spendy lubes.  You'll enjoy great performance with Big Lube®LLC bullets.  I guarantee it!  But, should you use PL-II or your own formulation, if it's soft enough you can enjoy equal results.

The original recipe for Pearl Lube is given out FREE with each 6 pack of PL-II that is purchased.  Many have found the original recipe very satisfying.

DD-DLoS

[Mako]

You got nothing to complain about Mako. I gotta see it in person.  Good thing I wear tinted glasses at the range; or, I'd probably be blind by now.

Glad to

Oh the Humanity!!!!!!!

[Noz]

Just did a fingernail test on the new lube. It's hard enough to stay in the groove of a MavDutchman and soft enough to go thruough the sizer.  It'll work.

I tried this approach because I was having trouble keeping the lube in the grooves. I hardened the last portion I used on Fingers bullets and was much more satisfied with the results.

Yeah, Dick. this is a takeoff on the Pearl Lube. I assumed that the basic material in the candles was soy but I think I was probably wrong. I doubt that this will have the motion sensitivity of the original recipe.

Norton. The toilet bowl rings are made from a petrolateum compound that works in the lube much like beeswax. The advantage to the producer is that it is much less expensive then beeswax.  It's purpose in the lube is to make it sticky.

and Mako and Fingers, I think I look lovely in my braids. The picture is of a presentation of a Dooley Gang armband to Deja Vous. If you look closely at my belt line you can see the tag end of the ribbon sticking up. This gave me the opportunity to quote Clevon Little in Blazing Saddles, "Pardon me, while I whip this out".

[Norton Commando]

Noz, thanks for the info on the toilet ring. So if it's petroleum based, why would you want to use it as a lubricant?

[rickk]

Toilet rings used to be Beeswax. Many BP formulas had people adding it because of that.

They are now made from Paraffin.  I suspect they add a solvent to soften it, but it isn't beeswax any more at all.

If your recipe has you adding Paraffin and a toilet bowl ring, it is probably old and should be ignored.

As far as paraffin goes, there are many way cheaper sources of it than toilet bowel rings.

[hellgate]

The cheapest source of paraffin I've seen is garage sales with partly burned coffee table candles or the Goodwill.

[fourfingersofdeath]

My Grandfather was a plumber and I used to help him as a lad and I have always done my own plumbing work, but until I started hanging with you guys, I never heard of a wax toilet ring. Must be an American thing. Our toilets work different to yours, ours have a small amount of water in the base with an S Bend behind it. When you flush, the cistern empties quickly flushing all of the nasties out. Mybe because you guys have a head of water in the bowl all the time you need different sealing solutions.

With all of that water in the bowl, how do you get one if your goolies and very low slung? Seems to me they'd be getting wet, lol.

Not trying to hijack the thread, just got me wondering is all.

[Noz]

The use of petroleum based materials in black powder lubes depend on their method of distillation. Parafin and petroleum jellys do not exibit the bad characteristics of motor oils and higher distillates.  Mako jump in here, my explanation is weak.
The use of the toilet bowl rings is to replace the tallow in the mix not the bees wax.  It makes things sticky.
A friend that is a casual black powder shooter(been working on the same pound for 15 years) called me to find out why his muzzleloader had lost accuracy. Turns out he was finishing his cleaning with a bath of aerosol petroleum oils. The had burned enough black powder over those oils to fill the grooves to the point they no longer grabbed the sabot. He scrubbed the bore with hot water and a brass bore brush and the accuracy returned.
fourfingersof death, the "wax: ring is an air seal between the toilet bowl and sewer line. Prevents gas from creeping into the house.