Gun lube for BP revolvers.

[G.W. Strong]

I looked though the site here and I could not find any mention of what you soot lords lube your pistols with. I've never given it much thought. Old military grease, modern silicone greases and pretty much everything I use works fine on my smokeless guns. However with my new forray into the dark arts I have found my gunds get a bit sooty and a bit stiff after 100 rounds. Is there a particular grease or lube that is prefered by the darksiders?

If so what is it?

[Jefro]

I just spray patch and wipe with Ballistol after cleaning. I use Gun Butter (not bore butter) on the base pin. I use Gun Butter on the moving parts of all my firearms. If they get a lttle sticky I have a little spray bottle of Murphy's mix that's had a little Ballistol added. I spray the the cylinder face and base pin bushing, wipe excess and keep shooting. Good Luck
Gun Butter

Jefro Relax-Enjoy

[Fingers McGee]

Clean and lube with Balistol.  Lube the arbor on Colt's C&Bs with bore butter.

[rickk]

regular does of Ballistol, as well as under-ball felt wads soaked in molten 2:2:1 tallow/paraffin/beeswax

[Roosterman]

100 shots is asking alot for BP revolvers. I use the yellow bore butter stufff....don't know what brand. If the cylinder gets a litttle cranky after a bunch of rounds I'll just squirt some ballistol on the cylinder pin and away we go again.

[44caliberkid]

I lube over the ball with Bore Butter or my own homemade lube of tallow, Crisco and bees wax.  I can shoot 100 rounds with no cylinder drag, just have to wipe off the excess melted grease with a rag now and then.  I lube the cylinder pin with the same lube also.

[Wolfgang]

I lube with a 50/50 mix of toilet bowl wax and olive oil.  Use it in the mechanism, over the balls on cases when resising brass for cartridge shooing, . . it's my standard lube for all gun stuff.   

[Fairshake]

You should never use any product that is from a petroleum base on black powder. Mineral oil is an exception as it is so refined.
Buy yourself some Ballistol for clean up. The liquid type. Mix 2 oz of Ballistol with 14 oz of water in a good spray bottle. Shake it up until it is solid white and you will see why it's called Moosemilk.
I use  cartridge guns now but this will work on C&B also. Go to any automotive supply and buy a can of Mobil One synthetic grease. I use this on my base pins and cylinder bushings and my guns have shot 7 stages with no problems on turning. You may only find it in a tube for a grease gun but it will still work. You just have to seal the top.
The Bore Butter that is posted also works but I find not as long.
Welcome to the best time you will ever have shooting. Later David

[Cemetery]

In the guts of the guns, I use regular modern gun lube, stuff like Remm Oil in the spray can, or Break Free.

On my rifles, I keep the lifter area of my 66 and 73s dry, but use Ballistol on the bore after cleaning with soapy hot water, and wiping down with Simple Green.

On my shotgun, same as the rifles.

On my revolvers, I used both Olive Oil, and Ballistol on the cylinder pin.  Found Ballistol worked better than the Olive Oil.  But Olive Oil had me hankerin' for fresh tomatoes with garlic and olive oil by the end of the match.

Lately I've been using 'Frog Lube' on my cylinder pins, been working very well, it doesn't have that 'drippy' effect that Ballistol can have.

[Wagon Box Willy]

Go to any automotive supply and buy a can of Mobil One synthetic grease. I use this on my base pins and cylinder bushings and my guns have shot 7 stages with no problems on turning. You may only find it in a tube for a grease gun but it will still work. You just have to seal the top.

+1 on the Mobil One grease, so far it's the best pin lube I've tried on my Remmy 1875's.

For the rest of the gun I use Eezox.

Willy

[Grapeshot]

http://www.lasc.us/LubeIngredients.htm

Hey Hopalong try checking out this website.  You may want to go over to www.Castboolit/gunloads.com for more info.

[Lefty Dude]

+++++ for mobil-One grease. I use it for all my gun lube, both revolver & Rifles. Works great for the inerds of the 73 on the links, etc. This is the only lube I found that will allow me to shoot siz stages with my 51 Navys with out a foul out of the cylinder arbor.

[Paladin UK]

This keeps my opentops cylinders spinnin all day long 



Paladin (Whut lurves Wonder Lube) UK

[Crow Choker]

There have been quite a few posts over the years about lubing black powder revolvers, everything from the 'inards' to the cylinder pins. I found the search you do has alot to how you 'enter' the wording for your search. I gave it a try and found quite a few(actually alot of posts regarding it). 'As for me and my house'--I've been using Victor brand lithium grease on the cylinder pin for years with no problems,  some of the other brands don't work as well. After alot of shots, the end grease has a grayish color to it, but I have no problems with binding. The internals I have and use a number of products. The best as to what I like is sperm whale oil, hard to find anymore if not impossible, but I bought a supply from Brownells when they still offered it and use it as if it'll be the last(probably will). 100% Ballistol works well to, give the 'guts' a shot with a needle oiler after cleaning. Have seen Eezox listed a number of times as working good, have yet to see any around my area, may have to locate/order some and give it a try. Check the SCORRS and STORM sections too, have seen discussion on those boards about 'what type of lube to use'.

[Johnny McCrae]

I'm glad this topic came up. The information here will be very helpful to me. I fired around a dozen .44 Colt Black Powder rounds through my RM Transition and experienced some binding of the cylinder along with some stickiness in general. I used the bullets that I normally use for smokeless rounds. Could these bullets cause problems along with the fact that I've cleaned this gun with solvent and oils used for smokeless powder only? Hopalong is going to give me some Big Lube .44 bullets to try. I may have to learn how to cast my own bullets.

[Deadeye Dick]

Hopalong is going to give me some Big Lube .44 bullets to try. I may have to learn how to cast my own bullets.

You can purchase big lube bullets through Springfield Slim.

[Grapeshot]

I'm glad this topic came up. The information here will be very helpful to me. I fired around a dozen .44 Colt Black Powder rounds through my RM Transition and experienced some binding of the cylinder along with some stickiness in general. I used the bullets that I normally use for smokeless rounds. Could these bullets cause problems along with the fact that I've cleaned this gun with solvent and oils used for smokeless powder only? Hopalong is going to give me some Big Lube .44 bullets to try. I may have to learn how to cast my own bullets.

You will need to lubricate your boolits with BP compatable lube or you will get a mess to clean up.  The big lube boolits with SPG or its equivilent will help get you through a shoot without the binding of the cylinder

[Noz]

I never found anything that worked very well on the Remington arbor.

I've used home made bullet lube, Ballistol, Bore Butter and lithium grease. I find that the more rigid lubes worked the best. I may have to wipe the face of the cylinder on my 1860s after 6 stages but never have binding on the arbor with any of the lubes.

[G.W. Strong]

I went to the range yesterday and ran 100 Black Powder rounds through my '72 open top and my '66 yellowboy. I split them roughly evenly between the two to simulate a match but I did not count exactly. So one gun might have hat 45 and the other 55. This was the first time through with black in either gun. They both got cranky by the end but neither froze up. I used a couple drops of moose milk on the front and rear edges of my cylinder to try to get it down on the arbor of my open top. I also gave the sides of the rife chamber a smear or moose milk when the block was lowered. Both treatments left me smiling the rest of the day. No issues at all. If I had had a little undiluted ballistol along it might have worked even better than the moose milk.  This was amazingly fun!

My question is what will be the pitfalls of switching back and forth between smokeless and real powder in terms of performance? (I now know the impact on the fun will be significant because the real powder is more enjoyable) I ask this because about 900 of my 1000 cartridges in this caliber are already loaded and ready to use this shooting season.

On another note. The black powder had an unexpected side effect of a positive sort. After my first shot a young boy down at the other end of the range shouted, "Dad, that guy is shooting BLACK POWDER!" He and his brothers watched intently. At the next shooting break I approached the dad and offered to let his kids shoot the guns. They each took me up on it and all seemed to love it. Then the range officer who was there asked if he could try it. He was interested in the guns and I let him run a bunch through them. He seemed interested in cowboy shooting and plans to come out to some of the matches this summer. We got to talking and I mentioned that I will be hosting a Boy Scout shoot  at the club in July and he asked if he would be allowed to come help. Turns out he is an Eagle Scout and loves teaching kids to shoot. It was an excellent day.

Black Powder wins friends and influences people.

[Wills Point Pete]

 The main problem with switching from BP to smokeless is that you miss the BOOM! and cloud o' smoke. Seriously there is no real problem as long as there is a good cleaning between each switch. I live in the country and my '92 clone doubles as a home defense rifle. It comes home, gets the BP crud swamped out and then is loaded with some pretty hot smokeless loads . fortunately I've only had to shoot a couple of coyotes but with the practice and such there have been a lot of switches, one to the other. Same with my Colt SAA clones. Although they aren't the mainstays of home defense they do get some use as woodsbumming guns. I will use real BP on a one day trip but use smokeless on multiday ones so I don't need to worry about cleaning. The neat thing about .45 Colt in non plus P loading is that BP is as powerful as the smokeless. Put a full charge of BP tricked through a drop tube and then compressed a little and you're talking 900 or more fps with a 250 gr bullet. With that load I would not whine about not having enough gun for any critter, four legged or two in the lower 48.