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View Full Version : Liquid Patch Lubes Besides Saliva



Maven
05-24-2011, 12:23 PM
Many things serve well as patch lubes: Saliva (can't beat the price & availabilty); Dixie's "Old Slickum"; Winchester Sutler's "Moose Milk"; Murphy's Oil Soap diluted with water and rubbing alcohol, etc. I've successfully used all of these and have made, but haven't yet tried, the one I'm going to post below. Obviously the exact proportions aren't critical, as the author intimates. If you have the components, it doesn't take but a few minutes to "brew." My biggest problem was finding a bottle big enough to hold the mixture and a Sucrets/ Altoids tin (see text) to hold the cut patches and lube:

D. Taylor Sapergia’s Bullet Lube
"I like shooting the smooth bored PA fowler. I use the heavier charge (85 grs. FFg) because it shoots where I want at all ranges out to 109 yds. (our farthest target on the trail). You are good to go with the .595 and .600 balls, and I like your choice of patch material. I usually use saliva - lots of it - in the summer, but in the winter, I switch too a lube with methyl hydrate to keep it from freezing.

"I use precut patches ~1 1/8" soaked with the following mixture: I fill an Appleton's rum bottle, having consumed the great rum, with winter strength windshield washer antifreeze, to within a couple inches of the top. I then add a couple ounces of Murphy Oil soap, and a couple ounces of Neatsfoot Oil. Olive or Canola oil is just as good. This stuff does not blend into a combined liquid, and requires shaking just before you use it. I fill a Sucrets tin with the precut patches I'm going to shoot that day, shake the bottle, and pour it over the patches. When they have absorbed as much as they will. I pour the extra back into the bottle, and then squeeze out the patches in the tin a little to remove the overflow as well. But I leave them very wet. With these soaked patches, you should be able to shoot all day and never have to wipe the bore. And loading is not hard with a wooden rod."

GREENCOUNTYPETE
05-24-2011, 05:24 PM
how cold is cold the 1/3 murphys soap oil 1/3 rubbing alcohal and 1/3 hydrogen peroxide was fine no problems at all on a very windy 20 degree day in march durring several hours of ourdoor range time , i should soak a few patches and put them in the freezer and see if they will freeze at zero

Maven
05-24-2011, 06:20 PM
GCP, That mixture, also known as "Friendship Speed Juice," is what I use for cleaning some of my guns at the range. However, one of the guys participating in a local Woods Walk last Sunday was using it as a patch lube. It worked very well I must say, as he probably outscored our group by a significant margin!

GREENCOUNTYPETE
05-24-2011, 10:26 PM
we use it for our 4H shooting sports muzzle loading , one of our girls took that to nationals and did fairly well

seeing a fair amount of shooting at small targets it is amazing the effects that small things can have on groups , merly swabbing the bore then loading after many shots of not swabbing will cause that round to go an inch or more high. we will instruct them to shoot that one into the dirt calling it not for score first then load and fire for score

the key is to keep everything the same every time , like picking the nipple every time , swabbing or not swabbing every time

seatting the same way every time especaily over real black

and for competition to take enough sighters to know what to do that day.


for an experiment i sprayed down a patch adn put it in the freezer , the thermometer in the freezer reads 20 degrees i will pull it out in the morning and see if it is still pliable

i think part of the reason hydrogen peroxide is in the mix is that your body makes it naturaly in your saliva if i recall but i am no biologist so maybe some one else can comment on that.

GREENCOUNTYPETE
05-25-2011, 10:02 AM
when left on a patch in the freezer for a few hours does definitly freezei figure the alchohal evaporates off and the peroxide and soap freezes up , but if it is just a range trip it works fine as it did not freeze in the bottle in several hours on the range

our fingers were frozen long before that , hard to grab little things with gloves on and refilling the capper counts as little things for sure.

northmn
05-25-2011, 11:10 AM
how cold is cold the 1/3 murphys soap oil 1/3 rubbing alcohal and 1/3 hydrogen peroxide was fine no problems at all on a very windy 20 degree day in march durring several hours of ourdoor range time , i should soak a few patches and put them in the freezer and see if they will freeze at zero

Taylor lives in Canada. They shoot all winter and 20 degrees is a warm day for them at times. Matthews in his book on cartridge shooting mentioned the use of auto radiator antifreeze as a good cleaner. It should make a good lube. Murphy's oil soap has been used for years and I see no advantage to the stuff. The old moose milk formula of water soluable machinist oil and water has been around for some time also. The liquid lubes should be a good bore cleaner as that is primarily what they do. When you seat the patched ball they clean and push the crud down on top of the charge and it gets blown out the barrel. that added weight is why fouling shots are used as a clean barrel does not provide the extra weight of the crud. Spit contain mucus which is a lubrication and may provide an advantage over plain water. Some claim that some patch lubes are slick enough so that they have to use a little extra powder to get them to shoot to the same point of aim as a wax/grease lube. I have used several different lubes over the years, and mostly look at cost. I do have good luck with some green general cleaner that costs about $3.00 in a large bottle. Works as well as Hoppes#9 plus did. Black powdeer is humidity sensitive in its fouling, and in some areas one lube may work better than another. Minnesota has been called the land of all seasons, which you may see in one day. I have seen days when the fouling can get so hard if you use Crisco you may have to wipe about every shot and other days where the pan in a flintlock just drips with moisture and you have to wipe it dry. A good liquid lube will perform more consistantly than a grease, but I do think general climate may be a factor in their performance. What works well for some in one area may not be as good in another.

DP

Maven
05-25-2011, 04:03 PM
GCP & DP, I just got back from the range with my 20ga. trade gun, but I didn't feel like using spit patches or the 103 Lube that I posted about. Rather, I used "Friendship Speed Juice" with a small amount of Winchester Sutler's "Moose Milk" (not a necessary addition) added for my patch lube and clean up. The mixture worked great and never once experienced hard loading or caked on fouling in the breech. Taylor's recipe would also work, but I need to find a smaller container for it for range and field use.

GREENCOUNTYPETE
05-25-2011, 04:28 PM
4oz trial size spray bottle or for range use i like the 8 oz spray bottle that the hydrogen peroxide comes in now at wally word

Baron von Trollwhack
05-25-2011, 08:50 PM
Shoot more, fiddle with lubes & patch wetting agents less.

B.C. fellers have distinctly different climate conditions than most of us in the US. I think them more favorable for patch guns. Try Emert's lube on a patch which is then wetted just on loading or just a bit before. Anti-freeze is just to hazardous to my thinking. The idea of WW fluid is ok and eminently workable. Spit is good if you have enough, or water, or diluted water something. I don't mind AF on my hands or clothes in actual use. Easy enough.

BvT

Ajax
05-26-2011, 07:19 AM
I went to using a dry lube, also known as the dutch shoultz method. It is ballistol emulsified in water then you soak the patches and let the dry while laying flat. I have had no problems with hard fouling. I have shot up to 4 times without cleaning and #4 went down the tube as easy as #1. her is a link http://www.blackpowderrifleaccuracy.com/


Andy

Fly
05-26-2011, 12:02 PM
Maven do you really like it better than moose milk.I might try that if so.

Fly

Maven
05-26-2011, 01:06 PM
Fly, In this one test, the "Friendship Speed Juice" (equal parts of rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide & Murphy's Oil Soap) worked very well, but since I never used Moose Milk (Win. Sutler's brand) in the trade gun before, it's hard to say how the latter would have performed. However, there was NO crud ring to speak of and no black chunks of BP residue present. When I used spit patches, both of those were quite evident. The price of FSJ though is a LOT less than Moose Milk and that itself makes it worth trying.

45-70 Chevroner
06-07-2011, 06:33 PM
I have been using a mixture of water, rubbing alcohol, and dishsoap for many years. 1/3 water 1/3 alcohol and 1/3 plain (not antibactiral) dishsoap. It doesn't take much on a patch to work quite well. I use a 6 oz spray bottle and that will last for several hundred shots. Don't get the patch too wet, just damp.

JeffinNZ
06-07-2011, 08:45 PM
Don't get the patch too wet, just damp.

DEAD right. I have done a great deal of research of patch lube application and it is very easy to overlube. Too much lube will expand your groups every time. I use lube sparingly and generally put a dry patch on the jag when I seat the ball so that as the rod is withdrawn the bore is wiped dry. Try it.

45-70 Chevroner
06-08-2011, 10:48 AM
JeffinNZ: The dry patch sounds like a good idea. Just don't try to clean a barrel after shooting it with a dry patch. I did that once ( and I had been warned not to ) it was by accident I forgot to wet the patch with a cleaning solution first and the cleaning rod was stuck I mean really stuck. I was out in the woods target shooting. I was using a 50 cal. machine gun rod to clean the barrel and to get it out I had to use a pair of large dikes ( plyers) to pry that thing out. To this day the 50 cal cleaning rod has dike marks every 1/4" of the length of the rod.

45-70 Chevroner
06-08-2011, 10:54 AM
GCP, That mixture, also known as "Friendship Speed Juice," is what I use for cleaning some of my guns at the range. However, one of the guys participating in a local Woods Walk last Sunday was using it as a patch lube. It worked very well I must say, as he probably outscored our group by a significant margin!

It wasn't the lube He was just a better shot "LOL":kidding: