New to BP guns and have a lube question

Hello,
Just picked up 2 1851 Colt navy revolvers and a .54 cal Hawken. I've shot BP a few times before but never owned any.

They came with a lot of kit, couple hundred round balls for each gun and the .54 came with a couple hundred of these.
Attachment 206245

Do I need to pan lube them with one of the recipes on here? I currently PC bullets for my .357 mag and 45/70, but with BP it's more about powder fouling than lead fouling right?

Thanks for any help.

Ryan

You need a BP lube such as SPG or make your own from Bee's wax, crisco and lanolin....this is close to the old gov. mix used in the 1800s.

Pick up a copy of Lymans black powder handbook, It will give you the basics of loading charges and bullets. along with ballistic tables and a lot of good information. Emmerts improved or SPG work well with the r.e.a.l. bullet as does thompsen centers lube. The TC lube is messier to use.

Emmerts Improved recipe I use is:

50% beeswax
40% Crisco unsalted shortening
5% olive or canola oil
5% anahydrous lanolin ( its the creamy one not liquid)
I add a couple drops of murphies oil soap to this as a binder

In a double boiler melt wax and Crisco together add oil and blend then add lanolin and the few drops of murphies oil soap. stir well for 5 mins or so and let cool.

This lube works well for pan lubing but use a Kake cutter to remove bullets its a soft lube. It does very well keeping fouling soft and manageable. It has a pleasant smell also.

Mixed 45% beeswax
45% Crisco
5% canola oil
5% lanolin
the same 3-4 drops of oil soap
It might make a soft enough lube to fill chambers with on the cap and ball revolvers for bullet lube and to protect against chain fires.

Thanks,
I found beeswax and lanolin on amazon, but then called around locally. Pharmaceutical pure beeswax is half the price from my local hippy candle store. Lanolin is $12 for 1/4 lb and crisco/murphy's is cheap and common.

I'll pop some balls out of the rifle this sunday, and get into the lube and bullets next week. I like learning new stuff.

Thanks,

The Crisco plain works well as is. the beeswax stiffens it and the oil lanolin lubricate and make it softer, but in a pinch plain Crisco does good.

Another option for BP lube is a mixture of beeswax and olive oil. Somewhere around a 60/40 mixture. Works well on conicals, patches and for chapped hands!

Thanks everyone. There's a pile of info on here about lubes, but thanks for sending me in the muzzle loading specific direction.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by crandall crank

Another option for BP lube is a mixture of beeswax and olive oil. Somewhere around a 60/40 mixture. Works well on conicals, patches and for chapped hands!

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This is what I have been using too. It's a simple recipe and you can adjust the stiffness of the lube for your season/temps. I use bore butter from time to time too. it works pretty good, but is runny in warm weather.

I was on amazon and bought a tube of bore butter today just to try it out.

I have mixed a little bore butter with my beeswax/olive oil blend to soften it up a little in cold weather. Works fine.

Get some wool weather stripping - and make sure it's pure wool. Soak a strip of it in your BP lube and let it dry. Get the right size punch and punch out some wads for those revolvers. A lot easier than filling the chamber mouths with Crisco, which will melt and run out at the first shot. Load powder, wad, ball and shoot to your heart's content.

Thanks for the advice. I can source beeswax locally for cheap, but I bought lanolin and murphy's oil soap from amazon. Should have seen the package with the oil soap. The bottle got crushed at some point, so they put it in a sealed bag. I got a squishy soaked orange envelope in a bag on my door step. I went online, clicked a few buttons and another is out for delivery automatically. Awesome.

I finally got to shoot the rifle last night but I just used 50-90gr of pyrodex rs with lubed patched balls. First time I have ever loaded my own black powder rifle. I've fired a few shots in the past, but it was really cool doing it all myself and I would like to thank everyone here for the knowledge base. I may have 14 posts, but I've been hanging around since Jan 2009 :)

One of the biggest things to remember about shooting BP is to make sure that your ball/bullet is seated firmly on top of the powder charge. Do not leave any open air space.

Source for supplies:
Duro-Felt Products
Wad Felt - http://www.durofelt.com/image_26.html
Lanolin - http://www.durofelt.com/image_33.html
Sheep Tallow - http://www.durofelt.com/image_73.html

The owner, Aysha, has catered to percussion & BPCR shooters for over 10 years. I even buy adhesive backed felt circles that I use to put on the bullet bases of my breech seated reloads

What John Boy said!!

A note about those Lee R.E.A.L. boolits. If you load them bare with lube, and the accuracy is just so-so, try cloth-patching the bottom driving band. It affords a better seal and improves accuracy. A fellow told me about that after I had almost given up on getting reliable hunting accuracy with R.E.A.L.s, but I tried patching them that way and suddenly I could do no wrong. It eliminated a lot of frustration.

I have always used strait Crisco. No leading for me.