Bedbug, you might want to consider using Lehigh Valley Lube and Cleaner on your patches ... https://www.trackofthewolf.com/Categ.../1/LUBE-LEHIGH
Bedbug, you might want to consider using Lehigh Valley Lube and Cleaner on your patches ... https://www.trackofthewolf.com/Categ.../1/LUBE-LEHIGH
Regards
John
I certainly agree that there are many ways to do it and everybody has what works best for them.
I haven't "abandoned" using other patch lubes. For years, I've had excellent luck with a pound of non salt crisco melted together with one real beeswax toilet ring. I've used it in the bases of my rifled musket minie balls (yea, I never lube the rings and have successfully fired tens of thousands of the that way) and also used it in my C & B revolvers and worked it into my patching for both rifle and smoothbore. Others have their own formulas that work for them and that's great.
When Dutch first started selling his info, both my brother and i were having problems with our 20 gauge trade guns (smoothbore). His method of dry lubed patches turned out to work well out of both of our trade guns. I also had a 36 caliber Virginia style flintlock that I had just finished that I was having some issues with - if I remember correctly, I used a Green Moutain barrel on that one. I tried a number of different lubes but when I tried the dry lube patching, it really tightened the groups up. Unfortunately, I had a guy offer me a price I couldn't resist on the rifle and I sold it before I had an opportunity to pursue the dry lube patching in it any further.
I agree with rfd - it depends on your view of "traditional" as well and *** to how you are shooting. Regardless of if I'm shooting at a bench or out of the pouch. I like my patched balls to go down the bore with fair ease - and that involves not only working with patch lubes but patch/ball fit that does the trick. On RB barrels, I usually like to do a fouling shot and then run a patch down the barrel between shots. BUT - that isn't always practical when you are doing a timed event or a woods walk, etc. So, you do what works best for you and what fits your desires as far as being "traditional", etc. Nothing wrong with that at all.
Some like their patched balls to be tight, some like 'em loose and some are OCD and weight every ball and charge - and that's fine - to each their own. My grandfather had a 45 caliber plains style rifle that he bought off of a fellow who came to Michigan around 1832. (My grandfather was born in 1867). I have heard my
Dad tell how good a shooter he was with it, once hitting a dog who was killing his sheep and that dog was close to 125 yards away - I know as I know where it took place and I paced it off one time. He cast his balls in the typical "bag mold" and trimmed the spurs with the handle cutter. I doubt that any of them weighted the same. The rifle had square patches lubed with what looked like sheep tallow in the patch cap box on the stock.
I've read Dutch Shutlz's material and I certainly don't agree with all of it. In the beginning, I poo poked the water soluble patching as well - but I found it worked for what I was shooting. It's like anything else - you read it, you study it and you take away things that "might" work for you - then you try 'em and if they don't - nothing ventured nothing gained.
I smiled when I read reference to a "mallet". Years ago - many years ago - there was a guy who came to Friendship and usually did a lot of shooting on the offhand range. He was the poster child for OCD. He was a nice guy and I got to talking with him one day and he "lectured me" not he importance of keeping everything the same - exact powder grain weights, exact ball weights, same caps, same powder, etc. He had a nice half stock percussion rifle and quite the fancy shooting box as well. One thing he stressed was the uniformity of the ball to insure the same "flight". O.K. . . . . if it works for you then more power to you I thought. I watched him loads many many times. He used a drop tube down the bore, carefully dumped his powder charges in - swabbed between shots exactly the same each time, etc. When loading though, he defined the "tight patch/ball" concept. He always used a pre-cut patch and carefully set his ball on top, sprue up. Then, he' pull out his pretty ebony mallet and whack it to start it in the bore - followed by a short starter which he hammered on with the mallet, then a longer short starter, then the ramrod with a wide turned top that his mallet would hammer on. I always wondered what that soft lead ball looked ike when it got to the breech and was seated on the charge - it couldn[t have been round. He was an "O.K." shooter but didn't set any records but he was "consistent" in his style.
My point is to keep an open mind and not be afraid to try new things - if nothing more than to say you've tried it. Do what is within your parameters and don't get hung up on what someone else says " is the way to do it". Dutch Shultz offers some interesting things to read and think about but let's face it, he's sold a lot of his information packets over the years. Some may work for you and some may not. If it's one thing I've learned in 55 years of shooting BP, it's that "nobody is an expert". Don't get so hung up on what the "experts" say as every gun is different and lies different things - and having fun while shooting front stuffers or any other firearm is what it's all about.
Thanks to everyone for taking the time to post - a lot of interesting information and some products I wasn't aware of!
fwiw, what i favor these dayze is a "loose" easy load (no short starter, "thumb" seating) that allows decent accuracy with no fouling control between shots. to achieve that with most of my trad ml's typically means a smaller ball diameter and not too thick a patch. the patch lube is super important, and what i now use exclusively is good ol' #1 gato feo that's been both rubbed ONTO the patch strip cloth weave and then heat gunned INTO that weave. these greased patch strips feel nearly dry to the touch, though in super summer heat i'll vary the grease formula by using more beeswax. the 16"-18" patch strips are either rolled up (for muzzle cutting), or cut into squares (the width of the strip - width depends on caliber) for individual patches, or used with a ball board. this trad muzzleloader thing will always be a personal journey - who'd want it any other way?
Mate, I bought Dutchs' system a couple of years ago, he stated that the cutting oil he normally used had changed in its formula at some point, and now suggested Balistol, that is what I am using and it seems fine.
Keep yor hoss well shod an' yo powda dry !
Tru-Edge Economy Soluble Oil
Tru-Edge Lubricants
P.O. Box 227
Clover, South Carolina 29710
803-222-7337
Hope that helps. Be glad to give you any additional info off the label or photograph it for you and send it. Just send me a message with your email address.
I use 7:1 dilution.
At some point Dutch did start suggesting Ballistol but his original recommendation was water soluble oil "looks like oil, smells like oil, feels like oil, tastes like oil". He also warned against the blue water soluble oil because it was combustible at high heat and pressure, which caused some interesting results.
Gents,
A dozen years ago, or so, NAPA sold what it labeled as "soluble cutting and grinding oil." I sometimes couldn't find it on the store shelves, but the clerk at the counter was always able to find it listed in NAPA's huge merchandise catalog as NAPA Item Number 765-1526. Sometimes, when it wasn't on the store shelves, I'd have the clerk order some to be picked up days later.
I got my best accuracy in all my patched-ball rifles using Dutch's system, which involved mixing the NAPA oil 1-to-6 with well water, saturating the patching material with the oil-water mix, and allowing the cloth to dry. Black powder fouling, which otherwise would have hampered repeated reloading, was remedied by swabbing with a patch wetted with a very sparse oil-water mix (1 oil/30 water), followed by a dry patch between each loading.
The swabbing certainly complicated the loading process, but I felt the superb accuracy resulting from Dutch's method was worth the price in extra labor.
The only snag I found in the process was that some rifles would toss their first shot from a cold, clean bore to a different spot than the group formed by following shots. In loading for hunting situations, I finally resorted to popping a cap on a light blank load of black powder topped with a "wad" of paper, followed by wet/dry swabbing, then loading my regular hunting load. The loading routine was a "pain in the nether-region," but was necessary to make some finicky rifles place their first shots where they needed to go.
I killed quite a few whitetails with balls so patched in .50 and .54 caliber rifles. I also found the sparse oil-water mix (1-to-30) made a fine black-powder cleaning solution when the day's shooting was done.
Anyway, NAPA Item Number 765-1526 was stuff I used. Don't know if it is still available as such.
Happy trails,
-- Cary Gunn --
I've actually used and use NAPA water soluble oil and I've also for several years used Ballistol... both work well.. soluble oil last longer on the patch than does Ballistol, but if you're going to use it timely, doesn't make a whit of difference... except in MY OPINION... NAPA needs more water or an 8:1 ratio where a 7:1 worked with Ballistol... and this is not SCIENCE... just a fingertip analysis...
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |