Lube Question

[hillbilly571]

I'm casting some sabots and round balls for a 50 cal muzzle loader. I know they need to be lubed but all i have on hand is Lee's Liquid Alox. Is it ok to tumble lube these with that? Is there something i can mix with it to make it a lil better?

[True.grit]

Skip the alox and just use crisco.

[fastdadio]

I have always used the commercially available squeeze tube lubes from Thompson or Traditions with great success. Cheap and convienent. You mentioned sabots and round balls. Two entirely different bullets with different lube requirements. Lubed patch for the round ball. Weather or not to lube the sabot will get different answers. I have fired hundreds of sabots lubed and dry and found the best consistant/tightest groups firing them dry. This of course requires cleaning the bore after every shot. For me, cleaning after every shot is is only done in prep for hunting which is what I use my sabot shooter for and that first shot must count.

[swathdiver]

I'm casting some sabots and round balls for a 50 cal muzzle loader. I know they need to be lubed but all i have on hand is Lee's Liquid Alox. Is it ok to tumble lube these with that? Is there something i can mix with it to make it a lil better?

What kind of muzzleloader and what type of powder do you intend to use?

[Pyro&Black]

I'm casting some sabots and round balls for a 50 cal muzzle loader. I know they need to be lubed but all i have on hand is Lee's Liquid Alox. Is it ok to tumble lube these with that? Is there something i can mix with it to make it a lil better?

No lube for your sabots. Shoot them dry.

You probably have something else in your house for roundball patch lube. Go where the wife keeps her cooking oils and look for her virgin olive oil. Put it on your patch thin and it works very well. Another place to look is in your garage. Both GoJo Hand Cleaner and the white Permatex hand cleaner (in a blue can) works real well also. Lanolin is the main ingredient there.

[lobogunleather]

For patched round balls I have always (past 40 years or so) used vegetable oil, right out of the kitchen cabinet.

For conicals in BP guns (muzzleloaders and cartridge) I like pure white lithium grease applied liberally in the lube grooves. Available at any auto parts store in 4 oz. or 8 oz. tubes for less than $5, and each will lube many thousands of rounds.

I've never uses sabots, but I would expect they would perform best without lube.

[sungunner72]

I use a wax toilet ring melted down with some olive oil . Works good and Works great making wonder wads.

[Omnivore]

A lube very similar to what was used on the middle 1800s is Gatofeo #1. Look it up for the recipe. It uses bee's wax, mutton tallow (available from Track of the Wolf and elsewhere) and paraffin wax. The squeeze tube lubes will work well also, as will many, many other things, as you're beginning to see here.

[quilbilly]

It has been my experience with muzzleloaders that every barrel is different when it comes to shooting sabot. It has been a mystery to me that one of my barrels wants nothing on the sabot but a greased bore while another by the same maker likes the sabot greased on the sides. None like grease on the bottom of the sabot. You will have to experiment and those squeeze tube of lube like the 1000Plus and others are a convenient way to do that. Part of the fun of shooting muzzleloader in my opinion.

[hillbilly571]

thanks for all the tips, i'll experiment a lil and see happens.... some of these will go thrugh an Itialian made "hawkeye" open bolt design as soon as i find some caps for it

Thanks for this wonderful place, im gettin some really good cast boolits in a couple of different calibers and all are lookin pretty good.... ain't yet made it to the reloading stage but all good things take a lil time


Happy shooting

[John Boy]

A lube very similar to what was used on the middle 1800s is Gatofeo #1.
Interesting that folks continue to give credit to Gatofeo for the lube recipe. Here's the real source and credit
per a post by Gatofeo:

In a 1943 American Rifleman is a bullet lubricant recipe that I've used for about four years now. I feel it betters SPG in cost, and equals it in efficacy.
It was listed as the old factory recipe for outside lubricated bullets, such as the .32, .38 and .41 Colt cartridges. I use it to lubricate outside-lubricated bullets for the .32 Long Colt, which are fired in my Marlin Model 1892 rifle. Works great.

The recipe listed in that old American Rifleman magazine calls for:

10 pounds paraffin
10 pounds tallow
5 pounds beeswax

[reloader4410]

If you use Crisco, unsalted only. Happy trails.

[Good Cheer]

Got a pail of lanolin from a chemical supply warehouse place in Deer Park, TX years ago so I try to use lanolin-olive oil-beeswax and an occasional adjunct (lithium lube, crayons for ID color, really stinky Saturday night pool hall pomade) for most everything.

So far (three raps on the table) with a little tweaking the basic LOOB recipe has done everything asked of it with round ball and boolits. Except well, when you add other stuff it kinda throws off the acronyms.
:rolleyes: