Favorite BP lube recipes...Muzzleloading and Cartridges

[airman1094]

Hello all. I just wanted to see what others are using in home made bootlit lubes. The only thing currently I use lube on is my 1873 model trapdoor boolits. I cast my own and make my own lube using beeswax and Crisco. 3 parts beeswax to 1 part Crisco ratio. Holds the grooves well and is not very dirty in the bore, but yet pretty slick and biodegradable for whatever that is worth. What else is out there? Any recommendations? Id prefer to stick with a beeswax based lube if i can.

[Randy Bohannon]

50% olive oil /50% Beeswax ,I buy SPG on sale and add some of that. So my ratios and ingredients are somewhat of a mystery. My targets say this works for cartridge rifles and I suspect the lanolin in the SPG is the ingredient that makes it a good lube. 50/50 o.o.and beeswax has done very well all by its self,but blending some SPG has improved my lube and the targets says this is true.

[Castaway]

For black powder, Gato Feo #1. By weight; mutton tallow, paraffin, and bees wax in a ratio of 2:2:1 respectively. Works well for cartridges or cap and ball pistols. Crisco/olive oil/Murphy’s soap will foul out a revolver cylinder after 12-18 shots. I’ve yet to have a cap and ball or cartridge cylinder bind with Gato Feo Lube. It performs equally well in cartridge rifles. My 30” barrel or friends 32” barrel both have generous “lube stars” at the muzzle and barrel fouling is goopy and easily cleaned. Works well in moderate velocity smokeless loads too

[Maven]

Take a look at this thread and pay particular attention to Dale53's post: https://forum.castbulletassoc.org/thread/9393-pan-lubing-lube-formulas/

[Sasquatch-1]

As mentioned many times on this forum, stay away from petroleum based products for BP lube. The 50/50 bee's wax/tallow seems to be the easiest. If you need a harder lube for your area add a little more bee's wax. Softer lube a little less bee's wax.

[country gent]

My most used is Emmerts Improved
50% Beeswax
40% unsalted crisco vegetable shortening
5% canola oil
5% anhydrous lanolin

[greenjoytj]

Beeswax 50%, Crisco 35%, Lanolin 14.5%, 0.5% Carnauba.
Notice there is no liquid oil added and the lanolin was greatly increased.
This is an experimental lube batch to see if it can withstand firing in summer heat with black powder without quickly melting to liquid and lube purging.

Previously I’ve been using the above country gent recipe. It worked well but I want to try a modification to the recipe to see if it’s better or worse than the Emmerts recipe I had been using.

[country gent]

I forgot to add that I also add a very small drop of murphies oil soap as an emulsifier to help blend the ingredients better. I melt the ingredients in a double boiler. starting with the beeswax and crisco add the canola oil then the drop of MOS and lanolin.

Canola was one of the steam oils back in the day meant to work in the moist environment of steam valves and pistons. I would suspect in the original recipe it was sperm whale oil.

[DAVIDMAGNUM]

For muzzle loading. Ballistol
For metallic cartridge ,( 44WCF, 38-55 Winchester and 45-70 Govt) DGL. No need to make my own when I can get one pound tubs A LOT cheaper than SPG.

[Desertbuck]

2 Parts yellow beeswax
1 Part Crisco (Plane)
½ Part Pure Neatsfoot oil
½ Part Murphy's oil soap
I have had good luck with this since I got into black powder. Cap and ball, 45 Colt, 45-70 & 45-120.
It keeps powder fouling soft just as well as SPG from what I can tell. It has not melted on the hottest of days. And it doesn't get brittle when it gets cold. At least where I live.

[MaLar]

1# Beeswax, 1# mutton tallow, 2 oz Jojoba oil, 2 oz Lanolin. I then pour cakes in cheap kitchen containers and keep them in the freezer. When I need some I just melt in hot water remove the lid and pour in to sizer.

[missionary5155]

Bee's wax and olive oil. At roughly 50-50 Mix for 50 degrees to 80 degrees. When it is hotter about 55-45. When below 40 degrees 45-55. Long barrels need a bit more oil.
Tastes good on toast also.

[gunther]

Have used Ford Moly EP tube grease in my Old Army for 40 years. It works well enough to get through a NMLRA pistol Agg in two 30 minute relays. Good patch lube, works with maxiballs and 3F in a trapdoor (pop cans at 85 yards all afternoon). And it is very good with cast boolits and smokeless.

[yeahbub]

Emmert's original, aka "541" (5 parts beeswax, 4 parts unsalted veg shortening, 1 part canola, melted together in a double-cooker at as low a temp as will do it, say 140-60 degF) has served me well for both BP and smokeless, sometimes adjusted for temperature/weather conditions. Very clean results in BP .45 Colt carbine and C&B revolvers. Not a bad case/sizing lube also, stroke the cake with your thumb, smear on a tiny amount and size away. Currently experimenting with PC'd 311041's lubed with it in various .30's vs. dry PC for differences on target. One thing I have noticed about Emmert's is that if melted/re-melted at high temperatures, it tends to become brittle, a problem when pan lubing because the cake starts cracking up and leaving some boolits with lube gaps in the grooves. Keeping temps low and/or soften with more shortening or oil helps this.

Wondering about workable non-beeswax formulas using soy wax as a substitute. My beeswax guy passed away. Everybody else wants too much.

DGL? Pound tubs? Made by someone else? I feel like I just fell of the turnip truck. What's DGL?

[Castaway]

More about Gato Feo. Not only is it a great lube for cartridge black powder loads, and cap and ball revolvers, it makes an excellent boot dubbin, as good as SnoSeal, for your outdoor leather needs. There are some that stay away from using it with black powder because they associate the paraffin with the dreaded petroleum fouling that is frequently reported. The paraffin does not contribute to whatever is supposed to happen with using petroleum products.

[OFFSHORE]

I live/shoot 75% of the time here in Hot-as-Hell-FL, but all of my ML hunting is in the southeast. . .FL, GA, AL, SC, and NC. I have had very good success with 16oz. beeswax, 16oz. Crisco and 5oz. lanolin with 2 Crayola crayons for color purposes only (I like red or green), and I mostly pan lube my own cast boolits in .45 and .50 calibers. This formula works well in the 80/90 degree heat of ML season and the 20/30 degree temps of the Special ML Hunts as well.

[yeahbub]

Castaway notes correctly that parraffin, even though a petroleum derivative, does not cause the tar-like accumulations when combined with BP fouling. The difference is that parraffins are waxes and chemically different from oils, though I have no clue what the differences are. Ballistol is also from petroleum, but is a liquid parrafin, which is why it serves well with BP. My .40 Schuetzen underhammer shoots most accurately with a paper patched boolit seated on a card wad on the powder with the bore anointed with a thin sheen of ballistol.

Many years ago, as a young tyro, I was afield with my Armi San Paolo 1861 Colt .36 cal. and discovered I was out of lube. Hey, I'll just get a few drops off the dipstick, keep shooting and it'll be okay. Well, by the time I had 10 or 12 shots down range lubing with well-used SAE 10W-30, I couldn't hit a 5 gal. bucket from 10 feet. The bore had some unimaginable fouling from the infernal region in there with a texture like a dry creek bed and I was seeing dust kicked up by my boolits bizarrely wide of said bucket. I got the stuff out of there with enough hot soapy water, bronze brush and copious stroking, but my lesson about not using petroleum oil with BP was learned.

[GregLaROCHE]

My favorite is:
5% lanolin
5% castor oil
40% beeswax
40% mutton tallow (rendered fat from lamb)

[Winger Ed.]

For rifles, I use Lyman's Orange Magic.

For the .45ACP and .38DEWC slow target loads:
Since the kids grew up, I lost my supply of broken crayons.
Now days I sneak a couple of the wife's fu-fu smelling candles.

I melt and mix them with high-temp disc brake grease to soften it up a little.
At the range, the fu-fu candle blend smells much better than the crayon version.
I had one guy ask me if I got my ammo from San Francisco.

[yeahbub]

Hey, here's a thought: Has anyone ever tried coconut oil? I saw it for sale at Big Lots in various sizes and it appears to be solid at room temperature. Might have to try that. . . .

[Soundguy]

Hello all. I just wanted to see what others are using in home made bootlit lubes. The only thing currently I use lube on is my 1873 model trapdoor boolits. I cast my own and make my own lube using beeswax and Crisco. 3 parts beeswax to 1 part Crisco ratio. Holds the grooves well and is not very dirty in the bore, but yet pretty slick and biodegradable for whatever that is worth. What else is out there? Any recommendations? Id prefer to stick with a beeswax based lube if i can.

Same here..beeswax and Crisco or olive oil. I'm in Florida so I keep the mix pretty stiff too.. I kind of eyeball it.. But 70-30 or 80-20

[Castaway]

Melting point of coconut oil is 78 degrees. Winger Ed, am I to understand you use Lyman Orange Magic with black powder?

[GregLaROCHE]

Coconut oil and some amount of wax should work, but will cost more than other alternatives. I wonder what the smoke would smell like.

[Rich/WIS]

For range days I use Moose milk but for hunting where the rifle may not be fired for a long period use the pre-lubed patches from TC or CVA. Have a coffee can of bear oil that I have never tried, probably 10-12 years old and when I checked it this spring was still soft and had not gone rancid. have to drag it out and give it a try one of these years.

[HWooldridge]

My twist - also posted in the Simple Lube sticky:

4 oz beeswax
3 oz white petroleum jelly (Vaseline)
2 tsp two stroke oil
2 tsp universal tractor fluid (for hydrostatic transmissions)
1/2 tsp castor oil
1 tsp Johnson Paste Wax
1/2 tsp Ballistol

Melt beeswax and vaseline using a double boiler then add the rest and stir, allow to harden at room temp. I live in South Texas and wanted more beeswax for hardness - this doesn’t seem to “weep” when it’s hot weather.

Works great with smokeless or BP cartridge - I have never used it on muzzleloaders but expect it would serve the purpose, although it is somewhat firm. It comes out a light blue because of the two stroke oil I use.

[bandanaman]

Hey, here's a thought: Has anyone ever tried coconut oil? I saw it for sale at Big Lots in various sizes and it appears to be solid at room temperature. Might have to try that. . . .

There is coconut oil in a lube which has been very working well for me. The recipe was given to me by several fellows who have used it a lot. Just remember it as 3-1-1-1
3 parts bees wax
1 part olive oil
1 part coconut oil
1 part peanut oil

[Nobade]

Recently I've been playing with a mix of equal parts by weight beeswax and soy wax plus 20% of that total of ester based 2 stroke oil. It's very similar in feel to gatofeo #1 and has been working great in cartridge rifles and as a lube for shotgun cushion wads and revolver wads. If it's too stiff a bit of Crisco would probably soften it a bit but I haven't tried that yet.

[Black Beard]

Muzzle loading lube

1 part beef dripping (rendered beef fat).
1 part boiled castor oil (as used in Felix lube)
Small amount of calcium soap
Carnuba wax to reach required hardness.

Works nicely with pyrodex but in my ML revolver.

I recently bought some PEG 40 hydrogenated castor oil which could be interesting. It has long chain castor oil molecules and it acts as an emulsifier so it might lubricate and help with cleaning with black powder loads. Or maybe it will turn to a nasty mess.

[Green Frog]

I like my modified Emmert’s for most BP apps… pan lubed as per instructions from Dale53. My mod is to eliminate the Canola Oil and make up the difference with Anhydrous Lanolin plus a touch of Carnauba Wax for hardness and the polishing effect. For Summer matches I’ve been thinking of adding a bit more Beeswax for hardness and less melt off. I’m also thinking of filling one of my old Ideal #1 Lubricator/Sizers with it to process my 50 Maynard bullets.

Froggie

[Gobeyond]

I like the nra or spg clone. Beeswax- 1. Paraffin-2. Olive oil-2 parts in stead of mutton tallow. I like for bp and can’t wait to try it on 30-30. hmf. Slick, adheres well, plenty of lubrication. Low melting temp. but can be pushed out in an ooze in my barrel,
Feels light and right.