Pre Lubed Patch Prices.....

Excuse the newb question. I have loaded up on Wonder Lube & Ox Yoke pre lubed patches to perhaps save on a little cleaning in between shots but I do notice they add up in cost. I looked at at dry patches plus Mink Oil but not much of a savings.

Are the homemade moose milk and like recipes worth it for helping keep the bore clean between shots, just continue with the commercial offerings that aren’t really that expensive in the big picture if they work or spit and swab between shots and make it routine...... Apologies if beating a dead horse.

Pre-lubed patches, e.g., Wonder Lube and Ox Yoke brands, are relatively expensive and may not perform quite as advertised. I.e., you'll need to wipe your bore after every few shots, especially with hunting loads. Additionally, pre-lubed patches will deteriorate over time and may not be thick enough to fit your particular patched ball combination. "Moose Milk" OTOH, is easy to make, does a very good job of keeping your bore clean, and does not require swabbing every few shots. Coincidentally, I was shooting today with my version of it, which is simply 1 part Ballistol, 1 part 90% isopropyl alcohol, and 6 parts water. Others use equal parts of household peroxide, Murphy's oil soap, and 72% - 90% isopropyl alcohol. Wet your patches at the range and squeeze the most of the excess liquid out until they're just shy of dripping and you're good to go. With Moose Milk, you can select the material thickness that works best for you rather than rely on pricey patches with exaggerated marketing claims. Btw, there are many other recipes for it if you search the internet, e.g., Stumpy's Moose Juice.

Part of the lore and concept of traditional muzzleloaders is self sufficiency DIY. Cut up yer own patch strips from cotton T-shirt or fabric store material, and there are SO many kinds of good patch lubes, from spit to moose milk oil blends to the more grease oriented gato feo. None of this stuff is difficult rocket science and you'll save money whilst learning some good stuff in the process that might just increase yer accuracy/scores.

A yard of pillow ticking of the right thickness, bought at your local fabric store, will last you a long time. Cut in strips, lube with your favorite and cut your patches on the muzzle. The ball will always be centered, you won't have to fiddle with trying to keep a round patch centered and they will probably outshoot store bought, lubed patches. I bought exactly one package of "pre-lubed, pre-cut" patches....almost 50 years ago. I don't believe I used 10 patches out of it. I got the impression from them that, "a fool and his money are soon parted".

I never clean between shots

One thing to keep in mind also is prelubed patches start to deteriorate after time.

I agree with making your own, and using moose milk. Best you can get. The pre-lubed patches will greatly contribute to fouling, necessitating more cleaning, and in cold weather can put you completely out of business.

Sorry - but I'm a bit confused about the statement that "prelude patches start to deteriorate after time".

I'm guessing that that some lubes may dry out over time due to their formula but, but a cotton/linen patch should not "deteriorate" unless there is something perhaps acidic in the make-up of the lube.

We still have my grandfathers .45 cal. plains style percussion rifle in the family. My grandfather was born in 1867 and he bought the rifle from a gentleman who came into the Michigan Territory just before statehood. My grandfather used the rifle up until the early 1900s - he was married to my grandmother in 1902 and I know he shot a neighbors dog at a distance of a little over 100 yards with the rifle after he got married. The neighbors dog was killing his sheep. At any rate, the matchbox on the rifle contains greased patches that my grandfather made. They are well over 100 years old and are as good as the day he made them. They appear to be lubed with a mixture of beeswax and mutton tallow - which makes sense since he had sheep in those days. How do I know they are as good as the day he made them? Because I used four of them in a .40 cal. flintlock that I built in the late 1990s. I was able to retrieve three of them and they worked as fine as if they had just been made up. One of the shots I took with those patches I used a BP charge using some of the same BP he used. He carried the powder in a small glass bottle with a cork stopper - we still have the bottle and it is over half full of what appears to be 3F - also have the mold and ball bag he used.

OP - if you decide to make your own patches - I went to Lowes and selected a number of "hole saws" that had an inside diameter the same as the size patches I use. I ground the teeth off and then sharpened the cutting edge beveling it on the outside towards the inside. I removed the center drill from the mandrel and use its in a drill press to cut patches. I use a lot of pillow ticking for patch material and buy cotton flannel material for cleaning patches. Was the "sizing" out of the fabric. I fold it in multiple layers and using a piece of scrap wood as a backer, I can cut a lot of patches in short time using my altered hole saw patch cutters.

Lots of different lubes you can make up. If I want a 0re-lubed patch, I usually melt my home made lube in the microwave - toss some patches in and then with a set of tweezers, pull them out and place between layers of paper towel to "pat" the excess lube off of them. If small enough, I store them in empty cap tins or if large, use a musket cap tin or an empty altoid mint tin.

Saves $$$ and as rfd points out . . . it's a "self sufficient" thing. For a number of my guns, I just cut strips and use Dutch Schultz's method - I like to "cut at the muzzle" for a number of my guns.

Good luck to you.

I'm not saying necessarily that all lubes cause deterioration but there has been much discussion on other boards about it. Previous known loads that shot well and all of a sudden went south. It was determined after examining the fired patched that the lube weakened them. This for the most part was prelubed store bought patches.

There are so many options for patch lube, patch material, and sundry processes for anything and everything trad muzzy. Try as many as you can and decide what's best for you.

I bud gave me some bear oil (thanx Ed!) and that makes a fantastic Killer patch lube! I also use Gato Feo #1 home brew, mainly for ball boards as GF#1 is not a liquid or oil lube, it's more of a wax lube since it's a blend of beeswax, paraffin wax, and mutton tallow.

If I'm not using a ball board, it's a patch strip because the resulting patches are perfectly centered in the tube's bore.

As far as commercial lubes, I'll pass, a good patch lube is easy to make and it's not rocket science.

At least for me, traditional muzzleloaders are as much about aesthetics as they are about messing around with guns, or shooting targets, or hunting. The more I can do on my own (building accoutrements, components, tools, and gunsmithing) the more satisfaction I get and the closer the connection to those very serious days of yore, when messing with guns meant life or death.

Thank You All very much! There is a wealth of information on here and I'm taking it all in. I reload already for my center fires and thought this would be no great leap but it is to a degree. B.C. has no special season for BP, it is lumped in with the rifle season, so I never took the plunge but now that we have a home in TX the game has changed with hunting. The funny part is now it is morphing into something a whole lot more than hunting, lucky I never went down this rabbit hole like I wanted to when I was young and broke lol....... The help is much appreciated.

I heard back in the day they only cleaned their bores when they couldn't ram the ball all the way home. Works great for me. All fun no work, to a point.