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Thread: Favorite BP lube recipes...Muzzleloading and Cartridges

  1. #1
    Boolit Mold
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    Favorite BP lube recipes...Muzzleloading and Cartridges

    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.

  2. #2
    Boolit Master Randy Bohannon's Avatar
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    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.

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    Boolit Master Castaway's Avatar
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    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

  4. #4
    Boolit Master Maven's Avatar
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    Take a look at this thread and pay particular attention to Dale53's post: https://forum.castbulletassoc.org/th...lube-formulas/

  5. #5
    Boolit Master Sasquatch-1's Avatar
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    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.
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  6. #6
    Boolit Grand Master

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

  7. #7
    Boolit Master
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    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.
    Last edited by greenjoytj; 08-16-2022 at 11:03 PM.

  8. #8
    Boolit Grand Master

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    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.

  9. #9
    Boolit Buddy DAVIDMAGNUM's Avatar
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    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.

  10. #10
    Boolit Buddy Desertbuck's Avatar
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    2 Parts yellow beeswax
    1 Part Crisco (Plane)
    ˝ Part Pure Neatsfoot oil
    ˝ 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.
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    Boolit Buddy MaLar's Avatar
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    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.
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  12. #12
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    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.
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  13. #13
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    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.

  14. #14
    Boolit Master
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    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?
    Last edited by yeahbub; 07-21-2022 at 12:34 PM.

  15. #15
    Boolit Master Castaway's Avatar
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    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.

  16. #16
    Boolit Buddy
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    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.

  17. #17
    Boolit Master
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    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.

  18. #18
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    My favorite is:
    5% lanolin
    5% castor oil
    40% beeswax
    40% mutton tallow (rendered fat from lamb)

  19. #19
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    For rifles, I use Lyman's Orange Magic.

    For the .45ACP and .38DEWC slow target loads:
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    I melt and mix them with high-temp disc brake grease to soften it up a little.
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  20. #20
    Boolit Master
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    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. . . .

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

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