to lube or not to lube

[straight_shooter]

Simple quest ,,I guess.
I read that its the Patch one lubes. .Not the ball...
. Why not the ball also?
Example , Lee's "Liquid Alox" , used on my case Bullets for reloads.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

does ball touch the barrel?

[Tracy]

No need to lube the ball; just the patch.
And, Alox is a bad idea for a muzzleloader. Unless you like cleaning black tar out of the barrel.

[gwpercle]

The patch wraps around the ball , gives a tight fit of ball to rifling and the patch touches the rifling more and it holds more lube than a ball .
Lubing the patch works better than lubing the ball and is less messy .
Now we are talking about round lead balls ... not other kinds of projectiles , like the pointed , hollow based, Minnie Ball boolit ... that is a whole different thing .
They are different and loaded and lubed differently .
Smokeless powder lubes are generaly not great for black powder lube ... SPG Bullet Lube is the only one I know of that can be used for both black powder and smokeless powder bullet lubes ... but they may be others .
Gary