Thread: Black powder lube

A customer of mine gave me a block of bee wax yesterday so have made myself a bowl of lube 50%bees wax 40% chef aid 5% canola oil and5% lanoline by volume. Looks good and I'll have something to eat if I get hungry out shooting.

I made a lube almost the same as yours ,I still use some for leather treatment and mixed some with linseed oil as a stock polish .
The point of bees wax in bp lube is to keep the lube at the same consistancy and stop it melting and contaminating the powder , I have 6 patched round ball rifles- and wont use bees wax in them because it clags up the bore , I did use it on cartridge rifles for lubing both the bullet and the wads with a lot of cleaning between shots , and use it for lubing wads for my 3 ml shotguns . Beer mats soaked in melted lube make fine over powder cards and when stacked up make great shotgun wads .

I am shooting cartridge rifles so will see how it goes, am at work at present so see what the consistancy I can add more oil to loosen it up if needed. I use natural cork flooring tiles, lubed, for my 12g but beer mats sound like a good suggestion. I have a .58 Enfield muzzle loader but always find Im swabbing it out even with that cal, the cartridge guns I put thru 30 rounds without cleaning with no loss of accuracy.
Good thing with BP it the experimenting, just working to load a 12G sxs sleeved to .55 cal and chambered in 28G thats proving to be a challeng

Beer mats sizzle and suck up the lube then go quite hard , if you are loading cartridges the basic formula for accuracy is the bullet should just touch the rifling , the powder should fill the case behind the bullet , use wads, to fill the air gap, a couple of milk carton wads under the bullet to protect its base -then beermats or cork or engineering felt - to soften the residue and fill the gap then a plain card over powder wad to protect the powder , use a magnum primer, drop the powder into the case down an alloy tube at least 60cm long , I use a Lyman BP powder thrower with an extension tube .this lets the granuels settle in nice and snuggly
Try filling the cavity in the back of the Minie ball on the 58 with lube
What case are you using for the 28ga , is it a rifle?

Cotton patches with beaver grease

Originally Posted by Druid

Beer mats sizzle and suck up the lube then go quite hard , if you are loading cartridges the basic formula for accuracy is the bullet should just touch the rifling , the powder should fill the case behind the bullet , use wads, to fill the air gap, a couple of milk carton wads under the bullet to protect its base -then beermats or cork or engineering felt - to soften the residue and fill the gap then a plain card over powder wad to protect the powder , use a magnum primer, drop the powder into the case down an alloy tube at least 60cm long , I use a Lyman BP powder thrower with an extension tube .this lets the granuels settle in nice and snuggly
Try filling the cavity in the back of the Minie ball on the 58 with lube
What case are you using for the 28ga , is it a rifle?

Druid nearly doing all you have said,am particular on the seating depth/overall cartridge length. I made myself a drop tube and it works well. Fill with powder then use milk carton wad and then wad of bees wax with lubed projectile seated hard on that with a little bit of compression.
These are 45/70 fired from a trap door, this month I was impressed with their accuracy.i size the projectile thru a .451 die
The 28 guage is a 12 guage shotgun sleeved smooth bore to .55" am still experimenting with putting it together.
The 577/450 I am welding the lever tangs and maching to centre the firing pin, not back together yet
The 12 g sxs is a William Evans (from Purdys )1902 just re stocked by Kevin Gaskill in Raglan, has a top Webbly Scott action, came up very nice
Thanks for your interest I will experiment with the beer mats for the shotgun

Originally Posted by Toby

Cotton patches with beaver grease

I have better uses for Beaver Grease

William Evans ( from Purdy) worked for Purdy then left and set up in his own business and put the Purdy name on his guns for a while till they made him stop it , If you send one to Purdy they used to cut it in half and send it back , probably still do

Closest I'll get to owning a Purdy, visited their outlet in London, would need to sell my batch to buy one. But the guy said he gets people off the street buying and writing a cheque, their off the shelf stuff has a 6 weeks finishing period b4 you collect and about 2 years if purpose made. The sales guy said he had never fired a shotgun and was to lowley to get out to their sporting days. Never invited!
I heard Evans had a Purdy daughter on the side the never went down well with her dad who excommunicated him. Using from Purdy was his way of getting back