Tell me about patch lubes.

[Dryball]

Whats your favorite patch lube? I've been told...use olive oil, or use lard, or mix lard with olive oil...some use store bought lubes, another guy will suggest I use a combination of deer tallow, beeswax, olive oil and horse feathers. Now come on! There seems to be no agreement on what works and why. Is there some secret ingredient in lard that just plain Crisco lacks? Can someone tell me that he has experimented with different patch lubes and which one works best for him...and why? And which ones to stay away from...and why?

Ned

[FrankG]

For general shootin  when I plan on shootin purty soon I use plain ol spit with a little 'bacy juice mixed in it ! Works good and kin shoot a whole match thet way .

[Dryball]

Why does it work? I'm trying to find the common denominator for those lubes that work.

Ned

[R.M.]

Equal parts : Murphy's Wood Soap, Olive Oil, 91% alcohol

[Oldnamvet]

I've tried bunches but am mostly too lazy (or not cheap enough) to make my own.  For warm weather range shooting I have settled on a water:ballistol mix.  For cold weather hunting, when I don't want something freezing up on me, I use mink tallow from TOTW.  Every gun has a preference but since I shoot mainly smoothbore with either shot or PRB, I'm not accurate enough to see the difference with various loads unless it is a really BIG difference.  I just want something that works and isn't too messy.  I used to use olive oil since it worked and was cheap (swiped it from the kitchen  devel) but I must have used too much and got my hands greasy.  Ended up wiping them on my shirt or pants and caught grief when it was spotted going into the laundry since the stains didn't always come out.

[Dryball]

Do you know why olive oil is used instead of other cooking oils?

Ned

[Oldnamvet]

Umm.....its healthier??
Seriously I don't know.  I used it because that was what was in the kitchen.  It also does seem to make very little fouling when it gets burned.

[Dryball]

Did you soak the patches or just rub some in?

Ned

[Doug]

Olive oil or Sweet oil is considered to be the purest oil that can be used for cooking so it's also pure for shooting.

Personally for range shooting and clean up I use an exotic mixture of water and a squirt of whatever dish detergent is on the kitchen counter (careful fellas if the little lady sees you with the dish detergent she might get the wrong idea and think you are going to wash some dishes for her then you are stuck, best to do this between two and three o'clock in the morning).  After every shot I wet a patch for wiping the bore and blot it with the shooting patch material this leaves enough moisture in the patch to swab the bore and enough in the shooting patch to help with easier loading and fowling reduction.  When I get home I clean with the same mixture mixed in a large coffee can with hot water cleanup is quick as you are basically only one shot dirty having swabbed after every shot.

For hunting I use unsalted hog lard, doesn't get hard in the cold weather we have here in Georgia, takes forever to dry out when in the bore but is not wet enough to seriously effect the charge if left over a reasonable period of time, (several days) and doesn't seem to effect accuracy.

[Oldnamvet]

Did you soak the patches or just rub some in?

   I would rub some in the end of a strip of ticking and then cut the patch at the muzzle.  I have some in a small squeeze bottle that used to contain paint.  It was not a very good system since the oil doesn't just absorb quickly and I ended up dripping it on myself, the gun, etc. Maybe if I had taken the time to prewet the patch material at home things would have been different.
   With the mink tallow, I just wipe the end of the strip across the tin and I'm good.  For the ballistol water mix, I prewet the patch strips, lay them out flat to dry in the basement, and then roll them up and use as needed.  The patch material seems "dry" but has a slick feel since the ballistol is soaked into the material.  Some people object to the smell but I kind of like it.  I also enjoy the smell of WD-40 so no accounting for my tastes.

   I still use the olive oil with my smoothbore when shooting shot.  A squirt into the muzzle before the overshot card is pushed down coats the barrel and keeps fouling down making subsequent loading easier.  I'll shoot 25 loads of shot this way and never have trouble with loading due to fouling.

[Ironwood]

Sweet Oils are more refined so have fewer impurities.  Sweet Oils regardless of which, corn, canola, almond, or olive oil have higher smoke points (the point at which the impurities in the oil starts to burn) than regular cooking oils.  I would suppose less impurities left in the bore after firing would be an advantage.
     
At one time I used cooking Olive oil to cook almost everything.  I stopped using it when I discovered the Olive oil was removing the seasoning from my cast iron skillets.   

[Dryball]

Never tried olive oil for cooking...does it impart a different flavor then other oils?

Ned

[FrankG]

Yes it does Ned , has a musky flavor to it . Some things makes it taste better some not . Some down right horrible !

[Pitchy]

I`ve been using Crisco for summer shooting for a long time and had good results. Target shooting using pillow ticking with rubbed in crisco i can shoot 20 balls in a row without swabbing the barrel. 

[Chaffa Hosa]

As far as why it works I have no clue
In my CVA 45 cal using crisco, go joe, spit, bore butter and several others, I had to brush after the second shot to be able to reload the third shot. I tried olive oil and could shoot 10 shots without much difficulty.

In my 54 cal LongShanks all I use is olive oil, I can shoot a complete circuit (15 - 20 shots) at a rondy without a problem. For my hunting load I still use olive oil just don't use as much in the soaking tin so the patches are a lot drier