Antonio Zoli 58 Caliber

Old Zip patch lube is what the pioneers used, it is made from mutton tallow.
It works great for lubing the patches. Holds up well in warm weather.
One little tin will last a long time.
And, it smells good, too.
 
It's perfect patching material for patched round balls.
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Pillow ticking is .018 thick and based on mykeal's experience may be the proper thickness for loading balls into your bore, but it's not always the best for every bore.

Sometimes experimentation is needed to determine the best patch thickness for each individual gun.
There's a formula to use that based on the bore & ball diameter & groove depth. Slightly over thick patches are okay to use but if they're too thick then they can be difficult to load with especially after the bore gets fouled.

See pages 9 & 10 of the Lyman Shooter's manual below for info. about how to select the best size patch for loading a specific diameter of round ball in your bore.

http://stevespages.com/pdf/lyman_blackpowder.pdf

TC Bore Butter is probably the most popular brand of commercial patch lube. Each patch lube has slightly different ingredients, properties and viscosity.
 
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Pillow ticking is .018 thick and based on mykeal's experience may be the proper thickness for loading balls into your bore.
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I have some that's .018 and some thats .010.
 
mykeal said:
My best load is 60 gr ffg under a .570 round ball with a .018 lubed patch.
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Every pre-packaged commercial pillow ticking that I've ever seen that's sold at muzzle loading suppliers was .018 thick even if the thickness was not indicated on the label.
There may be pillow ticking that's thinner, but I'm pretty sure that most folks would agree that .018 is the standard thickness of pre-packaged pillow ticking.

There's plenty of perfectly good 100% cotton patching material that's not pillow ticking at all. And anything besides .018 pillow ticking would be hard to find. The pillow ticking that's sold at the Walmart craft dept. doesn't seem to be quite the same quality or thickness of the commercially pre-packaged pillow ticking. It's often thicker which causes many folks to complain that it's tougher to load with.
 
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The pillow ticking that's sold at the Walmart craft dept. doesn't seem to be quite the same quality or thickness of the commercially pre-packaged pillow ticking.
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Works fine for me. Just sayin.
 
WalMart used to have the pink and blue flower pillow ticking years ago that
was .010 thick. They stopped selling it and I went to Hancocks Fabrics to
buy the same. I bought a bolt of it. Now they don't have it anymore. I have
enough for about 30 years and I'm 67. I'm set!!
 
I have red striped that's .010 and blue that's .018 but is my understanding that it changes from bolt to bolt if not yard to yard.
 
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