Hawg,
No, I am not saying 10-W-40. I am saying that them who declare "mineral oil" to be good are wrong. "Mineral oil" is made from that same crude oil that your engine oil is made.
Personally, I like using olive (I use Pomace, the cheap stuff, on sale this week my local Italian grocer, for 9.99 per gallon.) I ain't using 30 bucks a gallon EVOO for shooting BP. I also save my lamb fat, and as a Serb I eat lamb, so have the fat to save, and even bacon fat. I eat that, also, and I don't throw lard away. I use it for cooking, and I also use it to make my lube.
Lamb fat, olive oil and bee's wax made in the right proportion make a lube that saturates my wool cloth that I punch my wads from. Short of lamb fat, I will use lard, bacon drippins. Get it soft enough to handle when it gets chilly out.
I gotta refer you to Sam Fadala who has tried ALL the lubes and says there is absolutely NO difference in how the residue builds up with ANY of them. If any of you don't have his book, "The Complete Blackpowder Handbook", I will scan a page or two referring to lubes.
A page I have perused says that olive oil and vegetable oils should be avoided.
See here: It seems like the alkaline powder residue is reacting with the olive oil to make a particularly corrosive mixture, and since Wonder Lube is supposed to have olive oil in it, this may be why they both react the same way. As was also seen with the first experiments, vegetable oils and materials containing them should be avoided if you are looking for corrosion-proofing.
That is from this link:
http://www.ctmuzzleloaders.com/ctml_experiments/corrosion/corrosion2.html
Hey! This ain't me! These is muzzle loader shooters.. We shoot BP too, but they have longer barrels.
The only real resemblance in any oil to another is it feels greasy. Some more than the other. But all oils are basically fats, whether you think we are burning dinosaur fat or not. As much of that fat is all those millions of years of trees and grass and any grains that their were getting pressed under all that weight 50 million years ago. All mixed up, but still "OIL".
WD 40 is oil, 10-W-40 is oil, Canola is oil, Mazola is oil, and Kroil is oil. They are all hydrocarbons. They all react in a similar way, but some, veggie oils, seem to react more with BP combustion products than others, and it seems that the veggie oils are worse than the petroleum oils, in some instances.
I don't care if you think that beef fat or sheep fat or pig fat or soybean oil is the best. That post, and another I have but can't find (I have tons of link, one was Knight Rifles, but it seems to have been left to go) had shot and scraped the residue and weighed it. It ain't there anymore, so can't use that.
If I can find that, I will post it.
Hawg,
As far as oils go, almost any oil you have on hand will do for shooting BP. Most of them will react less with BP than olive and some other vegetable oils will.
I am sorry to burst any bubbles. There is no historical USE even, of oils or greases used 150 years ago, other than the Whitworth wadding. Greased patches or wads date from about 1910, Elmer Keith's era. I think he invented the process we all adhere to today. You GOTS to grease the ball, either with an under or over ball glob of grease.
Sorry if that makes any of you unhappy, but that is the way I read it.
A ball that shaves eliminates front end chain fire. Period.
Gotta go to bed. Have fun cuttin' me down to size.
Cheers,
George
I will say that just because .375 ball works so well in my .36 Pietta revolver, that's no gaurantee you'll have as good results using my procedure in your .36 Pietta revolver
