Bear Grease

[pulaski]

Anyone use it for patching ?
Rendered some down (it's snow white with zero oder) .
Have used it on leather and it works great .
Thoughts , opinions ?
Thanks in advance , Steve

[elk killer]

Steve,
for the past 37 years thats all i have ever used for patching,,
works great summer and winter,,i have rendered,,and have a bunch of fat
im going to render this week,,hopefully..!!
it is white with little no no oder,,just have to do it slow and dont scorch it..
i have some from 4 or 5 yrs ago,,and its still in great shape

[Ben I. Voss]

Bear grease and whale oil seem to have been the favorite patch lubes of old. Always wanted to try bear grease for patch lube, but we have only slightly more bears around here (western illinois) these days than whales! Don't suppose you would have a dab you'd like to share? I'd love to give it a try.

[Dphariss]

Many rendered bear oil for the rifle and used the bear grease for cooking. I have heard it is superior to anything else for pie crusts ect.

Dan

[northmn]

Many rendered bear oil for the rifle and used the bear grease for cooking. I have heard it is superior to anything else for pie crusts ect.

Dan

Heard that from an old sausage maker meat cutter also, that it makes great pastries.  Read "snow shite with no odor".

DP

[Daryl]

Many rendered bear oil for the rifle and used the bear grease for cooking. I have heard it is superior to anything else for pie crusts ect.

Dan

Best pie crusts my wife ever made, bar none - was when she ran out of shortening and 'sole' some of my bear grease.  Of course, I'd used too much heat, but it still shot wonderfully.

[elk killer]

Ben,,
email me..ill send ya a little see if u like it

[Michigan Flinter]

  Thats all I use straight bear fat white as snow and easy to spread on my patch materisl.I don't have to worry about cleaning between shots and cleanup is fast.Great for hunting in the cold weather In the summer I will add some beeswax to stiffen it up some.Great for chapped lips ,waterproof your moc's or hemroids just don't get the sequence of use out of order.

[Roger Fisher]

My use of it is for patching lube in the loading block for cold weather deer hunting.

I should try it as a leather 'treatment'  Never did.

[pulaski]

Ben , if you need some I have plenty .
Have about 30-40 lbs. in the freezer , Haven't rendered it down yet .
I render it in water . Bring it to just short of a boil for several hours , then fish out the chunky stuff . After that , let it sit over night (outside) . In the morning I'll drain the water out from underneath and refill with cold water . This process will be repeated twice more . In the end there should be nothing but snow white, oder free grease on top .
If any one has a better (read faster) way of doing it I'd love to here .
As allways , thanks
Steve

[Daryl]

I have heard of rendering fat in water and know that too much heat produces shortening, as in heavy grease rather than oil. Too, the internal fat around intestines and organs has a higher oil content than outside body fat and produces better, clearer oil. Low heat is the key and can be done in a big pot over low heat, then filtered in cheese cloth. A hot plate is probably better than any flame, which tends to be too hot in a localized area.

I've rendered Hoary Marmot (the high elevation big ones) fat taken from around the organs - incredible oil it is - so slick and waterproofing - best oil there is imho and I think superior to bear oil.  I suspect late or very early season groundhogs should provide similar oil as the internal fat is so oil-heavy, that you can merely smear the lumps of fat onto your boots & let it soak in for weather proofing. It's better at that than any commercial leather water proofer I've tried and I've tried a lot of different commerical preps. Marmot oil was supoerior and longer lasting as well.  Unfortunately, they are now protected here.

After handling the fat, you have to wash your hands twice in a good dish washing detergent to get it off.

[Roger Fisher]

I have heard of rendering fat in water and know that too much heat produces shortening, as in heavy grease rather than oil. Too, the internal fat around intestines and organs has a higher oil content than outside body fat and produces better, clearer oil. Low heat is the key and can be done in a big pot over low heat, then filtered in cheese cloth. A hot plate is probably better than any flame, which tends to be too hot in a localized area.

I've rendered Hoary Marmot (the high elevation big ones) fat taken from around the organs - incredible oil it is - so slick and waterproofing - best oil there is imho and I think superior to bear oil.  I suspect late or very early season groundhogs should provide similar oil as the internal fat is so oil-heavy, that you can merely smear the lumps of fat onto your boots & let it soak in for weather proofing. It's better at that than any commercial leather water proofer I've tried and I've tried a lot of different commerical preps. Marmot oil was supoerior and longer lasting as well.  Unfortunately, they are now protected here.

After handling the fat, you have to wash your hands twice in a good dish washing detergent to get it off.

Jeez and here I thought we would have a source for Hoary Marmot til you pointed out they are now a protected species.   Guess, I have to scratch some fat off the one that lives across the street.  Plenty on that one!

[pulaski]

Daryl , I know what you mean about the hand washing (2X) . This was the inspiration for using it on leather , just doesn't seem to wash off .
I rendered it in the water so as to get the white , crisco like , consistancy . I've seen where people have sought out just the oil but I thought this type would be better for leather .
We have a shoot this coming weekend and I will give the bear grease a try . I'll try to post my results here .
Thanks , Steve

[Dancy]

Anybody ever try October Country's Brambling Bear Grease? Any good? The real deal?

[Long John]

I've been using bear grease for patch lube and rust preventative for years. 

Our experience differs a little form what has been posted here.  We render the bear fat down in a large steel kettle over a fire.  We make sure that the fat is cut up onto chunks about an inch across and fill the kettle up with water at teh start of the cook.  As the mixture boils the  water in the fat boils out leaving grease/oil behind.

The grease we get is so liquid at room temperature that we thicken it with bee's wax (about 1 part bee's wax to 4 parts bear grease) for patch lube.  It seemed that the addition of the wax helped the loading of successive shots.

As a rust preventative it is great.

Best Regards,

JMC

[pulaski]

Observations from Sun. shoot at Ft.Oneida .
Bear grease - loads as easy as any other products I've tried .
Accuracy - appears to be more consistant from shot to shot
Clean up - after 20 shots it was a 10 patch clean up (last 5 minimal dirt)
Opinion - This will be my new patch lube from now on . The barrel felt slicker as I would load each succesive shot . Clean up is as easy or easier than anything else I've used .
Notes - did not clean between shots ( I know , it's better to clean after each shot)
          - patches were lubed 2 days before shoot (greasy but not dripping)
          - scored an 89 @ 100yds.  and a 92 @ 50 yds.
Any questions I could help with , I'll try .
Thanks , Steve

[Daryl]

In the past I've noted the difference in shot to shot uniformity between lubes like spit and the oils or greases as well as the jump in variations using pyrodex.

I recently found some chronograph results made in my .58 Hawken back in 1978. The barrel was 34" long, 1 1/8" straight octagonal & the rifle weighed around 12 pounds.  Still with heavy loads, it kicked a bit with that narrow, hooked butt plate. Powder was either GOEX or GOX or C&H
: 95gr. 2F - .575" 285gr. RB .022" denim - spit, 1,424fps 48fps variation----bear grease, 1,490fps 97fps variation
140gr. 2F - .575" 285gr. RB .022" denim - spit, 1,683fps 10fps variation----bear grease, 1,736fps 69fps variation
160gr. 2F - .575" 285gr. RB .022" denim - spit, 1,792fps   8fps variation----bear grease, 1,867fps 74fps variation
185gr. 2F - .575" 285gr. RB .022" denim - spit, 1,887fps   9fps variation----bear grease, 1,951fps 42fps variation

This rifle, with the powder avaiable to us back then, shot pie-plate sized groups at 100 yards using 95gr. 2F,however with 140gr. would hold in the 1-1/2" range with spit and just over 2" with bear grease.  At this time, the bear grease was about 4 years old and still working well for hunting.

More Cronograph stuff, same gun.
675gr. Minnie 150gr. 2F - 1,250fps - 2,342fpe 72.80  KO value(J. Taylor)
675gr. Minnie 160gr. 2F - 1,325fps - 2,605fpe 77.20  KO value(J. Taylor)  This load approaches the .577 Black Powder Express for bullet weight and powder charge (eceeds some listed loads), but is a bit slower than the highest listed velocity, by 300fps.  That could be due to the accuracy of the chronographs (or velocity guesses) of the day.
Those loads kicked a bit.  Accuracy was around 4" at 100 meters, but a mite biting for shooting off the bench.