And the sorry thing is that many people still believe in this horse hockey about seasoning the bore. Whenever I'm working with new shooters I find many with this kind of lube and they had it because they bought into the fairytale of bore seasoning. Thanks for the background on it; I'd never heard the history of how the con job started.
Mole Eyes
Before I go into this aspect of the so-called bore season I should point out that my comments are not intended to reflect on the present owner of that product name. I only wish I had been able to fill them in on the business tactics of the previous owner.
When Ox-Yoke was located in Maine, under the old owners, they had claimed that one could get 1000 shots plus with the lube without having to swab the bore and the lube would eliminate corrosion in t he bore.
Later I learned that all of their work with their test guns was done in a climate controlled building with the humidity control set for 30%. That in and off itself explained a lot to me.
About 12 to 15 years ago I decided to take a close look at the fouling left by the various brands of black powder. Literally collected bottles of fouling from my guns.
It has been said that black powder residue is hygroscopic. Given as a statement of fact. But in actuality it is a bit more complex than that.
What I found was that with "dry burning" powders, such as GOEX, Elephant, WANO, etc., they produce no water as a product of combustion. The residue left in the bore is dry. Nearly zero percent moisture content. After the fired projectile leaves the barrel the spent propelling gases also exit the barrel. This creates a pressure collapse in the bore and outside air rushes into the bore. If the R.H. of that air is 30%, or less, the powder residue in the bore remains dry. Once the R.H. on the in-rushing rises above 30% the fouling will quickly pick up moisture from that air. When the R.H. goes up around 85 to 90% the residue picks up enough moisture to almost form a liquid.
So at 30% R.H. or less, the residue is actually non-hygroscopic. Between 30% R.H. and around 85 to 90% it is hygroscopic. Above 85 to 90% R.H. it becomes deliquescent. Deliquescent being the property where sometime will get enough water out of the air to form a liquid.
You can sometimes see this when the powder residue on a flint lock lock changes color after you fire the gun on some days. When dry the residue looks white or light grey. As it picks up moisture from the air it will turn darker grey and then black or a greenish black color.
If the powder residue is dry, below 30% R.H. of the surrounding air you will see no rusting or pitting of the metal on which it was deposited. Simply not enough moisture to set up electrolytic corrosion cells on the surface of the metal. Then when you get up into that 85 to 90% R.H. range the residue is so wet that it forms a continuous liquid film on the metal which does not allow individual scattered corrosion cells to form.
So when Ox-Yoke found that their lube prevented rust and corrosion it was not the lube actually protecting the metal. It was simply that the powder residue did contain sufficient water/moisture to set up the corrosion cells that would produce surface rusting or pitting if there were any chloride salts in the residue.
This was simply an extension of the work I had been doing on the effects of "soaps" in PVC emulsion resins I worked with in my real job.
Most of this work actually came out of work where I tried to find out why the same can of powder could look completely different in the gun during different days on the range.
Mad Monk
