minie lube

[RichG]

what are the popular lubes for minie balls and Lee REAL bullets these days? Have some to try in an old Navy Arms 58 hunter.

[Daryl]

If I were to be shooting Minnies again, I would lube them with the same thing I did back in the 70's, that was 40:60, Beeswax/Vaseline,mixed by volume.
Later, I found this mix to work identically to SPG and Lyman's Black Powder Gold BP lubes. The grooves get filled, not the bases.
I also lubed up Lee R.E.A.L. bullets with the Lyman lube as well as my own & got identical results in a .45 GM barrel I had. After firing 10 shots with the bullets,
I went straight back to using patch round balls and did not need to wipe the bore first.
Those lubricants work.
I used First run Beeswax that I got from Michigan. The owners of the business were on a trip to Prince Rupert on our West coast, and dropped the wax off on their
way through PG - 25 pounds of it, $96.00 Cdn.
I still have a bit of it left, after kid's projects and my lubricant making & it's not for sale.

[Don Steele]

When I was shooting BPCR I started out with SPG. Works great but a little pricey for some shooting a lot, which I was. Besides, I generally prefer to make stuff myself when I can. The testing, etc becomes all part of the fun. I ended up using a variant of
“ Emmett’s Lube”. Mine was 50% Beeswax, 40% salt free shortening, 10% anhydrous lanolin. Pan lubed my 500 gn bullets with excellent results.
As an aside, for those interested, going through my BPCR notebook to find my data I found several pages of discussion on this topic that I printed out and saved from this forum in Feb 2017.
Hope this helps.

[Daryl]

Made an error in my mix. It was 60% Beeswax, 40% Vaseline. Add Vaseline or reduce it to make the lube softer or harder.
This was the late Paul Mathews lube for lube balls in the book "The Paper Jacket". It worked beautifully for me as a grooved
bullet lube, as well as grease "cookies" and as a lube for the R.E.A.L. bullets in my .45 flinter. I should add, the local chap, Neil
tried them on deer and found they killed very well, but not any better than round balls form the same rifle.

[RichG]

bees wax is easy to get and i have a bunch of bear grease that should work, but I might save it for patching round balls and try Vaseline. I did see a bunch of Maxi-lube at the last gun show but didn't buy any. Wasn't sure what 20-30 year old lube might look like The barrel has wide shallow grooves, but is 1in70 or so twist. I think it's designed for maxi's but seems more of a round ball twist.

[Daryl]

70" is absolutely a round ball twist, in any calibre.
Maxiballs were unstable upon impact with moose, when shot from 48" rates of twist, which is also a RB twist. It is not and never was a combination twist.
Those maxi's would not travel in a straight line, though the moose, turning on ribs and just muscle as well, tumbling inside and changing direction. A straight sideways shot
sometimes would not even catch a lung.
48" in .50 cal. was the standard twist for Hawken rifles made in the 19th century by Sam and Jake.
In .58 or .577 calibre, it was the ROT of the English Enfields & shot Minnie:balls well enough for the purpose as designed, for war.
The Beeswax and bear grease or oil would work fine, I imagine. Vaseline is a Petroleum WAX, not a Petroleum oil or grease of which neither will mix with or soften black powder fouling.
The Petroleum WAX will and does, just fine & is the ingredient which is used merely to "stiffen" the actual lube, the Petroleum wax.
I have tried using paraffin wax as well as Olive Oil in bullet lubes and had less than stellar results with those changes.
A tightly patched ball will shoot very well in that barrel.