Lehigh Valley Lube

[Dennis Glazener]

I have never used Lehigh Valley Lube until I recently bought a bottle. I am concerned about it. I field cleaned my .54, brought it home and ran several patches with LHV lube on it. Noticed they came out brownish yellow. Put another patch LHV through it and left it for 3 days. Ran 2 or 3 more LHV patches in it today and still brownish/yellow. Is this normal? I used Balistol before and had not noticed them being this color.
Dennis

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Dennis, you may be on to something.
My buddy Neil brought over his .54 cal Hawken barrel last week.  It is 28 years old.  He had been hunting with it - got a mule deer I understand.  He fired a couple of caps to clean the oil out of the nipple and cone, then loaded it using Lehigh Valley lube.  It was five days later that he touched it off with success.  But when he went to clean it, he found a rusty spot at the breech.  I pulled the breech plug which shows no sign of rust other than it is not bright any more.  But there was deep pitting in the area where the charge would have been.  Both the lands and grooves were pitted over a distance of a little over an inch from the face of the plug.  Neither of us has experienced this on any other rifle with any lube we used prior to Lehigh.  We do not know what caused the rust, but it was significant.
I put the barrel in the lathe and polished out the rust, creating a tapered "chamber".  He may have to increase his load by ten grains, but the rust is gone and the bore is now the same polish from end to end.
Could the lube have reacted with the powder to cause the rust?  It couldn't have been the caps because the cone and nipple seat are not rusty.
I will take a barrel stub and load it with FFg and a Lehigh patched ball, and leave it in the shed for a while to see if this recurs.  Stay tuned.

[Dennis Glazener]

Just to make sure of what went on. I hunted with the rifle last Friday. Fired it once to clear the charge. Cleaned it with Murphy oil soap mixed with Alcohol then rinsed the bore with alcohol. Dried with a couple of patches then put a couple of wet patches of LHV lube in bore to protect it. Sunday afternoon I put a couple of dry patches through the bore and both had brownish/yellow color. I then used several wet patches (LHV) and then dried bore and then a damp patch with LHV lube to protect. This afternoon I checked and dry patches came our with brownish/yellow color on the dry patches. Concerns me. So I will go back to using my Balistol until I figure out what is going on.
Dennis

[William Worth]

Where did you find a bottle of LHV to buy? 

[Daryl]

I don't know what's happening, Dennis.  Neil's rifle shows a perfect bore, except where the cap-fash would have deposited it's fouling. Neil wasn't sure if he's possibly used corrosive caps or not- they may have been Italian or Spanish made caps - not sure. What is sure, is that the rest of his bore is perect - absolutely brilliant, which would have had a coating of LHV in it all the time it was loaded. The rust part was only where the powder sat while he was hunting - the last 1 1/2" of bore ahead of the plug.  Yes, it's intriquing.  I've been using LHV for trail walks and for cleaning the odd time at rondy - my bore is perect still. Go figure.  I wonder is the balistol and LHV don't like each other.  Balistol is a petrolium derivitive, isn't it?  I know it's soluable in water - but perhaps the chemical mix doesn't work.

 I'll continue using LHV for winter shoots as nothing yet matches it for accuracy at time. I've found in warm or hot weather, spit works better. Spit isn't as slippery to load at any time, but actually shoots better in the summer - go figure.  LHV expands groups for me by over 2X in warm weather. There is no powder charge with either 3F or 2F that shoots well during those months. Spit rules with either powder- but only in a warm climate.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I breeched a 6" length of GM .50 cal barrel this afternoon, and loaded it with 65 grains FFg and a LV saturated patched ball.  I set it out in the car port and in a week, I'll check it for deterioration.  Temp now is above freezing and damp.  If it is unaffected, I'll install a nipple, fire a couple caps and repeat the experiment.
Lehigh Valley Lube has alcohol in it, and alcohol can pull water out of the air.  We all know what water left in a barrel does - Iron worms!

[Mad Monk]

Dennis,

Look at the label on the back of the bottle.

Lestom Laboratories or Ox-Yoke???

When the water and alcohol evaporate from the lube you have a orangish brown residue.  The base ingredient in the lube that makes it work.  It will leave a colored film in the bore.  So a discolored patch would be normal after using the lube in the bore.

When Ox-Yoke took over the lube they cut the amount of active ingredient.  The solids in the lube went from 8% down to between 5 and 6%.  At the same time the pH went from around 8.0 up close to 11.0.
The Ox-Yoke produced lube was not as good as what Tom DeCare, at Lestom, had produced.

[Mad Monk]

Could the lube have reacted with the powder to cause the rust?  It couldn't have been the caps because the cone and nipple seat are not rusty.
I will take a barrel stub and load it with FFg and a Lehigh patched ball, and leave it in the shed for a while to see if this recurs.  Stay tuned.

The joys of leaving a powder charge in the bore for more than a short period of time.

If the powder charge picks up any moisture there will be a chance of corrosion where the grains of powder contact the bore's surfaces.  The lube used may or may not play a part in this.  When the charge is to be left in the gun any length of time you should avoid a lube that is water based.

When the surfaces of the powder grains pick up moisture you will get a wetting of the surfaces of the grains.  When the potassium nitrate begins to dissolve into that thin film of water it forms an electrolyte and you will get pit corrosion at the point of contact with the bore walls.  The key here is the point of moisture pick up on the surfaces of the grains of powder.

This has long been a problem with flintlocks here in PA with the winter flintlock deer season when shooters do not seal vents and the charge picks up moisture through the vent.  This problem showed up long before Lehigh Valley lube came on the market and was seen with Wonder Lube and other lubes.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

MM - I appreciate your input on this.  I was unaware that LV had water as well as alcohol.  That will always cause trouble.  In spite of this, the rifle went off when he needed it, and he killed a deer, so the powder wasn't soaked.

[Roger Fisher]

Could the lube have reacted with the powder to cause the rust?  It couldn't have been the caps because the cone and nipple seat are not rusty.
I will take a barrel stub and load it with FFg and a Lehigh patched ball, and leave it in the shed for a while to see if this recurs.  Stay tuned.

The joys of leaving a powder charge in the bore for more than a short period of time.

If the powder charge picks up any moisture there will be a chance of corrosion where the grains of powder contact the bore's surfaces.  The lube used may or may not play a part in this.  When the charge is to be left in the gun any length of time you should avoid a lube that is water based.

When the surfaces of the powder grains pick up moisture you will get a wetting of the surfaces of the grains.  When the potassium nitrate begins to dissolve into that thin film of water it forms an electrolyte and you will get pit corrosion at the point of contact with the bore walls.  The key here is the point of moisture pick up on the surfaces of the grains of powder.

This has long been a problem with flintlocks here in PA with the winter flintlock deer season when shooters do not seal vents and the charge picks up moisture through the vent.  This problem showed up long before Lehigh Valley lube came on the market and was seen with Wonder Lube and other lubes.

Hey 'Mad' welcome back didn't see any of your most welcome posts lately

[Seven]

I had a similar experience last muzzle loader season.  A .54 loaded with Goex FFg and a patched round ball with LHV.  I didn't fire the rifle all weekend.  When I took the charge out on Sunday night there was a ring of corrosion around the bore where the ball and powder meet.  I didn't measure it to find out exactly where it was in relation to the charge/ball but the patch showed the discoloration of the corrosion on it.  So in my mind it was the lube and not the powder that had the problem.  What I assumed happened was that I had gotten some fine snow down the barrel and it had melted into the patch material, and then sat there and rusted.  
-Chad

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

With all this in mind, I would advise NOT using this type of patch lube for a hunting load.  I've been using a tallow-like lube called Lube 103 for the past ten years or so, and I have not experienced any bore deterioration at all.  So stick to the animal fat/oil concockshuns and save your barrels.  LV is wonderful for target and trail shooting but I won't use it for prolonged load.

[Darkhorse]

The process "Mad Monk" is referring to is known by some people as Galvanic corrosion. I know about these things because the same thing happened to a rifle I built for turkey hunting, a .40 Rice barrel with ring of corrosion. I had left it loaded in the damp spring for 2 weeks waiting for a new mainspring to be delivered.
I have never had this happen with LHV loaded for deer in our dry winters. Although this has made me clear and clean my rifles more often during deer season.
LHV is bad stuff. For your firearms sake please pack all your unused LHV and send it to me for disposal.   Thank you.

[chuck c.]

I will never use LVH for a hunting lube again. Last year I left my rifle loaded for three days while hunting deer in southwest Texas. After killing a nice 10 pt. I thoroughly cleaned the rifle and coated the bore with accraguard. I'm very anal about the condition of the bore and after a few days I wipe out the oil and reapply. When I did this I could feel pitting where the patched ball sets on the powder charge. It wasn't too bad (if you consider any pitting in your bore ok) and could only be felt when the bore was dry. I pulled the breech plug and again it was much easier to see the pitting when the bore was dry, but it was there, right where the patched ball sits on top of the powder. I scrubbed it with a scotchbrite pad which improved it somewhat. It doesn't seem to have hurt the accuracy of the rifle on paper or game (killed an 8pt. and a doe last week) but I will never use it as a hunting lube again. The sad thing is that I had heard so many good things about LVH and during the "panic" I brought several bottles! Since I only use my rifles for hunting, it wasn't a very smart thing to do. The barrel was a Rice B weight, .54 cal. It's the original formula by Lestorm Labs.

[Mad Monk]

With all this in mind, I would advise NOT using this type of patch lube for a hunting load.  I've been using a tallow-like lube called Lube 103 for the past ten years or so, and I have not experienced any bore deterioration at all.  So stick to the animal fat/oil concockshuns and save your barrels.  LV is wonderful for target and trail shooting but I won't use it for prolonged load.

Am I permitted a bit of a chuckle here.

The Lube 103 is far from a tallow.
Young Coutry 103 Lube has been around for a long time.  Going back into the early 1980's.  Twas nothing more than repackaged Chap Stick.  A petrolatum based lube.  About 45 parts of Petrolatum with cetyl alcohol and about 50 parts of water with a topical agent for chapped lips.

The story went that Young was at the range one day and had forgotten his patch lube.  But he did have a tube of Chap Stick in his pocket which he then used to lube some patches and it worked well.
If you heated his plastic container to dip patches in the melted lube it separated out with the petrolatum floating on the water.
The first Ox-Yoke lube out was nothing more than repackaged Young Country 103 which itself was repackaged Chap-Stick.

Now before folks go ballistic on the thing about petrolatum being a petroleum product it is important to understand that it is a wax.  Petroleum waxes will not asphalt varnish a bore with black powder.
It was Bottomly at Ox-Joke who started this whole nonsenical thing about petroleum products in a bp bore.  Petroleum waxes are no problem  Petroleum oils and greases are a problem.

[Mad Monk]

Hey 'Mad' welcome back didn't see any of your most welcome posts lately

Well with all of the global warming we have had to put the bicycles away with the cold and the snow so I get more time at the computer.  Been up your way a bunch of times to pedal the Lehigh Gorge.
When we weren't ducking deer on the Philly trail!!
Darn things are a menace.

[billd]

Bill,    Could you explain in laymans terms the difference between petrol wax and petrol oil and grease? And how to know which is in what?

Thanks,
Bill

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Well I'll be !@*%&@!  I'm laughing with you MM!!  I don't use chap stick or buy bottled water.  But Lube 103 is an excellent patch lube, and I shall continue to use it in my bullet board and hunting rifles.  I trust it not to rust my bore.
Here's another funny thing...Young Country made a product called "Wood Love" and put it into a similar container yet different label to their 103.  It smells and acts exactly the same as the 103 - i suspect it IS the same.  That's marketing for ya'!!

[don getz]

Monk....I remember when that 103 lube came out, and I used it and loved it.....never really tried to figure out what was in it.    As for Lehigh Valley Lube, it is a great patch lube, and cleaner, BUT, I would never put it back in the bore as a protector against rust.  It doesn't really have any good rust preventive ingredients in it.....I still used Accragard, which
still somewhate reminds me of STP....thick oil, but it has always done a good job for me.......Don

[billd]

Don,   
Did you ever use Cimguard 10, made by Cincinatti-Milacron in your business? We make hydraulic components from 12L14 and many other alloys including ductile and cast iron and use it exclusively for rust protection and moisture displacement, both in storage and shipping.  Some found it's way into my gun barrels and it works great. For long term storage it does get a little waxy.  After drying the water from my barrels I just run a saturated patch of this stuff in and out a few times.  I clean with alcohol before shooting.  I have modern guns stored in a safe in my basement that haven't been used in 10 years and they are rust free.

Bill

[Dennis Glazener]

Where did you find a bottle of LHV to buy?

Blackpowder Bill.com had 2 bottles for sale.
Dennis

[Dennis Glazener]

I don't know what's happening, Dennis.  Neil's rifle shows a perfect bore, except where the cap-fash would have deposited it's fouling. Neil wasn't sure if he's possibly used corrosive caps or not- they may have been Italian or Spanish made caps - not sure. What is sure, is that the rest of his bore is perect - absolutely brilliant, which would have had a coating of LHV in it all the time it was loaded. The rust part was only where the powder sat while he was hunting - the last 1 1/2" of bore ahead of the plug.  Yes, it's intriquing.  I've been using LHV for trail walks and for cleaning the odd time at rondy - my bore is perect still. Go figure.  I wonder is the balistol and LHV don't like each other.  Balistol is a petrolium derivitive, isn't it?  I know it's soluable in water - but perhaps the chemical mix doesn't work.

You know, that might be it. I wiped my .45 (different rifle) out and applied LHV in it, let it sit over night and ran 2 dry patches through it the next day. Both had light brownish/yellow residue but not as bad as the .54 had. I used a couple of patches sprayed with WD40 in both rifles. Left them overnight and they come out clean. Go figure!
Dennis

[Daryl]

Interesting - well, guess I won't use it for hunting - but I sure as shootin' will use it for the trail walks.
:   I assume from what Bill said, that Vaseline is a wax, not a thick liquid petrolium oi.  It surely does work in CTG. guns shot with BP.  of course, it's mixed with beeswax, 60% BW/40% Vas.
: I'm down to my last 2 bottles. Guess they'll last the winter and then some.

[Dennis Glazener]

Dennis,

Look at the label on the back of the bottle.

Lestom Laboratories or Ox-Yoke???

Lestom Laboratories is on the back of the label.
Dennis

[Daryl]

Dennis- after I cold water wash my barrels (no soap), then dry patch out my bores, then apply WD40 - the WD40 patches come out spottless. The bore remains that way until I go to shoot again, run a dry patch down & out (sometimes - sometimes not) and it-too comes out spottless.  I shoot all day with LHV without every wiping, clean again - barely grey water - only fouling present seems to come from the breech where it doens't get scrubbed when loading. The bore cleans up perfectly again, dry- WD40- remains the same until shooting next time.  Here, I've left guns not fired, but cleaned as above, for up to 7 or 8 years - no rust.