What is TC Bore Butter?

[mike e]

A friend of mine said it was mostly unsalted margerine. I thought it was lanoline. The only thing i could find in the archives was a sugestion that it was olive oil and bees wax. Does any one know for sure?

[Mad Monk]

As I joke with a buddy.  It is Maine Moose ear wax!!

There is some debate with some people.  I'll let it ride for now and see what nonsense shows up.

E. Ogre

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

...a commercial concockshun to lubricate your wallet.

[Daryl]

Good one Taylor and Ogre!  To me, it is a nice smelling blend of some sort of grease and perhaps other lubricants designed to fill a non-existant need and make money for the producing company and it's retailers.

Seasoning your bore & clean with it is just another way of saying use more, buy more.

It is not beeswax and olive oil.  I've used a mix of beeswax/olive oil which was a good & effective lube for slugs in a black powder rifle with no buildup in the grooves as bore butter is reputed to do.

[roundball]

Don't know what's in it and but it will build up if you don't keep it cleaned out...steaming hot soapy water and a couple dozen brush strokes keep the bore at a clean bare state.

I haven't bought the stuff at retail in 17-18 years...since the first year I learned to always buy prelubed patches at auctions or little private "garage businesses" that are having a going out of business sale or something...2000 here, 3000 there, 1000 from somebody on Craig's list, etc, etc...just bought 1000 prelubed from a guy on another forum right after Christmas for $25.00 delivered.

At those prices, its not worth the time or trouble to me to buy fabric, run it through a washing machine, then a clothes dryer, then the lubing and cutting...

[mike e]

BUT YOU CAN SHOOT 1000+ SHOTS WITHOUT CLEANING!!! I know you can't really do that. I can only get 5 or 6 shots without cleaning. I like to use it for hunting and use spit for target shooting. I clean with water and use real gun oil after cleaning. My friend and I were just thinking of ways to shoot cheaper and if it was margerine or Crisco or whatever maybe we could get that for less.

[Mad Monk]

Good one Taylor and Ogre! 

Daryl,

The other part of the Maine Moose ear wax joke.

"You wrestle the moose to the ground and I'll get the Q-Tips."
Maybe the person has to be from Maine or Canada to get the humor in it.

E. Ogre

[J.D.]

A friend of mine said it was mostly unsalted margerine. I thought it was lanoline. The only thing i could find in the archives was a sugestion that it was olive oil and bees wax. Does any one know for sure?

Glorified chapstick with artificial coloring and flavoring. I guess it would work in a gun barrel if it was only used on the barrel's "lips" at the crown. 

[roundball]

BUT YOU CAN SHOOT 1000+ SHOTS WITHOUT CLEANING!!! I know you can't really do that. I can only get 5 or 6 shots without cleaning. I like to use it for hunting and use spit for target shooting. I clean with water and use real gun oil after cleaning. My friend and I were just thinking of ways to shoot cheaper and if it was margerine or Crisco or whatever maybe we could get that for less.

Moisture is a huge factor in being able to shoot without wiping between shots...here in NC from about May / June through September, I can shoot my 50 shot range sessions on Saturday mornings with NL1000 prelubed patches and never wipe between shots...but the humidity is well up above normal during those months.

But during fall and winter months when its dry/low humidity I can't go more than a few shots with NL1000 patches because they're too dry themselves...I just squeeze a couple squirts of Hoppes No9 PLUS into a bag to wet them down some

[Sam Everly]

I think it was the Mad Monk that posted it several years ago on the old board. It was just a grease repackaged in the tubes. Nothing special!

[Candle Snuffer]

I use it simply because I get it at a very good price and I can't say I've had any trouble with it.  I don't know what it is and I really don't care.  It works for me, just as spit patching works for me as well.  I've never tried to season a bore with the stuff, doubt I would.  For me, it's just a patch lube I use just like I sometimes use spit, or Mink Oil.

[Mad Monk]

I think it was the Mad Monk that posted it several years ago on the old board. It was just a grease repackaged in the tubes. Nothing special!

That was the old T/C Maxi-Lube.  That lube was simply a grease that T/C used to lube their machinery.  The Number 13 Bore Bore Cleaner was nothing more than the silicone oil emulsion used to cool and lubricate parts being machined in the factory.

[Mad Monk]

I just get a chuckle out of the claims made for it.

"All-Natural, Non-Petroleum"

I was able to identify mineral oil in it through the Spectro lab at work.
Then a yellow oil soluble dye to convince the gullible that it just might be beeswax.
Then why over 5% of oil of wintergreen in it?  None of my bp rifles ever caught a chest cold that would warrant an oil of wintergreen rub.

That it has a wax base can be seen in what happens to it if you put lubed patches in the freezer and then try to bend one.  The lube just flakes off the cloth.

Multiple shots without wiping?
Try that trick in Tioga County in the January flintlock season with the temperature at 15 to 25 F.  An "historic feat" was to simply get a second shot down the bore fouled from the first shot.  At that temperature the so-called lube film acted more like a strong glue.

E. Ogre

[roundball]

monk, sounds like you're having a bad day 

[Leatherbelly]

  Soapy HOT water to clean,yikes! I used it twenty years ago in a smoothbore for hunting,it worked but nuttin special. Cows only Daryls,you hold 'er, I'll swab the ears. I think ya gotta pump the tail to work up more wax tho.

[Mad Monk]

monk, sounds like you're having a bad day 

Not a bad day.  Just the subject matter and the history of that outfit and the quality of folks who ran it.
They lied through their teeth while telling me I was full of you know what.  During 37 years in industry I put up with corposwine who played those games with the labor force.  To do it to me in my hobby was asking for a fight.

Now yesterday was the bad day!  A 40 mile bicycle ride.  The last 5 miles through clouds of gnats that made me think I was in Canada.  As I loaded the bicycles back onto the car I joked with the wife.  What wine goes with gnats?
Then of course there was the deer that almost knocked the wife off her bike.  And more than a few Canada geese that figured the MUP was theirs.  I am thinking of goose hunting for revenge.  We are finding that wildlife has little fear of man when the man is riding a bicycle in the woods.  Hmmm!  A sadle ring flintlock??

E. Ogre

[beleg2]

None of my bp rifles ever caught a chest cold that would warrant an oil of wintergreen rub.

MM,
Just love your comment!!!!
Good to know some "scientific" info.
I suspect it have some petrolatum.
Lipstick is mostly petrolatum+beewax.
I have been using Daryl's formula (vaseline+beewax) and love it better than olive+beewax (it get rancid after sometime)

Thanks
Martin

[Mad Monk]

None of my bp rifles ever caught a chest cold that would warrant an oil of wintergreen rub.

MM,
Just love your comment!!!!
Good to know some "scientific" info.
I suspect it have some petrolatum.
Lipstick is mostly petrolatum+beewax.
I have been using Daryl's formula (vaseline+beewax) and love it better than olive+beewax (it get rancid after sometime)

Thanks

The original Wonder Lube had a grainy texture.  Then around 1990 they came out with the improved 1000 Shot Plus version.
First thing I caught was that they had increased the amount of yellow dye in it.  The dye being a con to make the shooter think it was beeswax based.

Then the guy who ran Ox-Yoke at that time showed up in the Blackpowder Hunting magazine.  A 3 page article on this new lube.
He went on to talk about how this lube was "micronized".  And that he had to go to Germany to get this "technology".
Now the whole concept at that time was that anybody who shot a ML BP rifle had to be a bit slow between the ears.  That if we had an IQ over 10 we would be shooting modern guns.
The thing about Germany and the "micronizing" ingredient gave the show away.
Back in the late 1800's the Germans found that if they added a bit of a particular fossil wax to "macro-crystalline" paraffin wax it would become a micro-crystalline wax with a low melt point.  Most microcrystalline waxes have fairly high melt points which limits their use in a BP gun.  But convert the low melt point paraffin wax to a micro-crystalline wax and you can get it to work in a lube formula.

E. Ogre
Martin

[Daryl]

Interesting stuff - Ogre - too many other lubes that work - even plain neetsfoot oil for hunting where only a few shots are needed. Other lubes better for targets shooting including spit, windshied washer fluid mixes, LHV, Shenandoah, etc.

 Actually, a bit of towe on a ramrod's worm is what we use to collect moose ear wax. That dang stuff is pretty slippery and won't stick well to your finger - need the towe to be period correct - give that tail another pump, LB - I need more lube!

[Leatherbelly]

 Sorry Daryls, I can't swab and pump at the same time!  I think B/B might work for slug grooves but I like your idea of vaseline and bees wax better.

[hanshi]

One of the first concoctions I ever tried was Vaseline & beeswax over 40 years ago.  Used it in my Zouave and it worked splendidly.  Mixed some Crisco in with it and made it softer & better for patches.  Never really liked the bought stuff and the only reason I ever used any was that it was given to me by a friend.  Don't have or want anymore.

[Mad Monk]

One of the first concoctions I ever tried was Vaseline & beeswax over 40 years ago.  Used it in my Zouave and it worked splendidly.  Mixed some Crisco in with it and made it softer & better for patches.  Never really liked the bought stuff and the only reason I ever used any was that it was given to me by a friend.  Don't have or want anymore.

Flintr,

You are showing both your age and length of experience in this.  When I started shooting BP the general rule was that you used Vaseline on slugs and Crisco on cloth patches.

I have something of a jaundiced view of the lube thing since I know in detail how the popular lube evolved over time,

Yesterday I went back though my copies of The Buckskin Report and the Black Powder Report to refresh my memory on certain points in the subject.  Laughing at times as I looked at adds where Young Country 103 would claim a certain number of shots without wiping the bore and then 3 months later Ox-Yoke would up the ante by a hundred rounds.  While they were both marketing the same thing.  That being repackaged Chap-Stick and Ox-Yoke was buying it from Young at the time.

E. Ogre

[Mad Monk]

Something I really ought to explain here about the Chap-Stick as a patch lube.

If you look at the ingredients in the Chap-Stick formula you see that it is 45% petrolatum, about 50% water, a small amount of cetyl alcohol and some topical agent to combat chapped lips.  The water acting as a moisturizer. The cetyl alcohol acts as an emulsifying agent.
Normally the petrolatum and water could not be combined.  But add in a bit of cetyl alcohol and the water will form microscopic beads in the petrolatum.

So you coat the bore with this film of petrolatum which is carrying a large amount of water in the form of tiny beads.  When the powder charge burns it melts the petrolatum and the beads of water turn to steam.  Which then condenses in with the powder fouling giving, most of the time, a moist or wet fouling in the bore.

When Young first played with this he was shooting in the dry area of California so the water in the lube played a major role in moisting the fouling in the bore.  This effect was less noticeable here in the East with our normal higher humidity.

When Ox-Yoke when their own way the then new Wonder Lube did not contain water so the use of mineral oil and oil of winter green was expected to keep the bore slick and the fouling soft.  Oil of wintergreen is fairly volatile so it was expected to work like the water in the old formula during the firing of the gun.

Now if any of you want to play with this water in wax lube concept the cetyl alcohol is sold in stores that cater to candle makers.  Cetyl alcohol is a synthetic version of the wax once extracted from sperm whale head cavity oil.  In addition to candles this cetyl alcohol has seen extensive use in the manufacture of PVC emulsion resins.

E. Ogre

[Dphariss]

ticle on this new lube.
He went on to talk about how this lube was "micronized".  And that he had to go to Germany to get this "technology".
Now the whole concept at that time was that anybody who shot a ML BP rifle had to be a bit slow between the ears.  That if we had an IQ over 10 we would be shooting modern guns.


E. Ogre

Considering the comments seen on some ML sites concerning the Indian made "muskets" with DOM tubing barrels used in various "re-enactments" I suspect that the marketers of various "products" may be correct about a certain percentage of "ML shooters". If you can call shooting blanks "shooting".

Honestly though there are so many things that will work well as a patch lube I cannot see any advantage to buying something made simply to sell regardless of its actual usefulness.
The funny thing about cleaning with water. Old Sharps rifle catalogs recommended using only Sperm Whale oil to clean the bore. No water. I use water but apparently in the "old days" oil and such things as lard and tallow were used for cleaning.
In reading Chapman's "The Improved American Rifle" we find some things like wiping the bore out leaving oil and fouling in the patent breech and then unscrewing the nipple and putting in a small charge of powder under it then firing this to blow out the oil and fouling to clear the vent before loading again.

I tend to use oil for patch lubes as most here know.
I do not expect to shoot 50 or 100 rounds with no wiping. A slightly wet patch now and then is just not that big a deal.

Dan

[mike e]

Mad Monk, thanks for all the info. It looks like we were both wrong. I'd like to try some deer tallow and bees wax but the deer have not cooperated lately.