Why the bees wax in a lube ?

[OldMtnMan]

Been cooking bear for 60 years. There's no way of cooking it that i'll like. Some guys love liver too. It makes me gag.

I'll stick to elk meat.

[TurkeyCreek]

I render my own beef tallow (not many bears in N.W. Oklahoma) and use it for patch lube and gun grease. I prelube my strips of patching and cut at the muzzle. A prelubed strip holds for quite some time before the lube starts to go away.  The tallow also works well for the lock as well as the bore. If you want to mix it with bees wax I'm sure that would work too. I just haven't found any need for it.

[Daryl]

I ate some Grizzly roast once, and it was actually  better than the black bear, elk, moose, mule deer, caribou & cougar meat at the banquet. My wife cooked that grizzly roast. Good stuff when I was young.  You couldn't pay me to eat either bear, today. I still like Elk and Whitetail deer.

As to lubes in this thread, beeswax in lube for hunting will have you cussing. Rock hard lubed patches, punching a ball through the patch sitting flat hard across the muzzle is no good.  Thinking of heading out to try to find a whitetail deer tomorrow, with temp -10. or so, not balmy, but not too cold for Mink Oil or Neetsfoot oil. 

Thing I like about each of those 2 lubes is no wiping needed, no matter the number of shots.

[Black Hand]

Bear meat is one of my favorite's and every one I've ever feed it to loved it too. How it's prepared and cooked has a large effect on it's popularity.

The bear I've had was delicious and bear is now at the top of my favorite wild game meat list.

[smylee grouch]

Over the years I have tried just about every wild game in North America and liked most if it was prepared and cooked right. Black Bear and Moose are my #1 but if I didn't like it I would quit cooking it long before 60 years. 

[OldMtnMan]

I cooked it for my dogs over the years. That way I don't have to give them the elk meat. It might help you to understand my taste by knowing the dogs get the mule deer meat too.

[Pukka Bundook]

Smylee,
I too was thinking 60 years is a bit long to cook something for....  probably a bit overdone ....     

[OldMtnMan]

They say to cook it well done. I figured 60 years should do it.

[Pukka Bundook]

If you don't really Want to eat it, the longer you cook it the better......   Maybe give it another 5 years. ..   

[Bob Roller]

I've been reading a lot of older posts on lubes especially for hunting where the rifle may stay loaded for a few days weeks ect . Now a lot of those patch lubes mentioned were a mix of an oil of some sort like olive oil and mixed with bees wax . I also make and shoot modern cast bullets and understand why the bees wax is used in their lube and that is to act as a carrier for the actual lube , but with a patched ball the patch is the carrier of the actual lube/oil . So is the bees wax actually needed at all ? Couldn't I just use let's say the olive oil on the patch straight for a hunting situation ?

Beeswax is a carrier for the other ingredients used in BULLET lube.My own brew is equal
portions of beeswax,white Crisco and mutton tallow and a bit of sperm oil if available.
The Crisco and tallow can't possible stay on a projectile so beeswax is the easily found
carrier for them.I have used this concoction on patched round balls with good results and
no apparent degrading of black powder. It's not rocket science AFIK.

Bob Roller

[OldMtnMan]

If you don't really Want to eat it, the longer you cook it the better......   Maybe give it another 5 years. ..   

My dog is my whole family . I'd give up what's left of my life for him. As he would for me. It doesn't bother me one bit to hunt for animals (deer/bear) to feed just him. He actually eats more meat than I do.

Plus, we over our quota for bears right now, and our deer herds are low. Bears love to feed on new born fawns and that *#)*^! me off. At least a mountain lion will kill adult deer. A bear is taking an easy meal. It has lots of other food to eat. A cat is strictly a meat eater and I understand it better when they kill deer. A bear gets no respect from me. I'd hunt them if all I had was a bowie knife. Funny too. A bowie knife is my only backup when muzzleloader hunting for bear. At my age i'm not sure I could get a bear off me with a knife. Maybe when I was younger. Not so much now.

[yulzari]

I would query that bees wax is just a carrier for other ingredients. In black powder cartridge breech loaders (pardon my language here) for the military (who needed multiple shots without cleaning) simple beeswax alone was the standard European army lubricant to keep the fouling constant. So it an effective fouling controller in itself. It even worked in Hiram Maxim's early black powder machine guns.

I will willingly grant that a muzzle loaded cloth patch with just bees wax as a lubricant is a poor choice unless you are loading a hot barrel. The military choice then was tallow.

A base simple lubricant for a muzzle loader uses both the hard bees wax and a preferred soft lubricant that are mixed to suit the ambient temperatures. In a Canadian winter pure bees wax is solid and makes loading impossible. In an Arizonan summer the soft lubricants are thin liquids. The role of bees wax is to vary the viscosity to suit. Some use an actual plant oil as the soft portion of the mix.

There are more sophisticated lubricants used for conical lead bullets in the grooves. For example in a bees wax/bay wax mix the bay wax softens at a lower temperature but forms an even mix with bees wax when both are melted together. When the bullet is fired the pressure on the lubricants from the assorted processes arising from the bullet moving causes the bay wax to separate out as a useable lubricant from the bees wax to give the necessary fouling control before the bees wax can do so. Japan wax behaves similarly I believe. There is more chemistry to it than simply melting sooner and separating into globules on the surface of the lubricant mix for which I am ill qualified to detail.

In short bees wax can be used both in it's own right, as part of a mix to adjust viscosity for ambient temperature, but can also act as a carrier for the less usual ingredients. In the period standard bees wax/tallow mix it is providing some of the lubrication in tandem with the tallow.

Of course there is little role for actual lubrication in a black powder 'lube' other than getting a tight cloth patch down the barrel. It is really a fouling control. I have been fascinated by Captain Wild's work in using just water for the task which works well with a dry cloth patch but does need the water to be carefully metered but I digress too far.

To digress even further (apologies): one can vicariously travel the world with assorted lubricants if you take testing too far. I get Ozokerite from Siberia, Bay wax from Vermont, Anhydrous Lanolin from New Zealand (even though I live on the other side of the world surrounded by sheep), Coconut oil from Sri Lanka, Cetyl Alcohol from Malaysia and Bees wax from France and make my own tallow.

[OldMtnMan]

The problem is the hunting seasons for most of us is in cold weather. Some more than others. Straight animal tallow is the best for that type of weather.

[okawbow]

I've also got to say bear meat is at the top of my list for favorite meats. Even my grandkids love it.

If you read the old hunting stories; you will find that bear meat was a big favorite of settlers and natives.

I don't use bees wax in my lubes. Deer tallow and olive or Jojoba oil to keep it soft, is my favorite for hunting. I only use a thin coating on the patch.

[Pukka Bundook]

I might need to dilute my deer tallow for when it's cold like it is up here at present.

Was trying a few shots yesterday, and the pre-lubed patch sat dead flat on top of barrel and din't want to bend, and when it did it stuck like glue.
Had to hold them in my mouth for a while to get them pliable.   Bit of olive oil should help.

[Daryl]

I find straight Neetsfoot Oil works just fine, in the winter, as-does Track's Mink oil. However, the mink oil will stiffen, but becomes soft, liquid and pliant when pressed between finger and thumb.

[Pukka Bundook]

I'll try the neatsfoot Daryl, but it has set in the jug as well. Not as stiff as tallow though!

For range shooting, I've never found anything better than "Udderly Smoothe". (Walmart!) No fouling, not even in B-P cartride guns.
Been pushing it a long time now, and don't own shares in the company.   :-)

[Daryl]

Shot the trail yesterday with Taylor and Ron. It was snowing a blizzard out in the open, but was quite nice inside the bush. The boys were shooting their S. Hawken rifles, while I had my .69 baby along.
We only went through about 40 shots (19,280gr. of lead for my rifle - about 2 3/4 POUNDS of lead), but with the Neetsfoot oil, my loading did not change. None of us had to wipe fouling from the bores of course, that's just the way it is. The humidity was quite high yesterday, with the temp right at freezing, about 32F.

They used water-based lube and their loading was easier than mine. I find Track's Mink Oil is easier, slipperier than Neetsfoot oil, as the neetsfoot oil is a fairly heavy oil, instead of a 'fatty' oil like grease.
Taylor brought that up when we discussed this and other threads as well as the harder push needed for Neetsfoot oil over Mink oil.

[OldMtnMan]

A good example of why I hunt the dark timber instead of the plains. Well, one of the reasons anyway.

Dark timber is very cozy.

[Daryl]

[Dennis Glazener]

Daryl,
Looks like you all had a fair sized frost this morning
Dennis

[OldMtnMan]

That's dedication.

[Daryl]

LOL - The frost was heavy on the pumpkin that day.

I'll note, that beeswax has no place in your lube, in those temps.  That particular day, it was about 5F.

[Old Ford2]

They say to cook it well done. I figured 60 years should do it.

That's the way the wife likes her meet cooked, about 60 yrs. meat is black on the outside and grey to dark brown on the inside.
You can break a good Russel knife blade on it.
Yech!
Fred

[OldMtnMan]

Nobody would eat my cooking but me and my dog.