How was gun oil carried?

[lost arrow 801]

Hello all. I'm working on building my kit and want to keep it as authentic as possible. And was wondering what type of container gun oil was carried in. Or if the mountain man used gun oil or what they used for a substitute?

[WKevinD]

Try this link.

http://www.luckybag.us/PouchOilBottle.html

Kevin

[Elnathan]

Petroleum oils were largely unknown during the mountain man era, so "gun oil" would have been some sort of animal or vegetable oil, probably sperm whale oil by preference. Bear oil would be my guess as a preferred substitute, but whatever kind of fat one gets from a beaver or tallow from deer and bison are also possibilities.

No idea how they carried it, but some sort of horn container sounds plausible. If tallow, the box of the rifle is a possibility too.

I've used lard as a preservative grease, and while I want to do some more experimenting, so far I've found it to be a perfectly adequate grease for preserving both metal and wood. Doesn't smell bad, either...Veggie oil gets sticky pretty fast, though. Not sure I care for it, and given the complaints I've heard about both "bore butter" and "frog lube" (both of which I think are based on vegetable oils of some sort) I'd stay away from them as a lubricant. I've been told that animal fats will rot wood, but I haven't seen that so far.

[Lobo]

I carry sperm oil in this oil can, my initials and a whale scratched on it

[Robby]

Good question Arrow. I always wondered, what they carried for sharpening their most used tools, knives and such.
Robby

[David R. Pennington]

Here is my little tin bottle I carry my bear oil in. I don’t know if it is documented or not. I think it came from James Townsend. The stopper is wood and has a little dripper wire. It is not absolutely leakproof
so I fixed a little pocket to keep it upright in the bag.

[Pukka Bundook]

I'm thinking that in those days a bit of grease might have been more common.   
It was in common use and is easier to pack..

For sharpening tools like scythes etc, a "Grease horn" was used. (In some areas)  the horn  had grease and sharp sand in it, and was carried at the waist, with a stick, shaped like a sharpening steel.  To use, the stick was worked in the mix to pick up the cutting compound and then used as a sharpening steel is used.
In the N of England, this was still being used in the early years of the 20th century.
Old Charlie I worked with said his dad always sharpened his scythe with this kit, and he could "shave a mouse's tail with it!"
Got the white sand from a specific spot up on the moors.

Please pardon the OT, but related.  (grease)  :-)

[Salkehatchie]

I'm thinking that in those days a bit of grease might have been more common.   
It was in common use and is easier to pack..

For sharpening tools like scythes etc, a "Grease horn" was used. (In some areas)  the horn  had grease and sharp sand in it, and was carried at the waist, with a stick, shaped like a sharpening steel.  To use, the stick was worked in the mix to pick up the cutting compound and then used as a sharpening steel is used.
In the N of England, this was still being used in the early years of the 20th century.
Old Charlie I worked with said his dad always sharpened his scythe with this kit, and he could "shave a mouse's tail with it!"
Got the white sand from a specific spot up on the moors.

Please pardon the OT, but related.  (grease)  :-)

Very nifty piece of info.  I have often wondered at some "equipment" of vintage in the Ozarks as to what it was.  This, makes sense!

[Salkehatchie]

Petroleum oils were largely unknown during the mountain man era, so "gun oil" would have been some sort of animal or vegetable oil, probably sperm whale oil by preference. Bear oil would be my guess as a preferred substitute, but whatever kind of fat one gets from a beaver or tallow from deer and bison are also possibilities.

No idea how they carried it, but some sort of horn container sounds plausible. If tallow, the box of the rifle is a possibility too.

I've used lard as a preservative grease, and while I want to do some more experimenting, so far I've found it to be a perfectly adequate grease for preserving both metal and wood. Doesn't smell bad, either...Veggie oil gets sticky pretty fast, though. Not sure I care for it, and given the complaints I've heard about both "bore butter" and "frog lube" (both of which I think are based on vegetable oils of some sort) I'd stay away from them as a lubricant. I've been told that animal fats will rot wood, but I haven't seen that so far.

One of the coolest posts I have seen in a while.  Will be at Defiance, MO in a couple weeks and at Chartres not long after.  Will ask around and see if anyone has concrete evidence.

[Robby]

Thanks Pukka. Probably not something a rover or long hunter would have carried but pretty darn interesting none the less.
Robby

[Elnathan]

One of the coolest posts I have seen in a while.  Will be at Defiance, MO in a couple weeks and at Chartres not long after.  Will ask around and see if anyone has concrete evidence.

*blinks in surprise*

Thanks!

Let us know if you find anything.

[lost arrow 801]

All I can say is WOW! This place is amazing and your an amazing bunch of people.  Thanks for all your interesting replies and thanks to the creators of this  forum for creating such a site.

[Mike from OK]

For the longhunters and mountain men, daily care and maintenance of firearms was the norm. I doubt "long term storage" was much of an issue. I would imagine that any available lump of fat or rendered grease would have been used when the daily ritual was performed.

I'm sure they all had their preferences or observations about performance concerning the different oils and fats. But I would imagine that often times they made do with what was handy or widely available at the moment.

It doesn't relate to firearm maintenance... But I recall reading an account of a mountain man (Osborne Russell maybe?) treating a battle wound with a poultice consisting of beaver castorium. I don't think castorium is a miracle cure-all. But he had it and used it. It worked well enough that he recovered from the wound.

Who knows? Maybe castorium does help heal wounds... The odor of Prid drawing salve bears some olfactory resemblance to Hawbaker's beaver lure.

Just a few points to consider.

Mike

[Gulf state gaurd]

1912 Technochemical recipe book mentions using animal fats to lubricate firearms but also cautions about it going rancid as a downside.  Its a pretty cool book written for people in rural areas to make anything from different colors of fireworks, gun finishes, wood finishes, starch, and having typically 3-5 methods of accomplishing it so you could choose the method that might suit you best.  The eye opener was the description for setting up a large production nitro glycerine factory for production of dynamite.

Someone up thread made comment about maybe the animal fat rotting the wood stocks.  The book did not caution on that, just that the grease would go rancid so you should refresh and be sure that becoming rancid did not become a problem as grease got old.

[Elnathan]

Someone up thread made comment about maybe the animal fat rotting the wood stocks.  The book did not caution on that, just that the grease would go rancid so you should refresh and be sure that becoming rancid did not become a problem as grease got old.

That was me. I was told that by a person here, who had been told several times by luthiers and others that bone used for inlay had to be thoroughly degreased or it would do nasty things to the wood surrounding the inlay over time.

I have about half a dozen arrow shafts that I greased with lard as part of the straightening process a couple years ago, and they haven't turned black or rotted yet. One of the Bowyer's Bible books mentions Al Herrin's use of animal fats for finishing his replicas of historic Woodland Indian bows and says that the verdict is that they work well but have to be periodically renewed, no mention of decay. Never seen rifle rotted out around the grease hole, either.

My suspicion is that the problem with bone inlay is specific to that application, and that properly rendered animal fats - tallow, lard, bear oil, etc., - are not harmful to the wood, but since it is possible that any bad effects might take years or decades to show themselves I'm hesitant to suggest its use without that caveat.

[Craig Wilcox]

Guess I will need two oil bottles - one for the synthetic sperm whale oil (Dixon's, I think) and one for the bear oil that a friend sent me.
I used to make a product called "fixin' wax", which was used on wood, metal, and leather.  Rendered fat from cattle or buffalo kidney fat, mixed 1:1 or 2:1 with bees wax.  Besides making things look nice you could also use it as a grease for moving metal parts.

With the addition of some flavoring, such as peppermint oil, it also makes a real nice chapstick.  Or a candle.  Good stuff, and easy to make.  After rendering and filtering, add in the bees wax and flavoring, poor into little molds or tins.  Keeps about forever.