Grab yourself a drink. This is a weird one, and I have a hard time believing it myself. But it makes for a good story.
Way back in October of last year I bought the Rescued Remington to play with. The breech plug and nipple were frozen and I could not budge either one. So I put a liberal amount of Liquid Wrench down the bore and let it sit for a couple of days. After a two-day soak I was amazed at how easily the plug came out - hardly any resistance at all.
Now here's where the weird begins.
That night I had a vivid dream of using Liquid Wrench as a patch lube for patched balls. I don't know what gun I was using in that dream, but I clearly saw myself applying Liquid Wrench to the patches with that little 4 oz. bottle.
Well, over the last year every now and then I would remember that dream and laugh. We all know you don't use petroleum products for a patch lube - right? It will create a tar and foul the bore badly.
But that dream just kept preying on my mind. So Sunday morning I decided to give it a try for grins and giggles. I used the .54 GM/TC Renegade for the experiment. She's the
big bore in the
Sinful Sisters lineup.
Throughout the shooting session I used 95 grains of GOEX FFg and .018 pillow tick patching. I swabbed the bore with two sides of one alcohol patch between all shots and fully cleaned the bore between each five-shot target.
First up, I set a target at 50 yards and took five shots with my standard
olive oil patch lube. Here's that target.
Pretty decent. Some days it shoots better, but never any worse than that.
Then I cleaned the bore and took five shots with
Liquid Wrench on the patches. Here's what I got.
HoooWheeee! What's going on here? I've gotten a few groups like that before with olive oil lube, but not real often.
In wiping the bore between shots with two sides of an alcohol patch I could see no difference in fouling when compared to olive oil. Cleaning the bore after the 5-shot string was about the same also.
OK. Let's put a target out at 75 yards and see what happens.
Here are five shots with
olive oil lube.
Again, not too shabby.
Here are the next five shots with
Liquid Wrench.
Maybe I'm still dreaming.
But it's a mighty fine dream!
Dare I try 100 yards? You betcha!
Olive oil at 100.
Liquid Wrench at 100.
Man, I'd sure like to get that 100 yard group down to three inches or less. I just can't understand how a load that shot a one-inch group at 75 yards can open up to four and a quarter inches at 100. I really don't think it was my shooting. Maybe a little more powder will keep it together at longer ranges. Well, that's something for the next range session.
One thing for sure. That bottle of liquid wrench is going to get a test with the .58 GM/TC Hawken, the .54 Great Plains flinter and probably even the .32 Pedersoli Frontier flinter -
and you can bet I'm not just dreaming about that.
A Trip To Bizarro World
