The benefit's of lube on a patch include:
[ol][*]Ease of loading.[*]Keeping fouling soft.[*]Helping to protect the patch from burning through.[*]Keeps the patch from drying out within the bore.[/ol]
Also, often (in my experience) using a wad on top of the powder with heavier hunting loadsprior to loading thePRB helps reduce fouling, increase accuracy, velocity and allow for heavier charges without blowing (buring through)the patch.

If you are going to be doing more rapid shooting (in other words, you not going to load your rifle and fire it hours later) then yes, you can load a PRB with a damp spit patch. In fact, folks that rapid shoot challenge typically also cut their patch at the barrel. They will have a strip of patch material in their mouth to dampen it then load the powder, thenplace the patch strip over the endof the muzzle, thumb start a ball then cut the patch at the muzzle, ram home, aim, fire and repeat.

However, if you are loading a damp PRB and then not firing for some time, the patch will dry out and you could end up burning through the patch ,which will cause the ball to strip the rifling and affect your accuracy.

Loading a dry patch after say the first shot will be misterable as the dry patch will catch and hang on the fouling within the bore and get exponetially worse each load.

M2C,

Tahquamenon