As I have said before, my favorite bullet lube for everydayhunting is bear grease. I have been looking for a lube that will stand up to repetive shooting without having to clean between shots.I participate in a black powder shooting matchonce a month at out local gun club.

I have used various commercial mixtures that claim to be patch lube and cleaner. I have tried several brands of pre-lubed patches that claim to eliminate the need to clean between shots. None of them have given very good results at the range under match conditions without cleaning between shots.

What I have found is that pillow ticking lubed with spit worked better than any of those. I began building and shooting muzzeloaders in 1970 and Turner Kirkland mentioned that spit patches couldn't be beat. I never liked hunting with them because I reasoned that they would dry out and not provide the needed luberication for the patch if carried all day.

I started thinking that saliva is an oily substance consisting of water, mucus, and other oils and probably some things that we don't really don't want to know about.

Saturday I was putting together my equipment forSunday's match. In an emptysqueeze bottle(actually a Thompson #13 cleanerbottle) I mixed olivie oil and water 50/50 and placed it in my shooting box. It performed beautifully at yesterday's shooting match. I never had to clean between shots and the rifle always loaded easily. The pillow ticking was simpley pre-cut into 1 inch squares and lubed from the bottle asI used them. Because of the water and oil seperation I always shook the bottle before using. All of patches held together and had no burn through and provided consistant accuracy.

I believe I have a winner.

Very interesting. I used to have a friend (long since passed) that believed Crisco Shorteningmade a good lube. He'd show up to the shoots with is little can of Crisco. First he'd lick the patch, and then he'd smear a little Crisco on it. He always shot well.

There are so many different patch lubes out there. All you can do is experiment. And when you find one that works stick to it. I will have you try your formula some day. Thanks for the heads up.

Interesting to me also Mr. Flintlock. I had a long shooting session Sunday with my flintlock, and was using my standard patch lube of 25% beeswax/25% Crisco/50% olive oil. I like that lube, but it does leave a wax coating in the bore that takes a pretty good cleaning to completely remove. Last night as I was cleaning the gun I was thinking I ought to try pure olive oil next time out- something I've never tried before. I have used pure Crisco. It works quite well, but is so darn messy.

The olive oil alone does well as a lube but leaves the need to swab after every few shots. It appears to me that by adding the water it cleans as I reload taking the crud in the grooves down the borewhere it rests behind the seated patch and ball.

One thing I enjoy about muzzeloading is itsomething that can be continuously experient with. I have been at it for almost 40 years and am still learning new things.