100 shots with lube pills

[dwave]

I shot 100 rounds through my pietta 1851 navy without cleaning it at all. I didn't even wipe anything off. Final results are in so here is my range report using Lube pills.

Here is my Pietta Navy. Not as accurate as my 1858, but it does pretty good. I selected it because I can get more cylinders off before it starts to get hard to cock from fouling. Main problem with the 1851 is that little dinky bead sight on the front. I think with a better front sight it would be a better shooter than it is.

The fouling where the cylinder meets the barrel wasn't too bad. Usally seems worse than that without the lube pills. I think maybe the wax melts between the barrel and the cylinder causing more of the fouling to move up the barrel instead of going all over the frame.

Here is the inside of the barrel, after 100 shots it looks pretty good. Truthfully the barrel looks the same as it did after 24 rounds.

My home made lube pills. Simple mix of 50% beeswax and 50% crisco. I cut them with a .38 special.

3 targets. First target is on the left, my first 6 shots are on that target. Group wasn't too bad, but it wasn't my favorite. Middle target was taken with 25 rounds left in the box. I was aiming at the a on the right. Final target was the last 6 shots. The last target I wasn't happy with myself. I pulled 2 shots. Oh, on the first target, that little spec that looks like a little bullet hole is actually a piece of wax that hit the target. Unfortunately I ran out of targets so I used a feed sack and a piece of cardboard.

Load data:
15 grs by volume 777
#10 Remington caps
Lube pill placed over the powder and under the ball
.375 round ball
15 yard distance

The downside to the lube pills is the wax in the barrel is harder to remove than fouling alone. But even then, it isn't that bad to remove.

 

[pohill]

Before I started getting lube pills from Junk Yard Dog (Rifle) I used to mix up the ingredients, seal off one end of the barrel, pour the stuff down the other end, then push it out when it hardened. Then I'd have lube sticks from which I'd cut off pills as I needed them. Worked well, but I like Junk Yard Dog's pills better.
Nice looking Hickok Navy you got there...

 

[dwave]

Thanks, I went with the Hickok because I liked the engraving on it. They go for 279.99 at Cabelas.com. I got mine from them a little under a year ago for 239.99. I have already ran 2000+ rounds through it and had to replace all the springs except the main.

Interesting idea about using the barrel to make them. How close do they fit to the chambers of the cylinders using that method? Well, good news is that they are already rifled!

 

[pohill]

They fit pretty well. I just couldn't get the consistency down right. I blocked one end of the barrel with an ear plug. Gets kinda messy unless you have a small funnel for the pouring. One plus is that the gun gets good and lubed. I used to bring the sticks to the range and cut them off to whatever thickness I wanted. It's worth a try.
That Hickok .36 is really sharp looking.
I have an 1861 Navy that I show more than pics of my kids:

 

[dwave]

Nice looking pistol. Uberti or Pietta? I was thinking about getting a 1860 army model next. Where did those grips come from? They look sharp on that gun. I am sure if I had kids I would show off my pistol more than the kids. I show it to people, then I follow up with the question, "want to try it?". Haven't had a no yet.

 

[pohill]

It's actually a Colt Signature Series. Great shooter. I have a Pietta 1860 .44- another great gun.

 

[dwave]

No wonder why you like to show it off, nice!

 

[pohill]

The store in Maine where I buy my stuff has an 1851 .36 Colt Colt in a wooden case with accessories for $415. I wish it would go away...

 

[dwave]

You can buy it and send it my way, that will make it disappear! I wouldn't mind helping you out.

 

[rifle]

Howdy Dwave and Pohill. Hey Dwave,I have mixed opinions about lube with beeswax and 777 powder. I've used my mix(beeswax,paraffine wax,mutton tallow) and got fairly good results but.....I hear tell that smokeless lube works better with 777 powder.

I've been meaning to try it again since I fergited what transpired when I did. Anywhooo...you might want to try smokeless lube to make yer lube pills when shooting 777 powder.
If you were shooting black powder yer gun would have been even cleaner than when using the lube pills with 777 and groups may have been smaller yet.
I have an opinion about the cap&ballers and have experimented enough to figger it's a sound opinion. It has to do with the chambers compared to the groove diameter in the barrels. Yer groups would shrink(not too bad as they are though) a good bit I bet ifin ya reamed yer chambers to be equal to the barrel grooves or bewtter yet .002-.003 bigger than the barrel grooves. Ifin you can center the tool well a drill press can be used. I have a milling machine and use chucking reamers and a special tool I had Starrett make me to center and ream. Worth a look see ifin ya know whsat I mean.
These cap&ballers can shoot 1-2 inch groups at 25 if set up right. You know with the forcing cone smoothed and at 11 degrees and the crown concentric with the bore and the chambers reamed if the cylinder ain't too wobbly on the arbor and the barrel/frame connection is sound.
Anywhooo....ya may want to experiment with a lube a little better than Crisco. It can work and is cheap but.....mutton tallow is the best. Mix it with equal amounts of beeswax,paraffin wax and mutton tallow or 4 oz. each soy wax(cheaper than beeswax and adds more lubey traits to the mix) paraffin wax and mutton tallow and 2 oz. toilet bowl sealing wax (hardware store). That's when shooting blackpowder. Smokeless powder lube for 777(supposedly).
Cool pics Bud. Don't worry about Pohill showing off with that ivory gripped Colt. Yer gun is cool too. I have one just like it.
By the way.....I'm in Coshocton county. Near New Castle,OH. Almost neighbors uh? By the way again.....need a sight on that barrel you can see better with? I can install a dovetailed front sight(Remington or shaped down rifle sight) on it fer ya and open up the rear sight for a better sight picture. I just did it a while ago to a Pietta standard model 1851 Navy. Shoots pretty dang good now too. Better than I can hold it which is how it should be. Got a few rabbits with it when out runnin with the hounds. hee hee
PS That Colt 1861 Navy is pretty dang nice lookin, Pohill. 740-824-5566

 

[dwave]

Hey Rifle, Thanks for the advise to try with the 777. I prefer to shoot the good stuff myself (real black powder), but there are no good sources for it around here. I like BP better because I tend to get better groups with it.

I used crisco because I have plenty of it myself. I am going to experiment around with it a bit and find out what works best. I have a local source for my beeswax so that isn't much of a problem. Sounds like you have been experimenting for some time.

New Castle Ohio huh? Is that east of Columbus? Yeah, you could almost say we are neighbors. This summer I might try to get few people from the forums here to come down to do some shooting. Thats always fun, and sometimes you get to learn something new. That is why I like shooting black so much, seems like there is so much that can be learned, people comming up with new stuff that helps.

 

[pohill]

That Colt 1861 Navy is pretty dang nice lookin, Pohill

Be nice to me, Rifle...it's in my will going to you.
When are you going to open up your shop again?

 

[Afy]

Great results....

Now the questions :

1. How do you seal a barrell off?
2. How do you cut them the right size? Using the barrell might not give you a good seal on the cylinder... do the pills get crushed when the ball is rammed down?
3. Over or under the ball? Logically the pill should preceede the ball to clear the fouling...
4. What about mixes? Prafin+Crisco or Beeswax Crisco or a melange what works best?

 

[dwave]

1st one goes to Pohill, I just used a pan and cut them out with a .38 shell or a .45 ACP

2: Since I don't use the barrel that isn't hard. The 38 and the 45 are the right size for the chambers.

3: I put them under the ball. The pill will sweep out after the ball. Also, I have heard that the pill will act like a gas check and will keep gases from going around the round ball and effecting accuracy, but I can't confirm that. I put a little pressure on the ball to flatten the lube pill a little bit so it would have a good seal, but not alot.

4. I used a 50/50 mix of Beeswax (got from a local bee keeper) and crisco. I am going to experiment around with them, but that worked well enough. Rifle says that he heard that using a smokeless lube in my pills might would work better with the 777.

 

[pohill]

I sealed off the end of the barrel with one of those soft earplugs. I just cut the ends of the lube stick with a sharp knife (or razorblade). They actually fit well in the chambers (I put them under the ball). I've tried the pills over and under the ball - under keeps the gun cleaner, longer.

 

[mec]

those things worked great!. about as good as the treated wads you can get from eastern maine shooter supply.

 

[dwave]

Hey Mec, I was very impressed with them too. I am going to run another test using my Pietta 58 Target. Not sure if I can get 100 shots without at least cleaning the cylinder pin, but it will be interesting.

 

[Afy]

What is smokeless lube? Smokeless poder I have heard of, but not this..

 

[rifle]

Yep, New Castle is East of Columbus. Mec,what lube do they have on those wads from Maine Shooters Supply? I've tried wool wads. Got a cool cutter from Buffalo Arms that goes in a loading press. Single stage. Makes it fun and makes perfect shaped wads. I prefer the lube pills but I'll use wool wads saturated with lube sometimes. I think as long as the lube pill or wool wad saturated with lube are behind the ball so the heat hits em and kinda sprays the barrel walls with lubey stuff in front of the powder it cuts the fouling to almost nothing. The lube or wad in front of the ball helps with the chain firing but doesn't lube the barrel well and it gets dirty fast. Anyway, I'd hate to debate which works the best considering wool wads or lube pills. I guess it's all in the lube used. I've found that even mediocre lubes work well when it's under the balls in front of the heat from the powder. I'm a mutton tallow man going way back. Mutton tallow is the best of those tallow/lard/cooking grease types. Hey POHILL, have you ever used yer barrel and just push a bit of the lube/wax out the front and cut it off at the front of the barrel? You know. Push,cut,push,cut,push,cut??

 

[LubeckTech]

Hello Rifle! I grew up and lived for over 25 years in Coshocton and am usually up there once or twice a month as I have a house for sale on NE Main St. in the city. I've got the same question as Afy - is smokeless lube a type or a brand? I've only been shooting cap & ball for about a month now and have been using 50% beeswax - crisco with great success but may need to use a felt or wool saturated wad in the hot weather as I'm not sure what will happen to the pills in the hot weather.

 

[rifle]

Lubecktech, hey cool. Someone from cyber space that is a neighbor. Smokeless lube is just the lube used on bullets that are loaded into cartridges and charged with smokeless powder. Hard crayon type lube. Sold for reloading at any reputable gun/outdoor/hunter supply store. Woodbury Outfitters just outside Coshocton on 541 carry some. A mile or so from McDonalds. Lyman makes some. A host of others too.
It's the kind of lube that's on the hardcast bullets some Cowboy Shooters use ferr loading cardridges with the blackpowder substitute Hodgdon 777. Smokeless reloading lube is used by people that cast thier own bullets for cartridges and reload them. The lube comes in short hollow sticks about an inch and a half in diameter to be used in lube/sizer machines for lubing bullets.
I've read numerous times about Cowboy Shooters reloading cartridges with 777 powder and using the commercial hardcast bullets that carry smokeless lube in their lube grooves on the bullets. They report good performance as far as fouling goes with the bullets carrying smokeless lube. I figgered if the smokeless lube works fer the Cowboy Shooters that put a great demand on their guns in matches when they use 777 then.......lube pills made from one of the many commercially sold smokeless powder lubes would do well under the bullets or balls in cap&ballers. I would imagine that a person loading with the other subs like American Pioneer powder or Goex Pinnical could get better performance from the smokeless lube compared to a lube designed to handle the demands the "Holy Black" puts on a lube.
Anywhoo..my wife "Junk Yard Dog" sells lube pills designed fer black powder. I conjured up the recipe fer her to use and usually mix it fer her. I tried plenty of lube recipes over the years and finally stumbled on the lube recipes I post. Equal amounts of bees wax,paraffin wax and mutton tallow or four ounces each of soy wax,paraffin wax,mutton tallow and two ounces of toilet bowl sealer wax(used in a ring form to seal a toilet when it's instaslled and can be found at the hardware store).
Performance in hot weather? They work great. The mix can be adjusted if a person so desired. Add more mutton tallow in the cold weather and add more paraffin wax in the hot weather. The mixes I use work well in all weather conditions.
I've had the imfamous Smokin Gun test the pills in the Mohave desert region and they worked fine. I added a little extra paraffin wax to that recipe but I doubt if that was actually needed. I shoot here in Ohio where it gets plenty hot in the summer months and plenty cold in the winter months and I always use the same recipe fer my personal lube pills and have no problems. The recipe I use works better in the heat and a little worse in the cold but always does the job very well. The consistancy of the pills is such that it will be softer in the heat and harder in the cold but still perform very well and doesn't ever really get too soft in the heat.
It doesn't affect the powder charges any that I can tell and I've been a cap&baller fer decades. Once I started using the lube pills under the balls or conicals in cap&ballers I realized the performance concerning the fouling not being able to build in the barrels is such that I won't ever shoot anymore without my little tin of lube pills as a component of my load chain in each chamber.(I put them in Altoids tins to carry in ther field) Shooting any other way with a cap&baller is just is too inefficient and once it's noted how well they(lube pills) work people get spoiled and get affectionate about their lube pills. hee hee
I can see why people would have reservations about using a wax/lube pill under the balls and on top the powder in a cap&baller but.....I've experimented enough for everyone. I can attest to the reliability of the recipe I promote. It doesn't foul the powder. I believe the powder that must surely get stuck to the back of the pills still ignites and is used in the load chain. I believe the pills ,in the consistancy they are from the recipe I've posted, act as a gas check to help nulify the aspects of the under sized chambers in the Italian cap&ballers. A persons cap&baller gets more accurate when they use the lube pills in the right consistancy. That's where the paraffin wax comes in. Makes the pills just hard enough to act as gas checks. The pill isn't in the gun very long once the cap ignites you know. The pills don't completely melt when the chambers fire. They guard against chain fire well also. The lube pills keep the barrels clean enough that the rifling is never fouled enough to affect the guns accuracy negatively.
In warmer weather and colder weather I've shot over 200 balls from a cap&baller and never had the need to clean the barrel with the cleaning rod and solvent and patches. The wax/lube in the pills gets washed down over the arbors from the blast of firing a chamber and that keeps the cylinders turning well. The fouling can't get in between the cylinder and the arbor much at all. I've fired 200+ balls from my Remington numerous times without wetting the arbor with a solvent to keep the arbor from being sticky enough to drag the cylinder.
I've loaded cap&ballers with the powder and lube pills and balls and left them for days and weeks in the heat of summer and had the gun fire as well as it could ever fire after it sitting around in the heat.
I tested the pills in the hottest part of summer by putting them on cigarette papers. Thin French papers. After a week or even more in the heat there was miniscule amount of lube leaching out of the pills into the paper. The amount was so small I don't believe it would hurt the charge in a chamber at all. It certainly wouldn't foul the charge anyway.
I believe the lube pills work better than the wool wads saturated with the same lube in the recipe. The gas check characteristics of the wax/lube and the way the lube in the pill seems to be sprayed on the barrel walls in front of the powder before it can stick it's fouling make the pills better. Wool wads saturated with the same recipe work really well too. People like the scraping affect they reason is attained with wool wads but.....using pills the fouling can't stick so a scraping affect isn't needed. The barrels stay clean without the wool wad scraping.
Well, there it is....another exaltation of the performance of the lube pills. I've explained these things a lot to people about the pills. They work so well I believe they are the best thing to come along concerning cap&ballers for awhile. They just make the guns more consistanly accurate and improve the performance when the blackpowder does it's thing and fouls the barrels and the chambers.
The chambers from the pill out stay clean as well. It can be noted that the chambers of the Italian guns are undersized. I have had it explained to me by reputable source that it's to contend with subsequent shots fired in cap&ballers considering the fouling that builds with blackpowder. When that hard fouling builds on the chamber walls it makes the chamber even smaller in relation to the barrels grooves. Not good to induce consistant accuracy. Well with the pills keeping the chambers clean the balls don't get swagged smaller and smaller from the hard fouling build up. Accuracy improves because of that trait.
Now I imagine that people can make lube pills from different recipes that can work. I've had people complain that the pills don't work well. I explain that the recipe they conjured up and use must not be very good and it's the poor recipe that twarts consistancy and not the pills themselves. That's why I tell people to use mutton tallow for the lube ingredient. It's good. The wax is just a medium to suspend the lube ingredient in so it isn't too soft. Anyone can figure that a soft lube in the chambers under the powder wouldn't work too well. See ya Buds.

 

[mec]

Dont know what lube they use. They sell the wads with or without lube. Whatever it is, it does not tend to bleed out of the wad material under pressure and seems to be either semi-dry or not present in great quantity. The stiff wool wad seems to be more important than the lubricant.

 

[rifle]

Howdy Mec. I'll tell ya. When a chamber is fired with blackpowder and a stiff wad is behind the ball the first shot is ok. Not going down a fouled bore. The second ball goes down the barrel and over what hard compressed fouling is left after the first shot. The third shot goes over more fouling. ect.ect. The fouling is hard and I don't believe the wool wad has the scraping characteristics peple imagine or surmiss after testing. The lube pills don't need a scraper wad since the fouling doesn't stick when "The Recipe" I've posted is used. In many cases the barrels retain a good bit of "shiny" in the bores even after many many shots fired. Know what I mean? It has to do with the recipe I guess. I've noted that mediocre lubes like Crisco work pretty well when suspended in a wax and placed under the ball. Anywhooo....with the lube pills and the recipes I've posted the barrels and chambers stay clean without any scrapers. Ifin you haven't tested the recipe I've posted and you don't want to buy a box of the lube pills from "Junk Yard Dog" then I'll send you a sample box to test when it gets warm enough to go out and shoot. Whadda ya think? I could send ya some wool wads to try that are saturated with "The Recipe". hee hee Try them out and see what ya think. Anywhoooo...ifin a Pard was to leave a cap&baller loaded for a long period,say for home defense,then those wads from the place in Maine would not cause anxiety over whether or not the gun will have fouled charges if it's needed. That's a good thing. Give me a call 740-824-5566 fer yer address. Ya know. I should test some of those wads from Maine. How can I get them? Does the store sell and mail them?

 

[mec]

That progression sounds like what happens with wonder wads. They seem to be too fluffy to work well and the lubricant they use doesn't make up for that. The rigid, lubricated wads do keep things cleaner than would seem possible.

 

[Steve499]

I have no easy source for mutton tallow. Yeah, yeah, I know I could go to some big city grocery meat department, buy a leg of lamb or something and save the fat, but so far that just hasn't worked out. I do have access to lots of tallow from deer, though. Deer fat hardens at much lower temperatures than any other animal fat I'm familiar with. I'm not sure if that's an indication it possesses any salubrious properties for black powder lubrication but including some in my lube mix has made my lube pills easier to handle in hot weather. I'm now using beeswax, olive oil and deer tallow, roughly in equal amounts, and it seems to work a little better than the old 50/50 beeswax/olive oil mix I used to use.

Rifle is right about the lube under the ball being more efficient than over the ball. It made quite a bit of difference in the number of shots I could expect to get from my Remington when I started doing it that way. I didn't notice any dramatic accuracy improvement, but I suspect that is attributable to the fact that my revolver shoots better than I can hold it whether fouled or not!

Steve