Olive oil patch lube?

[Greg]

I read recently that olive oil works great as a patch lube. Anybody tried it?

[jbullard1]

Its all I use

[Uncle Russ]

I have talked to, and read of many others, that absolutely swear by the use of plain Olive Oil.

You do know, of course, that back in the day, "Sweet Oil" was the term used for Olive Oil and it was used for many things, including patch lube.

FWIW; My dear old Grandfather, God rest his soul, used the term Sweet Oil until he passed on.
I was fairly young at that time and asked about everyone that would listen as to why that was.... Why did Grandpa always say Sweet Oil when referring to Olive Oil?

The only answer I ever got was, "why...that's just Grandpa, and the way he was brought up, probably something learned during the Great Depression".........fast forward about 60 plus years, and I discovered the truth.
Grandpa was right on the money!

It was, and is, one of the same!

Uncle Russ...

[Greg]

Russ, I think most of you guys here have forgotten more about muzzleloaders then I know, but I did actually know that it was called sweet oil. Thanks for your input.  Do you use it?

[Loyalist Dave]

I mix one part melted beeswax with two parts warm olive oil, then let it cool and use it as a grease.

LD

[hawkeye]

I use olive oil for both a patch lube in my rifle and as a wad lube in my smoothbores. I don't bother with the 'extra virgin' stuff. I like the cheap slutty stuff best.

[Three Hawks]

I use olive oil for both a patch lube in my rifle and as a wad lube in my smoothbores. I don't bother with the 'extra virgin' stuff. I like the cheap slutty stuff best.

I wouldn't waste the good stuff for patch lube, either.  

Three Hawks

[Kermit]

So the next question is:

Does the source matter (olives), or does any vegetable source oil work as well--grapeseed, canola, safflower...? Good ol' generic store-brand "vegetable oil" from Costco or Wallyworld?

[AxelP]

have to try it--each gun can be different.

I have used mink oil, olive oil, bear oil, bear oil-olive mixed... they all seem to be ok for me.

I like the olive/bear mixed with a some beeswax... I use it for my leather too.

I am just an average shooter. So the subtleties of this goes beyond my skillset. Spit works as good as any of the above oils for me. I use oils when the load is going to be in there a while--as in hunting, I use spit if I am target shooting.

[Stryker]

Back when olive oil was cheap, I used Extra Virgin OO, Virgin OO, Pure OO and some OO of questionable character  

Now that it's $6 - $10 a pint, I just render my own hog lard.

[cb]

As Stryker noted good ole hog lard works just fine and even the commercial stuff is cheap - also it does not have salt in it and does not go rancid - it's stored on the shelves right next to the cooking oils, not in the cold section.

FWIW - I use lard when I can't get bear oil and I save the EVOO/sweet oil for oiling my locks and such........

[jbullard1]

Thanks CB
I will give lard a try, its a lot cheaper than the OO

[Mitch]

no science but, it seems to me that vegetable based oil tend to "burn/gum up" more for me than do animal based oils...anyone else have similar?

[sse]

I tried to use just straight bear oil for a patch lube once.  Got a nasty, crusty fouling that was difficult to clean out.  Didn't work at all.  I suppose it should be cut with beeswax, or some other agent, but I have no recipe.  If anyone does, Id like to try it.

[Uncle Russ]

I tried to use just straight bear oil for a patch lube once.  Got a nasty, crusty fouling that was difficult to clean out.  Didn't work at all.  I suppose it should be cut with beeswax, or some other agent, but I have no recipe.  If anyone does, Id like to try it.

sse, FWIW, I think it was you that gave me a pound or two of bear fat that I rendered out and tried to use as a lube....well, what you gave me did the same thing you mentioned above. I must have done something bad wrong, but I gave up on the project to quick to find out why, or what, went wrong.

Also, a few years back, another member sent me a small "Jelly Jar" of rendered bear fat that was almost as clear as water, with the consistency of about 5W oil, or maybe even hydraulic jack oil.... he did a wonderful job on the filtering process... however, I also had a hard time with that batch of bear oil.
At the time, I contributed my problems to being forced to use Pyrodex, and T7 that I had to buy because I couldn't get real black powder where I lived...(before I started buying Goex by the case.)
Well, long story short, it was not the Pyrodex or Triple-7.

For my use, for where I live now, and even when I lived on the Western side of the mountain, I use a 4.5:1 mixture for my patch lubes.

To prepare this, using Bees Wax, I warm both the wax and the "oil"... be it bear oil, olive oil, vegetable shortening, whatever, in a double boiler until they are both about the same temperature and in a liquid state....
Depending on how thick you want the batch of lube to be will depend on how much Bees Wax you use, but for patch lube I always use a 4.5:1.....using a liquid measure, while they are both in a liquid state... or four and one-half parts  of "whatever" oil, and one part Bees Wax.
(If you want your lube harder / firmer you simply adjust the mix ratio by adding more Bees Wax....for Minne Ball / Maxi Ball even a 1:1 seems okay when the temperature is not too high.)

To assist in clean up, and probably because it became somewhat trendy, 30 or so years ago, I still sometimes go one step further by adding 1 TBS of Anhydrous Lanolin, and 1 TBS Murphy's Soap Oil to the mix while it is in a liquid state.....both are water friendly and they do help in clean up.

Although the addition of these two ingredients is "supposed" to give more shot-to-shot consistency, and provide more shots between wipes and cleaning....In my experience, I have simply never been astute enough to see this happening.
But it certainly does help at the end of the day, when it comes time to clean up....it makes cleaning a real breeze.

Now, after all this mumbo-jumbo I have to say it is downright hard to beat the KISS method, and stick with plain old lard, Crisco, or sweet oil.
I suspect it's that ugly thing inside us that drives us to all these experiments and ofttimes waste of money.

Someone once said, "this ain't rocket science, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get in at all"....and, as I go through life, wasting my money on things of little value, I realize more and more there is a whole lot of truth in that statement.

Uncle Russ...