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January 20, 2011, 04:59 PM
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#1 |
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Member
Join Date: January 12, 2011
Location: Eastern NC
Posts: 16
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Makin' Bacon
Given that the price of Crisco does nothing but rise as does that of black powder lubes, what do you all think about using hardened bacon grease as a lube/chamber sealant? I'm running out of Crisco and my dear wife has kept me in bacon long enough to fill a big can with drippings. Anyone out there ever tried this? I've got to figure some of the old-timers used hardened drippings so if it could work then, why not now?
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January 20, 2011, 05:00 PM
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#2 |
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Junior member
Join Date: November 9, 2010
Location: Florida
Posts: 260
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Not too good now, as modern bacon has a lot of salt in it, and salt is corrosive to steel.
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January 20, 2011, 05:05 PM
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#3 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: February 16, 2006
Location: IOWA
Posts: 8,783
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Will have a tendancy to get rancid so if you make a big batch, keep most of it if not all, in the refrigerator. ......
 Be Safe !!! |
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January 20, 2011, 05:09 PM
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#4 |
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Member
Join Date: January 12, 2011
Location: Eastern NC
Posts: 16
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Ohhhhhh
Wow, I did not think about the salt factor, I'd hate to be rotting my guns whie lubing them. Also, my wife's big can o' drippins sits on the counter. Has for the last six months so that's a "yes" to rancid! All right, drippins is off the table. How 'bout lard?
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January 20, 2011, 05:10 PM
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#5 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: August 7, 2010
Location: Northern, UT
Posts: 1,162
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I bet it would smell pretty good.
__________________
Cheers, Greg “At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child – miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats.” — P.J. O’Rourke |
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January 20, 2011, 05:34 PM
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#6 |
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Member
Join Date: January 12, 2011
Location: Eastern NC
Posts: 16
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Smellin' good
Yeah, I'd bet it'd be a little bit wiffy. But if I was living on a horse far from soap for days, maybe weeks, at a time I reckon stinky would be relative.
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January 21, 2011, 03:26 AM
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#7 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: August 28, 2007
Location: Hudson, Florida
Posts: 1,135
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Nothing wrong with using rancid bacon fat grease if you don't mind the smell. Put some of the bacon fat in a pot and melt some bees wax or paraffin wax mixed with the fat and throw in some cologne to mask the rancid smell if the bacon fat is rancid. Or use scented candle wax. The beeswax, candlewax or paraffin wax melted together with the bacon fat, will stiffen the bacon fat some, but still be pliable enough to use and keep the bacon fat from running out of your cylinders on a hot day. Less messy too with it being a little stiffer than crisco by virtue of the added wax.
I wouldn't worry too much about the salt in the bacon fat corroding your revolver. The corrosive salts in the mercury fulminate residue from your percussion caps are more corrosive than bacon fat salts. And you aren't going to leave your BP revolver loaded with salty bacon fat/beeswax lube laying around without planning on shooting it immediately and then immediately cleaning it. Chicken fat, pork fat, beef fat, bear fat, even motor oil and just about any kind of fat/oil melted and mixed in with beeswax will work. You could get a lot of chamber lube out of rancid bacon fat melted together and mixed with a couple of scented candles wax or other wax. Give it a try. Melt some wax in with the grease and then let it cool. Test it to see how pliable it is. Then melt more or less wax into the mix as needed. Should work just fine. Also, since you said you wanted to know how old timers did things, get yourself a set of the Foxfire books. Especially volume #5 which is about making black powder and muzzle loaders from scratch and loading and firing, like the old timers did. . Last edited by Bill Akins; January 21, 2011 at 04:21 AM. |
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