A new Renegade and new lube

[cayuga]

I was shooting a new lube today. I call it the baby's bottom lube. Mostly because of the way it looks..

Its made with liquid Alox, castor oil, and bees wax. Thank goodness it does not smell like a Baby's bottom. Even out in the sun it held its consistency of smooth peanut butter. It was easy to apply. And I tried it comparing it to my moose milk.

I picked up a new (used) Renegade and it arrived today. It has the double triggers and is .50 caliber. A change for me. The seller said he did not shoot the rifle much, and I believe it. The rifle is in excellent shape. Although he did mention he could not get it to shoot roundball.

I ran an alcohol patch down the bore to check and make sure it was not loaded and to see how dirty it was. Well the patch came out gray lets call it. So I sent some dry ones down and popped a couple caps to clear the throat and headed out doors.

I was not sure what to shoot out of it. The target was out at 50 yards and that was fine with me. I had no idea where this was going to shoot, so I loaded the moose milk combination first. 90 grains of Pyrodex RS a moosemilk patch and a roundball.

The group low and left was the moose milk. The first shot was real low, so I went to a full sight picture and shot the next ones. The last one kind of slipped away from me, but for the first time out, not bad with moose milk.

I then took some Simple Green cleaner and cleaned the barrel. Now this should take four patches at most. The patches were coming out just filthy for some reason. And I mean filthy. This was not from four shots with Pyrodex RS.

So I dried the bore good, and checked the sights. Well he had them low and left, so I moved them center and up. This time I used the baby's bottom lube. I discovered quickly that if you did not swab, the balls went every where. Shot one was good, but shot two strayed. I swabbed for three and four.

I then picked out a different part of the target and did not swab. WOW!! all over the place. And when I did swab, the patches were filthy.

So I took the barrel in the house and started to clean it. And clean it. And clean it. I ran solvent, brake cleaner, Montana X-treme Cowboy Solvent, CLP, and no matter what, the patches came out filthy. Yet when you checked it with a bore light the bore was clean.

But when I checked with a bore light, I noticed there were scratches down the bore against the rifleing. Like a brush on a power drill was used to scrub the bore or something.

I might have to give this barrel a gentle lapp job and see if it pulls them scratches and makes it a clean barrel, But still for what I paid for this, the stock, lock and trigger are perfect.

 

[Long-Shot]

How about "Baby Butter??" How do you apply the lube? Do you just smear it on a patch and down she goes? How do you like the new lube? Could that be the reason it was so dirty??

 

[cayuga]

I never thought about that being the reason for the dirty condition of the rifle. I think I will still JB Bore Paste it and give it a good scrub.

To use the lube is easy actually...

Apply a good wad of the paste on the patch. You can see where I was cutting the old patches out at the muzzle.

Then smear the lube out nice and thin across the patch. Then lay that strip over the muzzle, put the ball over the muzzle, set the ball under the muzzle with the short starter, cut the patch away, and you have a perfect centered patch every time.

 

[Long-Shot]

That is a really good way of doing it. Centered patch everytime and all!! Thank you for sharing that.

 

[cayuga]

lay the treated strip of fabric across the muzzle and center the ball to the bore.

Set the ball with the short starter into the muzzle.

Pinch the cloth and cut the fabric away below your finger grip. Your ball and patch are perfectly centered in the bore. Just drive that down the bore and let the rifle do the rest.

I used to cut patches, even buy pre cut patches. I still have hundreds of them around the house. I had heard about cutting your own. Then I was at a Rendezvous shoot and watched this old timer with a Kentucky rifle cutting his patches the old fashion way. I went to Wal Mart, bought the fabric and have never gone back to the the store bought patches.

 

[Swampman]

It's even easier to pre-cut them square.