I was just reading over at Gunblast.com that this guy has a Sile muzzleloader that he has been doing a 14 year experiment on.
"This Sile carbine is the subject of an ongoing experiment. Back about 1990, if my memory serves me correctly, Ox-Yoke Products came out with a new muzzleloading lubricant called Wonder Lube 1000, and was quickly marketed also by Thompson/Center as Natural Lube 1000. The premise behind this product was that it contained no petroleum, which made the fouling much softer. Petroleum, when mixed with black powder fouling, makes for a hard residue that builds up in the bore, and must be removed frequently. The claim was that there was no need to clean between shots, and that the Natural Lube seasoned the bore, much like seasoning a cast iron skillet. Cooks know that a well-seasoned piece of cast iron will not rust, and even burned food rinses out easily. I had become accustomed to the ritual of daily cleaning my muzzleloader with soap and hot water, followed by a generous dousing of a rust preventative lubricant, as had most muzzleloading hunters. Every day during hunting season, after a long day of hunting, I would come home, fire the gun, and spend the better part of an hour cleaning the thing. I knew that the fur trappers and mountain men had neither the provision nor desire to daily empty their weapon and clean it. I also knew that leaving their rifles unloaded in bear and hostile Indian territory was not an option. They used their rifles daily, and animal fat was their only lubricant, yet there is no historical record of their weapons rusting beyond the point of being useful. During the first few years of using the Sile carbine, even after carefully treating it for storage in the off season, it would need a new nipple every year, and I would find that the fire channel had to be cleaned out, no matter how well I had doused the gun with rust preventative. I decided to give the Natural Lube a try. Now, after fourteen years of never cleaning that rifle, it will fire off each season just like a new gun. Allow me to clarify that: I have not cleaned that muzzleloader in fourteen years. I use it each season, leave it loaded all season, but never clean it. I use the Natural Lube on the REAL bullets, but that is it. One year I even left it loaded until the following season. After being loaded for almost a full year, it fired without a hitch. I do not suggest that anyone go fourteen years without cleaning any gun. I regularly clean all of my guns. I will however hunt with the carbine again this year, but it will not be cleaned. After hundreds of shots fired through it and fourteen years of field use, it still fires off perfectly each season. It is still an ongoing experiment. The Natural Lube 1000 works, and works well."
Despite the web blurbs to the contary I have a T/C Renegade barrel that has had NOTHING but Bore Butter or hot water down the barrel for several decades. Now I understand that Natural Lube 1000 is made of mutton tallow and bee's wax and as such probably does have some "natural" salt from the sheep's fat. I have just picked up a lightly used .54 New Englander. I plan to scald and scrub the barrel with Windex to get it down to the steel. After several hours reading the other night prompted by this thread I plan to make up a batch of Riddle of Steel's magic bore lube.
3 parts Crisco
1 part bee's wax
With it I will begin conditioning my barrel and lubing pillow ticking patches. I know this lube will have no salt or acids. If I get rust it will be my fault, not the lube. In the old days when we had to build or muzzle stuffers from kits we all used Crisco. I don't seem to remember all these fouling and rust issues back them. However in hot weather the Crisco would melt off of our patches. The bee's wax will solve that though.
