What you made is a lubricant recipe I first posted about 1999.
A short time later, other posters began referring to this lubricant recipe as, "Gatofeo No. 1" bullet lubricant, naming it after me.
Enjoy!
I found the recipe in a 1943 American Rifleman magazine with an article on bullet lubricant.
At the time, I was looking for a lubricant for outside-lubricated heeled bullets for the .32 Long Colt, for my Marlin 1892 lever-action rifle.
The original article just listed 10 pounds tallow, 10 pounds paraffin and 5 pounds beeswax, noting that it was the original factory recipe for outside-lubricated bullets.
I made up a batch but used very specific ingredients: mutton tallow, beeswax and canning paraffin. The result was the finest black powder bullet, wad and patch lubricant I've found. All my wads, black powder bullets and patches use this lubricant.
Canning paraffin was used for its purity. I could have used old candles, but who knows what's them, especially the scented variety?
I also used mutton tallow because previous experience had shown it to be excellent as-is, or mixed with beeswax.
Lately, mutton tallow has become very difficult to find. I understand that Dixie Gun Works is back to selling it, after months of being sold out.
No other tallow works as well. I've made small batches of Gatofeo No. 1 lubricant substituting other tallows: turkey, chicken, pork, beef, deer, elk and even some bear tallow a guy gave me.
Mutton tallow works the best to keep fouling soft and easily removed with each shot, in my experience.
The British specified mutton tallow in their black powder arms going back to the 1850s. Whether this was to appease native troops of Muslim or Jewish religion (who consider pork unclean) or Hindu religion (who consider cows sacred) remains uncertain. Certainly, mutton tallow was effective and didn't offend either religion.
But I also suspect it was adopted because sheep were plentiful in the United Kingdom, where the ammunition used by British troops around the world was manufactured. I also wonder if the British didn't also conclude, as I did, that mutton tallow was the best tallow for keeping black powder fouling soft.
Felt wads lubricated with Gatofeo No. 1 lubricant, in my cap and ball revolvers, leave the bore relatively free of fouling. Other lubricants in the same wad will leave the bore clean for about 4 inches ahead of the cylinder, then the remaining 3-1/2 inches will be heavily fouled. It's as though the lubricant ran out.
Gatofeo No. 1 leaves the bore clean for the length of the 7-1/2 inch barrel.
In my .50-caliber Hawken-pattern rifle, a patch lubricated with Gatofeo No. 1 lube, enclosing a .490 ball, also keeps the bore clean. I also use Gatofeo No. 1 on lead bullets seated over black powder in my .44-40 rifle, .45-70 and .45 Long Colt revolvers.
You can add more beeswax to your mix, if you wish, but it will reduce the amount of mutton tallow, which I believe to be a critical ingredient. I'd suggest you use the lubricant as-is and see how it works for you over the long run. You may be trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist, and creating another problem unnecessarily.
Have fun.
