i was recently fortunate to be given a small tub of what is described as 50% whale oil/50% beeswax.
unfortunately i cannot try the original sharps recipe, as i have no pure oil to add.
the guy who gave it to me said it will virtually melt off bullets in hot weather, which makes me sceptical that the original sharps formula would have been good universally. the original must have been pretty soft, because this is not hard.
i would like to try the 50/50 as is for a gg lube, and as a grease wad. as grease wads it might pay to use an over powder wad which seals well.
the other thing to try is making a 50/50 wax/tallow mix, and blending it with equal quantities of this. if it is a bit hard, some vaseline might add tackiness.
the other thing might be to use microwax with tallow, putting 2 waxes in the final mix.
experiments with paraffin wax have shown it to bleed some sort of oil in heat, so that will not be tried, although ozokerite would be considered if i can find any.
this stuff is really sticky when crushed between fingers, suggesting it would be good in barrels.
not sure if whale oil makes soap in contact with fouling and water, as tallow does.
this is all in the interests of historical study, as when it is gone, that is it.
what do you guys think might be avenues of exploration?
keep safe,
bruce moulds.

Might be the difference between your whale oil, and the spermaceti that was commonly used back then. The spermaceti is a wax they rendered out of the head of a sperm whale.
Also the formula was 2 parts spermaceti 1 part beeswax.
Some folks do the same thing more or less nowdays with jojoba oil and beeswax.

don,
i realize now that it was probably spermacetti wax, even though they described it as oil.
have never seen jojoba, and might try to find some out of interest.
keep safe,
bruce.

I think there is some confusion on what the Sharps lube is. I read a lot in the old Forest & Stream http://books.google.com/books?id=S0khAQA...er&f=false and someplace in those old magazines I read an article that the mix was made from the oil of the Sperm Wale blubber.

(05-21-2013, 09:42 AM)Kurt Wrote: I think there is some confusion on what the Sharps lube is. I read a lot in the old Forest & Stream http://books.google.com/books?id=S0khAQA...er&f=false and someplace in those old magazines I read an article that the mix was made from the oil of the Sperm Wale blubber.

In the reprint of the 1877 Sharps catalog I have, under the directions for reloading metallic cartridges it says "Insert upon the wad and lubricant disk composed of 1 part pure beeswax to 2 parts sperm oil in weight, to occupy 3-16 of and inch in length in the shell."