Goex fffg for me. And yes, you're right. The substitutes might very well respond differently to the Canola oil I use.
So far I've only used Pyrodex in my Frontiersman category rifle loads. Andy from Bullet Barn says that their lube works OK with Pyrodex. So far he's proven to be right for the most part. I've had a couple of cases of minimal leading after a two day weekend. That despite a quick swabbing out and patching on the Saturday night.
I did find that on my long front stuffers that the Canola let me down. Not sure why but the bore got progressively harder to ram the patch and ball. Switched to "Moose Milk" made of one part Ballistoll to 3 parts water and that fixed that. So that's my SOP for guns where theres patches involvled. For the swaged fit revolvers I've stuck with the Canola.
The big one that I've always blindly followed is not to use any regular petroleum based regular gun oils in the BP guns. This, of course, is based on the well established internet rumor that the petroleum based oils have a strong risk of turning the fouling into a tar like gum. It all sounded so bad that I've never tried anything other than Ballistol and my beloved Canola. So I could well be missing out on some specific options that are OK to mix with BP. And of course Pyrodex and 777 might well have a few regular gun oils that they are compatible with that would gum up with proper BP.
Cleaning the guns is essential any way we look at it. And for myself that's another place where the Canola and Ballistol shine. These are both easily cleaned away along with the fouling by using warm or hot water with a little dish detergent to cut through the oil. A BP compatible synthetic oil of some sort might prove to be highly water resistant and make this already nasty job that much worse. So while better in the one way the practical side of me says to stick with what I know works not only for bullet lubrication and keeping the fouling soft but also for ease of cleaning.
While I'm giving up the family secrets I will repeat the idea of the best ever C&B cylinder cleaning tool. Buy a gross of pipe cleaners that have the stiff bristles in them. The dollar store fluffy colored ones don't work well for this. Bundle up 6 to 8 of them and give one end a sharp twist to lock them together. On the other end bend the bundle over onto itself and tighten up the individual bends so the bundle can be pushed down the chambers. On the twisted end crank it over. What you should have is a "J" with a crank handle on the other end. Now make a second one. "Stepped" chambers like I have on a couple of my C&B's might need two of the cleaners bent specially higher up the side if the whole regular bundle is hard to push into the narrowed powder area of the chambers.
One of these becomes your wet cleaning tool for the chambers. With the whole works dunked into the soapy water crank the handle a few times to clean both the walls and the back of the chamber. Swish the cleaner out in the water between chambers. The cool thing is that the pipe cleaners do a great job of cleaning the back of the chamber that regular bore brushes don't even touch.
The second J tool is kept dry. I use it with a regular cloth patch to first dry the chambers then to run an oiled patch in and swirl it around to lube up the chambers. A final dry patch on this same tool removes any excess oil. What little is left is enough to protect but not enough to bother the powder at the range even for the first shot.
The chambers have always been the worst thing to clean for me. The pipe cleaner tool has taken me from a good 20 minutes of frustration down to about 5 minutes or less. Instead of the roughly half hour per gun to clean and lube I can do a "short cleaning" where I don't open the action up in about 10 minutes per gun.
I've also started using the air line to blow the water out of the ramming assembly. And my old hair dryer to warm the parts up so the deep corners dry out faster. After oiling overall with a few drops here and there and the rest using an old toothbrush to get into the tight spots I shoot a little air through the rammer assembly to aid in spreading the oil into the parts I can't see. The pipe cleaner tools, hair dryer and air compressor is a key part of speeding up my revolver cleaning to be able to process two guns in 20 minutes or less. Of course if I'm chatting and drinking a wobbly pop or two the time goes out the window. But that's OK.....
I generally do two short cleanings then a full detail strip. Doing this now for the past 7 years I've found that there's some fouling inside the gun but not a whole lot. But no where near enough to beat out the oil and cause any rusting issues. And not enough to make the oil gummy enough to cause any troubles.
I do use that old toothbrush with a patch to dig down a little deeply in the hammer slot which helps. This being part of the "short cleaning". It's a bit wide for that but it works if the patch is wrapped up the sides and pinched a bit to aid in insertion. I keep thinking I should carve off one row of bristles to make that job easier. But it's not a big enough deal yet so I just keep re-thinking it each time. Someday....
That's a lot to dump all in one post. I hope it helps though. I know that the big downer for me is the cleaning at the end of the day. Doing what it takes to cut that time down to around 10 to 15 minutes per revolver is greatly helping me to get them out more often and enjoy them.
PS: One day for the black powder trail shoot with my flintlock I forgot my Moose Milk. Had to resort to spit patches to get through the day. Yep, patch on tongue while dolling out the powder then patch from tongue to muzzle, ball, start and set. Actually worked really well at keeping the patches and balls ramming down consistently all day. I did try to keep as much of my fingers off the patches as I could. And I must have looked like a right proper "old mountain man" as I was spitting out the loose fibers all day... .
