Beef Tallow based bullet lubricant
Some time ago I posted a question about using beef tallow as a bullet lube. The non-answers I got were to use lamb tallow which is like asking “what time is it” and getting the answer “two blocks down, best deli in town”.
So, having used up the entire non-knowledge available on this forum, it became apparent it was experiment time. I had read that the old time “gut line” cowboys broke in a new rawhide rope with beef kidney fat because it was hard and did not get rancid.
My business is beef cattle so for our personal use we feed out a couple of steers very year. The last time we had steers processed, I had the packing plant save me the kidney fat from a couple of them. Not the body fat trimmings because it is soft like the marbling that makes meat tender. By the way, cholesterol is best when breaded and deep fried in lard…but I digress.
My method of rendering out about ten pounds of the kidney fat was to chop it in small pieces then by boiling, not frying, in a pot of water outside. This is something you DO NOT want to do inside because it is a fragrant process Perhaps from the residue of what kidneys do. This did give me some concern that I would wind up with bullet lube that smelled like the men’s room at the bus station but not so.
I boiled the fat about two hours until it was reduced to pieces of soft tissue then filtered the liquid through an old tee shirt and allowed the mix to cool. The result was a thick cake of very hard white tallow that faintly smelled like a cooked steak.
When mixed 60/40 with beeswax and softened with shortening to a workable texture it makes a good inexpensive bullet lubricant. I have some that has been stored in a can for almost two years and has not molded, or gotten rancid so it seems the old time brush poppers were correct. I use a small amount of oil of wintergreen when making the mix because that steak smell makes me hungry.
I hope this is an answer to the question about beef tallow. Check with a butcher shop or a processing plant for a source of kidney fat.
Yr’ Obt’ Svt’
Bunk