Dixie gun works is now back selling mutton tallow for a couple of bucks per tub, for some reason the stuff is now yellow - maybe they dye it. I usually boil it and strain it one more time. I admire people who render their own from deer and smaller critters, but not shooting to many bear or buffalo in Michigan, well, there is only so much time in life. It is a good living history activity though and I may well do it this weekend for a Great Lakes impression of a french trapper (OK, OK, I am buying beef fat but the public doesn't know that - after that I just get rid of it since the mutton tallow is just seems to work better).
The use of tallow by commercial hide hunters for their wagons, guns, and about anything else they might think of is well documented. What I can not find is any reference to anything that might harden the tallow (like beeswax) for cartridge use. Not such a problem in the winter climate but I always wondered what they would have used out on the prairie sitting around a campfire to make those lube cookies with during the warmer periods, in fact the description of them doing that is awfully light. They may have prepared grease groove bullets but from my reading I have come to believe that the vast majority were paper patched, the factory sold them in both forms. Any documented primary reference to some hide hunter leaving the settlements with a sales record of purchasing beeswax would be appreciated.