You obviously got waaaay deeper into it that I ever did. I never got to the level of shooting at Cody with ole SPG and the boys, but I did try his lube in my BPCR shooting and I did go through the gun museum at Cody. SPG lube had a lot of bee's wax in it and I have a friend that keeps bees and got a bunch of wax from him for free. Tried my hand at making Emmert's lube, but because of the low melting point of the original formula Emmert's, had to increase the amount of bees wax. Now I make my own bullet lube because SPG lube is expensive for those who shoot many big bullets.
At first I used two lyman sizer/lubbers to keep my BPCR bullet lube in one and my smokeless powder bullet lube in the other because it is true that petroleum based lubes do leave more hard residue in the barrel when shooting black powder. But then I ran out of alox and bees wax lube for my smokeless powder loads and used my Emmert's formula on a batch of bullets fired with smokeless powder and it did as well as the alox/bees wax lube I had been buying. So now I use my home made lube for everything, but still subscribe to SPG's Black Powder Cartridge News magazine even though I don't shoot BPCR anymore.
Blow tubes, hot summer temps, long distances between matches, barrel cleaning after every five rounds, heavy recoil, too may required rounds that left my head hurting, and eye cataracts just got to be too dam much fun for a nickel. But I do miss being around those kinds of people. I think they are some of the most knowledgeable shooters out there even if they do shoot the holy black powder. They were about to drum me out of the brotherhood anyway because near the end, I got tired of the blow tubes and the cleaning and started duplexing my loads, which as you know, the Black powder fraternity takes a very dim view.
I was always impressed with the leadership that SPG provided. He was on the right track by going to the 38 bores which were not as consistent in taking down the rams, but they didn't leave you with a headache at the end of the match either. In those days, I shot a 45-70 Shiloh Sharps, a 40-65 Browning BPCR, and an original Stevens 44 1/2 action with a Douglas barrel chambered for 38-55. As my eye cataracts got worse, I put a Unertl 10 power scope on the 38-55, but finally got to the point where I just couldn't see well enough for that game anymore. I sure do miss it and all the neat people who were in it. I still keep up with some of the boys over at the ASSRA web site. They are a dang cool bunch. No cooler that you boys are around here, but they are better looking.
