doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Whale Oil ?

Whale oil does nothing better than modern lubes. It was top-notch many years ago, but lube science passed it by. If you got it, use it - at least honor the whale by letting his oil do something useful. If you are a collector/accumulator, squirrel it away. If you are an "investor," sell it on Ebay. Just don't spend a wad of money to buy some thinking it has magical properties.

Some additional info from a web search:

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Sperm oil is obtained from the blubber of the sperm whale or cachalot, Physeter macrocephalus, Linn. (Order Cetacea). The fresh blubber separates on standing in the cold into a liquid and a solid portion, the former being the sperm oil, which may be obtained by filtration or expression. It occurs as a thin yellow liquid, almost free from odour when of good quality, but often having a slightly unpleasant fishy odour. Specific gravity, 0.875 to 0.884. Saponification value, 123 to 147. Iodine value, 79.5 to 84. On cooling the oil, spermaceti separates in crystalline scales, and stearin at a lower temperature. Sperm oil may be adulterated with mineral oils, shark liver oil, African fish oil; these are considered the only possible adulterants. The genuine oil gives a brown colouration with sulphuric acid, becoming, on stirring, somewhat darker with a tinge of violet. Shark oil gives by the same treatment a well-marked violet colour, the tint changing to red or reddish-brown on stirring.

Soluble in all proportions of ether, chloroform or petroleum ether; insoluble in absolute alcohol.

Constituents.—The oil consists wholly of the esters of fatty acids and monovalent alcohols, and contains no glycerides, or only traces. When saponified with potassium hydroxide, it forms potassium oleate and dodecatyl alcohol, and some allied bodies. On shaking the aqueous solution of the resulting soap with ether, the higher alcohols are dissolved and may be obtained by evaporating the solvent. The fatty acids are isolated by acidifying the soap solution. These latter have all the characters of a mixture of one acid of the oleic series with one of the stearic series.

Uses.—Sperm oil has only a slight tendency to become rancid, and for this and other reasons is much valued as a lubricant for light machinery. It is also used for hardening steel, and as a lamp oil.

My understanding of my own exhaustive web search (and Herman Melville, of course) is that a distinction was made between sperm oil and whale oil, the former derived from the "spermacetti" in the head cavity of the sperm whale; the latter from the blubber (insulating body fat). Perhaps by the time Brownell had this put up in their can, the distinction was purely historic. From Doug's post, I gather that adulteration or substitution under a "generic" name might be a possibility. Testing for the identity of the thing contained may be in order, jOE, at which time the contents could also be decanted into a Mason jar and the original container also tested for its ability to attract money on eBay.

jack

It's fine where it's at...when I use up my other can I might open this one.

Nye's was the big firm selling refined sperm whale oil to the watch and clockmakers. I had some small empty bottles and they sold well on eBay.

spermacetti is a wax that comes, uniquely, from the head of a sperm whale, and only a sperm whale. Sperm whale oil and spermacetti are two different things and come from different parts of the same whale.

Nothing works quite as well as real sperm whale lubes for blackpowder cartridge rifles. Many things have been tried, many have been made as imitations, but for that purpose, nothinge else works as well not jojoba wax/oil, not transmission fluid, nothing). I would love to try some one day. But will probably never happen.

Brent

New one on me....I know several muzzleload shooters that go back 30+ years of shooting at Friendship and I've never heard a one mention Whale oil as a blackpowder lube.

I have heard, but not tried, that mutton tallow & pure yellow beeswax, (50/50 mix as I recall, but not positive) is a very fine black powder lube. Supposed to be good for round ball patches, for minnie ball grooves & shotgun wads etc.

How about beeswax, canning parafine, and neatsfoot oil? Works for me on felt wads for bp revolver. The parafine, altho a petroleum distillate, is claimed not to create baked on tar deposits in the bore.

jack

Really? do you actually SHOOT at Friendship?

The boys down on the left end of the line shooting slug guns would love to use it, if they could find a regular supply.

If you read any of the history of the sport, it is mentioned all over the place. It is the second ingredient in Sharps' lube recipe as published in their catalog.

Brent