Dixie Gun Works sells mutton tallow. It's about $3.50 for a tub of 12 to 16 ounces (apparently, DGW doesn't weigh the stuff but eyeballs it when they fill each tub ...
)
It's the only source I've found --- and I live in sheep country. Kinda. Sorta. They bring the sheep into the remote Utah desert in the late winter and spring, when there's ample water. By early summer, all the water is gone and they truck the sheep back to the better grazing grounds.
Anyway, I see thousands of sheep here in the desert but never see one slaughtered. Rather like living next to a coffee plantation but having to buy your coffee canned from JuanValdezMart or sumpin.
Call your county extension office (in the state government pages) and ask who raises sheep in your area. Call some slaughterhouses and ask if you can buy a few pounds of sheep fat that's been trimmed off the meat.
If you get sheep fat (or any other animal fat, for that matter), the easiest way I've found to render it is to boil it in a big ol' soup pot in plenty of water. Then put it in a cold (but not freezing) place. The fat floats on the top and becomes a big ol' cookie of pure tallow.
Usually, you can tip one side of this tallow down, grab the rising opposite side, and lift the whole thing out as one big cookie. Pat dry with paper towels and store in airtight containers. Snap-top plastic tubs are good.
I did the above with deer fat years ago and it worked fine.
I must admit I've never tried this with sheep fat but don't see why it won't work.
My late mother (who was from Belgium and made incredible soups) used to chill her soup after making it, then lift the hardened fat nodules off the surface with a skinner or fork.
God knows how many hundreds of pounds of turkey, chicken, pork, beef, duck, goose and rabbit fat went into the garbage!
I've tried other fats in the lubricant recipe I posted (it's not MY recipe, I found it in a 1943 American Rifleman magazine, so stop crediting me with its invention
) but nothing works as well as sheep tallow.
Back in the black powder days, the British military used sheep tallow by the tons for lubricating its bullets. I believe the Brits knew a good thing. My understanding is that beef and pig tallow were sometimes used but sheep tallow was most preferred.
I used to read that lanolin is found in sheep tallow, but a post more than a year ago by a learned man said this was impossible as the glands that produce lanolin are not found anywhere near the fat. I dunno. All I know is that the blamed stuff works better than any other tallow I've found.
And it's relatively cheap, if not readily available. I can make the equivalent of about 10 lubricant sticks (the kind used in bullet sizing machines) for less than $4 --- if I reckon my figures correctly.
That's a whole lot cheaper than SPG, Lyman Black Powder Gold and other commercially made black powder lubes --- and it works just as well or better.
I use the same lube for all black powder applicatons: lubricating bullets, round ball patches, felt wads, etc. Seems to work well in everything.
One of these days, in the middle of sheep country, they may erect a statue to me with the words: GATOFEO --- HE GREASED THE SKIDS TO THE FUTURE WITH SHEEP TALLOW ...
