Cleaning BP rifles

Brutus

Brutus

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Fellow enthusiasts of the holy black,

I consider myself a relative newcomer to the muzzleloading rifle world.
In the recent past I've used smoothbore front stuffers for hunting. But the reproduction hawken rifle I now own and has only seen the hunting fields for one full season makes me a novice to this IMO.
I find that after shooting it I spend about three days cleaning the bore, each day about three times in a 24 hour period I run an oily patch and then a dry patch.
On day one it got the full hot soapy water treatment. Now it's wet patch/dry patch sessions.

Is this too much? More importantly, is this too little?

Am I merely cleaning residual Remington oil out of the bore on this third day of cleaning?

The black is gone, but the red-brown is present. I'm not sure if this is corrosion or just left over oil??

opinions???
 
I think you might be going a little far here.

I shoot all blackpowder with a homemade lube (crisco, parafix, beeswax) and this helps keep fouling soft.

I either rinse/scrub everything with hot water and follow it with a few dry patches and then a few patches of ballistol or I spray everything down with moose milk (90% water, 10% ballistol), scrub, run a few dry patches and finish with a ballistol oiled patch.
 
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I do more or less the same as bp2626, except that I store my BP rifle muzzle down, so the the barrel doesn't drain down into the breech area. Then, before I shoot, I run a few dry patches down the bore, cap of a couple of top hat caps - my rifles are all Parker-Hale and take musket caps - and then shoot. Here in UK my preferred lube - and I only shoot Miniés - is 25% shortening and 75% beeswax in the summer months ,and 50/50 for the rest of the time.

And I also agree that you seem to be making a LOT of work out of a very basic and simple chore.



























































































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I think you are being overly cautious here but to each his own.

When I shoot my flint lock I just use lots of grease when shooting to keep the fouling soft. When I get home, I use hot water down the bore and over the lock a few times. I fill up a big glass baking measuring cup 2-3 times.

After that, I make sure to get all the residual water out, spray a little wd-40 on the lock if need be, usually just blow hard on it for a little bit to flow out the water and then proceed to oil the lock up with fluid film.

On to the bore, I spray some 1 shot muzzle loader cleaning spray down the bore and swab it out until the black crap is gone, run another greased patch down the bore, reasemble the gun and leave it until next shooting session.

So far, so good.
 
OP, that red brown stuff is probably rust, caused by the hot water and soap, this causes flash rusting. All you need is cold water and maybe 5 wet patches swabbed through several times each. That gets rid of the powder fouling. You follow up with a Carbon remover like Hoppe's No 9, for example, which also gets rid of the water, then any oil to protect against rust. That's it. No need to over think this.
 
Previous posters have covered it really well. The reddish film is indeed rust and it only takes about half an hour to set up. Really important to get the bore oiled after drying and again store it muzzle down. Cheers
 
I sometimes use a bit of soap in hot water (not boiling) and lots of scrubbing with a bronze brush then rinse it a couple of times with hot water no soap. Finally several dry patches to dry the bore and protect it with fluid film. The fluid film does not appear to migrate down the barrel when the gun is standing muzzle up.
I shoot mostly a flint lock and take the lock out every time and give it a good washing then dry, oil and put back. I do leave the lock out for 1/2 day or more to allow the wood in the lock recess to dry.
With percussion guns I remove the nipple every time and clean out screw (if present) and after washing dry and grease them before reinstalling

If you clean with boiling water, I think that you get too much of what was referred to as flash rust earlier. On the other hand, cold water does not seem to dissolve the foulding all that well

cheers mooncoon
 
I've always just used hot water in the barrel, I do use some mild soap; then just run patches through until it's dry. One swab with an oiled patch, done. I remove & clean the nipple also (on percussion; takes no time at all).

I also pull the lock and give it a quick clean.

I've been cleaning them that way now for over twenty years and no problems so far

What I play around with is different patch lube, have tried just about everything. Right now I'm stuck on a straight olive oil/water mix. Has been working beautifully so far, for keeping fouling down and making clean up quicker.
 
NorthCoastBigBore said:
I've always just used hot water in the barrel, I do use some mild soap; then just run patches through until it's dry. One swab with an oiled patch, done. I remove & clean the nipple also (on percussion; takes no time at all).

I also pull the lock and give it a quick clean.

I've been cleaning them that way now for over twenty years and no problems so far

What I play around with is different patch lube, have tried just about everything. Right now I'm stuck on a straight olive oil/water mix. Has been working beautifully so far, for keeping fouling down and making clean up quicker.
Click to expand...

Olive oil and water eh, interesting. I will try it out.
 
I follow the same routine as Mooncoon except after drying the bore with a couple of patches I give it one patch saturated with WD40 to displace any moisture not taken out by the drying patches. Then just a patch saturated with oil. If I am putting a gun away for a long period, such as all winter, I will put a second oily patch down the bore after 3 or 4 weeks just for insurance.
 
I also got the flash rusting Brutus and I nearly lost my mind (OCD?). I don't clean my guns with water any more and only use solvents (Hoppes, Ed's red, varsol,) then I'll dry patch it until I'm satisfied the solvent has cleaned/flushed and is now out. Then I'll oil and as others have stated the bore pointed down for storage. Then 1 month fondling sessions during the winter when not being shot.

I don't believe you're over thinking anything, you're getting rust and at least to OCD me, it's not acceptable. My advise is that water is for hydration or whiskey not guns. :p YMMV.
 
While I agree that cleaning guns with water may seem counter-intuitive, I drank the "no-petrochemical-products" Koolaid many years ago, and nowadays I wouldn't dream of treating a muzzleloader any other way. Using only natural, water-soluble products like Bore Butter, Bore Sweetener and many others results in greatly reduced amounts of fouling, and the fouling that does exist seems much softer and easier to clean. The whole idea is predicated upon initially removing any trace of petrochemical lubricants from the barrel, and once this is accomplished only natural lubes are used thereafter. Barrel cleaning is done with hot water (with or without soap), and continued use of the natural lubes is supposed to "season" the barrel much like a cast-iron frying pan is seasoned by natural oils. I don't seem to get flash-rusting with even the hottest tap water (I have experienced it with boiling water) but the temperature is still sufficient to allow the metal to dry quickly and easily.

I know it sounds a bit like mumbo-jumbo, but every time that I buy a new or used muzzleloader and fire it with the original petro-lubes in place I am reminded of how unpleasant the cleaning process can be, and then once I scrupulously remove all traces of oil and begin using the natural stuff my faith is restored when the cleaning becomes much easier and more pleasant (or at least less unpleasant :)).

I'm talking strictly about real black powder here. If you are dropping pelleted BP substitutes and plastic sabots down the stainless steel barrels of synthetic-stocked, scoped inlines, I have no idea if this system has any value or benefit to you.

Seriously...three days to clean a gun? I have been playing with black powder on and off for about 40 years, but I would have given it up 39.9 years ago if that were actually necessary. :)
 
I just use boiling water(real black powder not any fake stuff) and clean it once pumping water through a front stuffer barrel is not hard just take it out of the stock put it in a deep pan that will cover the flash hole and run a patch down the bore a few times then dry it and give it some oil its good to go
 
Some of us are obliged by circumstances to use the 'fake stuff' :) i.e. Pyrodex. I find it easy enough to clean but that perchlorate residue is a bit scary. It turns brass green real fast, which maybe isn't an issue with muzzle loaders.
 
I started off by using just hoppes and stuff to clean my Bp rifles. Then I switched over to warm water and soap in a ice cream pail. Scrub really good and couldn't believe the amount of fouling that came out. Had the nipple out also and then ran hot water into it,followed by a couple of long blasts of compressed air thru the nipple hole then a really good coating of G96 applied with a felt 12 gauge swab and totally coating the bore with it. Outside and nipple threads were wiped down with G96 and all looks good. BUT BUT...I have heard that using ww washer fluid is even better. Not the summer bug stuff,but the blue stuff. Because of the alcohol in it,it dries real quick...I have a 50 cal cannon here that needs a cleaning....I could follow up and post here or a new thread...if there is interest..
 
Metman2 said:
Some of us are obliged by circumstances to use the 'fake stuff' :) i.e. Pyrodex. I find it easy enough to clean but that perchlorate residue is a bit scary. It turns brass green real fast, which maybe isn't an issue with muzzle loaders.
Click to expand...

yeah brass is just about garbage after using pyrodex or even worse American pioneer that produces ammonia I use the real stuff even though I have to order it I do so in bulk
 
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