Ed's Red for cap and ball cleaning?

[Thumbcocker]

I have a couple of cap and ball sixguns. I have been cleaning them with windex and other stuff. I use Ed's red on all by other firearms. I was wondering if anyone has used Ed's red for black powder cleaning. A lot of literature warns of dire consequences if you use any petroleum based products on cap and ball revolvers. So does anyone have experience with Ed's red on black powder guns?

[Dan Cash]

I use Ed's Red with my Sharps after cleaning with water. The gun is cleaned on the range after each match and lubed after cleaning. In more than 10 years of shooting this gun, I have had no rust develop. As for using Ed's like a cleaning solvent, yes, it will clean the gun but is not as efficient as water, oily and time consuming. You need fluid and lots of it to flush the powder residue.

[44man]

Nothing better then water but a mix of Ballistol and water or anti freeze and water is good too. Anti freeze also contains anti rust stuff.
Oil products do not dissolve BP so use it AFTER you clean. Straight ballistol will protect metal.
I remove the wood grips and my whole C&B goes in the laundry tub. After clean and dry from hot water, I spray the insides with barricade to make sure water is gone and it is lubed.
For my rifles I use LPS-3 to coat bores. A dry patch, a few caps and load.

[Thumbcocker]

What ratio of ballistol to water do you use?

[44man]

What ratio of ballistol to water do you use?

Doesn't take much, 2 to 3 oz per gallon. Pure to protect metals. With anti freeze my friends used 50-50 like you put in the radiator.
There is also Birchwood-Casey BP solvent. Dish soap and water works fine. As long as you have WATER, BP is easy.

[Outpost75]

There is a variation of Ed's Red in which a water soluable oil, such as Trimsol water-based cutting fluid concentrate, or Arco Emulsiplex fire retardant hydraulic fluid concentrate was substituted for half of the ATF, so that the mixture would form a stable emulsion in distilled water, similar to "moose milk." Ed's instructions cautioned to use distilled or deionized water because ordinary city tap water is chlorinated and contained other additives which may cause corrosion.

[Thumbcocker]

What do you lube the cylinder ratchet and base pin with?

[44man]

What do you lube the cylinder ratchet and base pin with?

STP. Yes but it works. Different then cleaning. Lubricant, not a solvent.

[Outpost75]

What do you lube the cylinder ratchet and base pin with?

Drydene Pyroplex (rhymes with Pyrodex) EP grease.

[Blackwater]

Please recognize that there's a BIG difference between real black, and Pyrodex. Real black produces a fouling that is easily soluable in water. Hotter water makes it penetrate and dissolve the fouling a bit quicker. Adding in some soap (NOT detergent like dishwashing liquids, or laundry detergents - plain ol' brown liquid hand soap is good) helps make dissolving the fouling quicker and more complete, and also helps lift the dissolved fouling salts off the metal surface.

With Pyrodex, which I think is largely responsible for many if not most of the rusted ML barrels you'll see in pawn shops, the salts left behind from ignition are MUCH harder to dissolve and lift off the metal. If I shot Pyrodex, which I don't and won't, I'd be SURE to clean any gun I fired with it TWICE. Once ASAP after firing it, even with a single shot, and again the next day. I can't recall ever seeing any ML fired with Pyrodex that didn't have at least some degree of rust and pitting in the barrel.

Interestingly, a friend who sights in over 300 guns a year for friends and anyone in the community who asks, and has a good place to do it and who folks trust, had a guy not too long ago bring a ML to him to sight in. He asked about how to clean it and my friend asked what powder he was shooting. He said Pyrodex because you can find it at Wal Mart. My friend TOLD him that he'd need to wash it out with hot, soapy water EVERY TIME HE EVER FIRED IT, even if he only fired one shot. He thanked my budy and left. Before ML deer season the following year, he brought it back, saying my friend had done something to his rifle because it wouldn't shoot well any more. My friend looked down the barrel and saw it was rusted from breech to muzzle, and VERY heavily! My friend asked him if he'd cleaned it every time he shot it, and the guy owned up to having fired it once and putting it up without cleaning it. "Well," he said, "I told you it had to be cleaned EVERY time, even if it was only one shot. That's all I could do. You just didn't do it. And I didn't do anything to your gun, YOU did it when you shot it and didn't clean it. Look down this bore!" The guy looked and saw the rust. "Wow!" he said, "I didn't know it'd do that with just one shot!" My friend said, "Well, I TOLD you. You just didn't listen, so now you can go get a whole new barrel or a new gun, because that one's never gonna' shoot again." The guy kind'a stormed off, not very much appreciating my friend's words, but that just made it even, because my buddy didn't much appreciate being accused of "doing something to my gun" either. And sometimes, even is the best one can obtain. But I'll be the guy never put his next one up again without cleaning it ..... at least hopefully.

They both got over it, and the guy later apologized for his words, and he learned a valuable lesson about cleaning non-smokeless firing guns. Some of the newer BP substitute powders like Triple 7, etc. claim no rusting and you can clean with normal smokeless chemicals, but I can't comment on them because I haven't used any yet. One CAN learn to love the smell of sulphur, as unlikely as that would seem! It takes someone a half bubble off plumb, but it CAN be done!

[Thumbcocker]

Running straight BP in an Uberti 1858 and a ROA.

[44man]

All above is true about Pyrojunk but the stuff IS accurate and what i use in my .54. Devil to clean.
Also true about soaps but hard to find good stuff, Fels-Naptha was good but don't know if it is made. Murphy's Oil soap works. Ivory should work. Trouble with bar soap is getting some in the water.

[Geezer in NH]

Water works well and has for 100 plus years.

[44man]

Big reason for a soap with a C&B is to also get the dirty lube off. Even if just Crisco is used water doesn't do much alone.

[Dale53]

I have long used "Friendship Speed Juice" for cleaning my black powder guns (both cartridge and muzzle loaders). It is a home mix of one part Hydrogen Peroxide, one part Murphy's Oil Soap, and one part rubbing alcohol. I simply use wet patches (very wet), then wipe dry. It is CRITICAL to understand that this leaves your gun metal chemically cleaned with NOTHING to prevent rusting. I follow up with Ed's Red wet patches and leave it wet. Break Free is a good commercial cleaner/lube that will work well as a preservative, also.

I have shot thousands of loads of real black powder and Pyrodex using these cleaning supplies and my guns NEVER showed ANY sign of rust or corrosion. Remember, a good black powder cleaning solution, wipe dry, and then a good preservative.

Then, a couple of days later, run a patch through and over the gun with the preservative again. You will NEVER again have a problem.

I always clean my gun at the range immediately after firing it. Cases that have been fired with black powder or pyrodex, get decapped (at the range) and dropped into a gallon milk jug filled with water and a couple or three squirts of Dawn Dishwashing detergent. By the time you get home, they are clean. I rinse them with hot tap water and dump in a dedicated collander and shake off the water drops. They immediately go into a tumbler for a couple or three hours. The cases will always look like new after this.

FWIW
Dale53