Light rust in bore

[Ballistics in Scotland]

there should never ever be rust of any amount in a barrel or chamber or lock or anywhere on an ml. that's almost always a case of not cleaning properly and then not oiling/lubing properly, if done at all. if yer lazy about gun cleaning, yer gun and you will both pay a negligence price.

There is truth on both sides here. A bright rust-red film after cleaning with an aqueous substance is normal and harmless. But it must on no account be left like that. Rust promotes rust, and unlike black iron oxide or the oxide film on aluminium, it can continue under what is there until it forces flakes loose. A brush or firm dry patch in the bore will remove it, but it is vital to oil the bore as soon as you see it.

[jjarrell]

try replacin' the WD-40 with 91% alcohol for water removal after cleanin' followed by a few dry patches & replace the bore-butter with Birchwood-Casey Barricade for storage lubrication/bore-protection purposes.

Bubba is spot on. I use Barricade after cleaning, in all my muzzleloader bores. Patches will come out white even after weeks of storage.

[rfd]

so many good ml cleaning component roads to take. i still prefer break free for apres shoot protection best of all.

[ShooterAZ]

I have had ML barrels "flash rust" upon pouring very hot water through the bore. Switching to just luke warm soapy water eliminated this. I will usually dry the barrel by setting it in the Arizona sun until it's nice and warm. After the barrel is completely dry, I will lightly coat the bore with rem oil, or even break free for long term storage. No more problems here. I will usually check it after a week or so just for good measure. I use 99% isopropyl alcohol to remove any oil prior to shooting it again. I hate rust!

[rfd]

i've also found -many decades ago- that hot water just promotes rust on iron and steel pretty quick if not removed asap. bp residue fouling will readily and easily dissolve in plain tepid water, so no need for hot water, or soap. this is how it was done for centuries and it still works well in this new millennium. afterwards, dry it all out, where isopropyl alky just makes that chore faster. then and oil up, most any gun oil will do just fine.

[725]

I'm with Col4570 & maven. Clean it & oil it. I've used synthetic engine oil, after drying, with great success. I generally prefer Eezox, Fluid Film, or Corrosion X as a rust preventative. For general use and frequent use, I have to clean, oil & leave wet for a couple days and then clean again and re-oil. Seems like I benefit from a double cleaning & oiling. I never have rust after the first cleaning but always do seem to get more fouling off with the second cleaning. Leaving it wet lets the oil work under anything I may have missed the first time. Good luck.

[richhodg66]

Many of us here have taken to using ready mixed windscreen wash for BP bore cleaning.Followed by several dry Patches then a patch with Engine Oil.

I've been using synthetic motor oil to wipe things down with for a while now, thought I was the only one doing it. Sure seems to work at preventing rust.

[shdwlkr]

Well I used to clean my muzzle loaders with boiling hot water and then several dry patches and finally a light coat of kroil and never had a rust problem and that was when I was in NYS and yes humid in summer and damp cold in winter. But what do I know I only did for the better part of 4 decades ymmv. Also using such hot water with just some dish soap usually dawn the barrel was usually dry by the time I was applying the kroil.

[oldred]

More than one correct way to do this and several have been mentioned already but also several wrong ways. To those who think a bit of rust is normal and harmless, consider this, the brown substance you see is iron oxide that is the residue of the rusting process, the iron from your barrel being converted into iron oxide by combining with oxygen! In other words every single time you see ANY rust in your barrel you will be looking at what was once, but no longer, part of your barrel's bore. Every single time you allow rust to form you are losing metal and eroding your bore by allowing that iron to be changed into rust and over time even very light rusting will destroy the bore! It is NOT normal or ok to allow your good bore metal to be converted into an iron oxide waste! A good cleaning with warm soapy water followed by a though drying then sealing the bore surface with a good oil to seal out oxygen from the air and you will never see rusting, it really is as simple as that and no new miraculous space age concoctions are necessary. WD40 is an excellent moisture displacer (W-ater D-isplacer 40th formula) but it is a very poor lubricant and offers very little rust protection, it is a solvent not a lubricating oil.

There are many good oils to use, of course just plain old fashioned gun oils are good ones but so is just about any motor or gear oil. My personal favorite is chainsaw bar&chain oil because it is heavy and has an additive to make it cling to the metal so it doesn't run off over time like a lot of other oils, the downside is that it requires a though solvent cleaning to completely remove before loading the first shot but it is unbeatable for long term storage.

Note, the tranny fluid that has been mentioned also works great BUT it will overtime cause metal staining from the red dyes used in it if that is of any concern.

[GoexBlackhorn]

try replacin' the WD-40 with 91% alcohol for water removal after cleanin' followed by a few dry patches & replace the bore-butter with Birchwood-Casey Barricade for storage lubrication/bore-protection purposes.

Good post.

[GoexBlackhorn]

I've been using synthetic motor oil to wipe things down with for a while now, thought I was the only one doing it. Sure seems to work at preventing rust.

Sure smells terrible too.
Lots of gun oils out there that work. Cheap too..... like Hoppes.
Personally, I use a gun cleaner and Premium oil for storage like Slip2000 EWL and Lucas Extreme Gun Oil. During hunting season I'll shoot two loads everyday and use Birchwood-Casey 2 in One Bore Scrubber to clean the bore afterwards. Then dry-patch thoroughly.

That Birchwood Casey stuff has a little bit of bore preservative / anti-rust in it. No concerns acquiring rust using it swabbing after morning and evening hunts.

[Buzzard II]

I know this is an older post, but does anyone use Kroil after cleaning? Alcohol or Ballistol used prior to shooting.

[Hossfly]

I use kroil every where, as a bore cleaner, lube for sprew screws along with candle and bees wax. What I use to store any ferrous, to stop rust of any sort here in wet Louisiana, for looong term is LPS #3. It’s nasty looking, leaves a brown coating but will keep things from rusting, all my stored dies get coated with it.

[Markopolo]

I get the same thing when I use WD 40.... Its more of a residue then rust.

[TheOutlawKid]

Id stay away from bore butter...me and everyone else i know personally has had bad luck with it, although a couple friends in the high desert swear by it. If you want a natural protectant id stick with lanolin or a lanolin based formula, if u want chemical then barricade is the easiest and best to atain. Also balistol is great...stinky...but great. But those 3...alone or in any combination will definately keep rust away. WD-40 is great...but after applying in a barrel and once its worked its magic i then wipe it off with a clean patch and then i apply barricade or balistol. Old wd-40 will gum up...but it does work great to remove moisture from all the nooks and crannies u cant get into. Trick is to wipe off the excessive wd-40 after its been applied and allowed to work for a couple mins. I had the same issue u had when i first started and used bore butter...once i removed bore butter from my routine all rust issues disappeared...and i live in very humid south texas. Hope this helps

[rfd]

bore flash rusting is typical of using hot water during cleaning or not swabbing/drying it off properly. i clean with tepid tap water only, and ballistol. nothing else is needed for ALL my guns and their bores shine mirror bright. all those commercial bore cleaning concoctions are just marketing hype of one degree or another. some "home remedy cleaners" are more harmful than good, too.

the biggest problem with cleaning any black powder gun is either ignorance or laziness. just fired barrels that aren't about to get reloaded, or after the last shot of the day is taken (particularly with muzzleloader spit patches), that bore needs swabbing and a mix of water and water soluble oil (1:6 ballistol:water "moose milk") on a sloppy wet patched jag will keep the bp residue soft until yer back at the ranch for a proper cleaning that ends for me with straight ballistol lube. i also keep that "moose milk" in a small sprayer for wetting down the lock (muzzleloader) or breech (bpcr sharps or roller). if no water soluble oil is handy, wd40 as a *temporary* fix is fine but the final lube needs to be real oil of most any kind.

[passgas55]

I will throw this out. I was and still am a believer in hotwater/soap/hotwater flush. If you buy a water soluble cutting oil and do your last hot flush with a mixture it should eliminate any flash rusting and still dry out your barrel. Then use your oil of choice.

On another note I do civil war cannon fire. At the end of the day all we do is run a worm in to remove what is left from the last shot then do a wet mop (water only) and that's it. No rust in the barrel. The barrel stays black on the inside. Shocked the **** out of me the first time I checked the barrel. I myself have two small cannons but I still do cold flushes followed by the cutting oil treatment on one of them. I used to use motor oil but I was getting a lot of black goo on my gloves. I did make a home made cannon tube and I am following just a wet mop routine. Working good so far.

[Edward]

The most effective thing for removal of water from the crannies of metal is heat. With a shotgun your barrel's last contact with anything aqueous should be boiling water, poured through with the barrels detached, and held in something like a twisted towel or wooden tongs so that you don't drop them. In a rifle you can probably make an extended funnel with a cartridge case. Water will give out about nine times as much heat as the same weight of steel will absorb, if the temperatures equalize. So it doesn't take much to get the barrel hot enough to evaporate itself bone-dry with only a little airflow.

My climate isn't very humid, and the nightly change in temperature isn't enough to produce much condensation. So my case may not be as much as some people's. I have never had trouble using WD40, but I hear some people have, and I'm prepared to believe that a good mineral oil or grease is more reliable. I have also heard adverse reports on 3 in 1 oil as a rust preventative. Again, sometimes it is fine, but it has been made over a long period, in many places.

I think a slightly heavier oil is less likely to be accidentally wiped off surfaces, and my favourite is car gear oil. Unlike engine oil it doesn't contain detergents etc., which might behave differently over long-term storage when cold, from what they do inside an engine hotter than boiling water.

I disagree /hot water will produce flash rust every time(fact) and is not needed ,cold /tepid is what is required nothing more ! After dry patching use a good BP oil or I use Ballistol and even bear oil works great and no rust ever (works for me) Ed

[rfd]

to each their own, it's all good as long as it always works. to me, even IF hot a hot water flush did not promote flash rusting, which it can and does, plain tepid tap water works extremely well, as it has done so for centuries and no need to find/make hot water. water in the tube is just to begin the real bore/rifling cleaning process that for me begins with the lock removal and cleaning as the water sits in the bore loosening the cr@p up.

*IF* i was lazy or there was no way after taking the last shot to run a sloppy moose milk (or wd40 or whatever) wet patch down the bore, and leave it there before the real cleaning takes place, then yeah, i might need hot water to hasten the baked-on bp residue getting soft. but having been there and done that too, i'm lots more careful about taking care of soft bp residue before it becomes hard and lots more of a pain to remove. ymmv.

[bob208]

I have been using hot water and wd 40 for the last 30 years with now rust problems at all. the trick is to go back and keep checking and oiling.