Hot water sets fouling harder. Use room temp water, cut your cleaning time.
Hot water sets fouling harder. Use room temp water, cut your cleaning time.
The solid soft lead bullet is undoubtably the best and most satisfactory expanding bullet that has ever been designed. It invariably mushrooms perfectly, and never breaks up. With the metal base that is essential for velocities of 2000 f.s. and upwards to protect the naked base, these metal-based soft lead bullets are splendid.
John Taylor - "African Rifles and Cartridges"
Forget everything you know about loading jacketed bullets. This is a whole new ball game!
lanolin - mutton tallow - gato feo - mmmm, good.
Try Rem Oil rather than WD-40. If left to sit for any length of time it will turn hard, orange and difficult.
For cleaning I'll use what I learned from the NMLRA magazines, very hot water and Ivory soap, and use gauze instead of t-shirt or whatever to clean with.
Tom
μολὼν λαβέ
Did I ever mention that I hate to trim brass?
you'd think after all these decades that the nmlra knew what they were doing.
So. This highly destructive light rust . . .
What exactly are those awful horrible consequences? As near as I can tell if you get light rust from time to time, your grandchildren will see the accuracy of the gun deteriorate long after your dead.
I used to get all stressed out over a little bit of rust, as shown in the picture, until I shot the gun again and found that my worries were for naught. Later I learned that barrels can be refreshed or rebored. Yes it costs anywhere from $75 to $175, but if its something you need to do after 30 years and lots of shooting.
It's not like I don't clean and oil my guns, it's just that sometimes . . . well life happens. And there have been times when I DID clean and oil my guns and what the?! There's rust in there.
The other thing I've noticed is that if you buy a factory-made gun that is blued, the bluing is inside the bore. If you buy a kit-gun, the barrel is usually in-the-white. Barrels that I've had from in-the-white are A LOT more difficult to keep from rusting. Even though I've browned those barrels, the browning solution doesn't touch the inside of the bore.
So while some guys might have a store-bought gun with a blued bore, others may have a kit-gun.
Last edited by Black Jaque Janaviac; 12-20-2018 at 06:24 PM.
My buddy and I, having very little experience with muzzleloaders but doing some research and figuring it out ourselves do this.
we put boiling water in a bucket, put the barrel and small parts in with some dawn, then run patches on the jag drawing up the water and do that a while till the water is black. Then dump the water, making sure not to dump any of the small parts. We go through another batch of boiling water, and get it as good as we can, then we dry it and oil the bore with vegetable oil. Then we dry patch that out best we can. It holds well that way, takes an hour give or take.
I wonder . . . if you're using real black powder, maybe the cleaning isn't as critical as the oiling afterwards. I.e. if it takes an hour to clean the gun (like I used to) you are more likely to not have the time to clean it right away, so there it sits. Whereas, if you just run a few wet patches followed by a dry patch or two and finally an oil - you can get 'er done in 15 minutes and your rust problems will be far less than not cleaning at all.takes an hour give or take.
You're on the right track with swabbing. The only addition I can suggest to your swabbing. Seeing such patches calls for a Red Brass Brush soapy scrubbing prior to storing and also remove the nipple for a couple days thus allowing better bore ventilation. Then re-installing a [lubricated thread] nipple.
I highly suggest sir.. Buy a CVA bore light or a night time fishing bobber and strip/remove its light for you're bore light purpose.
FWIW, is it really rust or is it the remains of the lube in the barrel? Some lubes turn a brownish color when left to sit.
Me? I swab the bore and patent breech at the range with windex until clean. Dry with patches, then a good swab with CLP. FYI, CLP continues to clean for a few days so I will pull the rifle back out and dry patch, then CLP again. Then it stays rust free.
I run alcohol through the nipple and bore before firing to clean out the residual CLP.
I agree with you. Those natural products are the way to go. I think WD-40 is way over rated. Ballistol is a much better product for firearms.
If you want to save money on WD-40, take one part of any oil you want and add it nine parts paint thinner, put it in a spray bottle and you have a great substitute. Works great for cleaning stuff and is a heck of a lot cheaper.
i'll only use wd40 as a *temporary* "quick fix" for bp residue until water soluble oil and plain water are available. nothing but those two "ingredients" are needed for both fouling control and cleaning of any firearm that employs black powder propellent.
again, as in the dayze of yore where the military literally banged it into the heads of soldiers to worry more about their firearms than their lives, paying strict attention to yer bp firearm cleaning ASAP after shooting is an important key to their well being and longevity.
keeping the bp residue soft is the job of the lube and why tallows and greases were, and still are, the better patch lubes.
I'd just like to add that I used to use hot water, and used to get flash rusting. I never used boiling water, but our old water heater gets quite hot. On a suggestion from this forum, I've began using cold water. I fill a bucket with water that comes straight from the water well, nice and cool. I also stopped using soap, as I found it just didn't do anything for me. I've tried a follow up of Windex, and it may or may not help. What really gets mine clean is to use a smaller bore brush and turn it to clean out the chamber of the breech plug. I follow with a scrubby pipe cleaner through the fire channel, I always get a good puff of black out this way, that no amount of water pumping will ever clean. With cold water you have all the time in the world to get it dry and oiled. I wipe mine down with a cloth, run a couple dry patches down, and let it sit at least 15 minutes before oiling.
Anyway, back to the real question. I use CorriosionX for gun oil, and it seems to do a wonderful job. I would not put my trust in Bore Butter though. We get period of bad humidity, that's when everything rusts for me. My suggestion is to try a different oil.
Well guys I use hot water and dawn to clean my muzzleloaders and have been for the better part of 40 years and have not dealt with any real rust issues and yes I use kroil, but what do I know beyond what works for me.
I would not use boiling water as the hot water gets the metal hot enough that by the time I dry the outside of the barrel dry the inside is dry YMMV
I forgot to mention I lived in NYS state for decades and now live in the western part of the country. My muzzleloaders were always of the TC variety and yes being able to remove the barrel from the firearm does make cleaning the barrel easier. I did find that moisture in your environment can present issues I don't deal with anymore.
Beware of a government that fears its citizens having the means to protect themselves.
NRA Patron member
Veteran
There is another forum entirely dedicated to American longrifles that had a post with something that actually comes close to a scientific test of rust preventers.
From memory some of the top ones were Frog Lube, Eezox, and Birchwood-Casey's RIG. He also noted that plain ol' Hoppes #9 solvent (not the oil) did passably well, worth mentioning because it is cheap and widely available.
He really tested the rust-preventatives leaving them out in the rain and dosing them with salt. So Hoppes #9 would probably work well enough provided you aren't packing your gun in salt or throwing it in the ocean.
I will be getting some RIG or maybe Eezox to try out soon.
I did a test a few years ago. I screwed a number of plain washers to a board, and coated each with an oil. I then left it outside for a month. I used some bearing grease on one, that did the best. CorrosionX was a close second. Both Rem oil and Hoppe's oil (not solvent), did poor. WD-40 looked almost identical to the plain washer control. I also tried Kroil, and it was middle of the pack. Kroil is a great penetrating oil, not much for rust.
Wow. What did you do with all those guns you supposedly ruined? Now that they're just garbage, I'll take 'em off your hands for ya.I'd just like to add that I used to use hot water, and used to get flash rusting.
Could there be a difference in the alloys used in the steel, that causes some to rust more or less than others?
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |