bore wiper VFG felt wads ...

[Chill Wills]

Brent - that is why I don't think I will be winning any 'make them look new again' felt contests.
However, some kind of simple clean and dry cycle of some type when I get home is likely for me.

[Gunlaker]

Yessir that was quite a work out yesterday in that wind.It was pretty interesting with what seemed like a constant wind , all the little switches it would pull. Felt bad for Gary during his ram relay, saw it switch or die on him just about the time he broke every shot. I'm thinking you're right shooting Swiss or Eynsford 2 might be 1 to many.
Chris it will be interesting to see what your chronograph tests say. Zack was testing Mpro-7 and oil/water, and one day one would give tighter groups the next it was the other way around.

Don unfortunately I was unable to do the test. It turns out that I have .45 cal squeegies with my .40 cal felts so they didn't fit in the bore. Fortunately I had plenty of patches for wiping, and still managed to get 140 rounds off in two days of testing from 200m to 800m.

Chris.

[Don McDowell]

Those squeegees fit so tight that if I get the 45's mixed with the 44's, they won't fit either.

[Chill Wills]

Those squeegees fit so tight that if I get the 45's mixed with the 44's, they won't fit either.

Yes. Thousands (of an inch) count when turning the 'O' ring hub.

With some luck I will try mine again tomorrow and test some PP loads while I am at it. Then I will have Felts to clean, .....again.

Maybe I will just rinse them out.

[Don McDowell]

Sounds like fun to me. Going to shoot some 22 tomorrow if the weather cooperates.
Found 2 boxes of 44-77's I need to get emptied up so I can load for the upcoming month. May is going to go thru a lot of paper patch.

[Toymaker]

Unimpressed, but maybe I'm doing it wrong. As a gift I got the Buffalo Arms setup for 38 caliber. I wanted to try them with my 1885 High Wall in 38-55.

BEFORE going to the range to try something new, I test it at home (if possible) so I took the dart-like adapters, put the O rings on and inserted one in the bore. It fell straight through. So how's that going to squeegee the bore? I thought.

Then I soaked a couple of felts in Moose Milk, squeezed them out, put them on the adapter, stuck a damp patch on (a suggestion from one of the threads) and put them in the breech. It wouldn't go up the bore. I even took a short-starter and mallet and gave them a couple of whacks. No go, so I inserted a ramrod in the muzzle and popped the contraption back out.

So I took the patch off the adapter, made sure the felts were squeezed enough to get excess Moose Milk out and tried again. No go, even with the short-starter and mallet. Used the ramrod again.

Then I took one felt off the adapter and gave the remaining one a rolling squeeze to compact it and make sure the excess Moose Milk was removed. This time it went in, with difficulty, but usable.

Off to the range where everything above was duplicated, just to demonstrate it to a couple of interested people. Note that before I shoot I run a dry patch up the bore to remove oils, etc. Then I run a patch saturated with the bullet lube. Then I run a damp patch so this time I ran a felt wad instead.

After a shot, when I used the single felt, holding the barrel down so it would drop into my jar of soapy water, the barrel fairly dripped with dirty Moose Milk. When I held the rifle up to look through the bore MORE dirty Moose Milk dripped into the action. There'd been no squeegee action, as suspected.

Five rounds were fired using this wiping method. Then the bore was cleaned and the process repeated as above only using my usual damp patch between shots instead of the felt. Again, five shots were fired.

The target was the B-6(CP) 50 yard Repair Center shot at 100 yards. This has an 8-inch black center. The 5-rounds shot with wiping by the VFG system stayed within the black, making a 3.25 inch group. The 5-rounds shot with wiping by the damp patch also stayed in the black, but scored a 1 3/8 inch group.

Cleaning the felts was easy. I put them in a quart Mason jar, with the dirty patches, added 1/4 teaspoon of Dawn, 2 cups warm water and shook it. Repeated this twice. Then I took 2 cups warm water, 1/4 teaspoon of OxyClean and shook it up. This I let sit for 20 minutes. Then I gave them a rinse in warm water. The felts and patches came out nice and clean. Next time I will try using the tumbler, but I wanted to see the process the first time.

So maybe I'm doing something wrong. Certainly won't be the first time. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Chill Wills]

If the o ring is the correct fit, it will take 95% of the moisture out of the barrel. A dry patch pushed at the same time, behind the felt wipes will dry (for the most part) the rest and you should be good.
To recap:
Use the patch wiping rod (you likely are) to push bore felt and patch behind it.

[rfd]

just got back from the 200 yard range and used the BACO wipers for the second time. *love 'em* they are THE way to go for me and the ppb's i'm loading and shooting. i only use plain water, i've not found a need for any concoctions. this aligns with my flintlock rifle thinking as well - bp residue is very readily cut with plain water (*UNLESS* i do a very dumb thing by not addressing fouling control or tube/lock cleaning in a *timely fashion*).

i'm still refining my fouling control BPCR process. for today's outing, i presoaked the double felted wipers and then put 'em in an MTM ammo box for easy retrieval. fire off a ppb, extract the case, tilt the muzzle down, insert a wiper, push it in with a short dowel about 4" past the chamber, lay over an arsenal patch (the new krappy ones) and push it and the wiper out the muzzle with a delrin rod. load up, fire again. as a test to make sure the patch was thoroughly drying the chamber and freebore, i'd run a dowel with a twin patches in a split end into the chamber and extract to make sure it was dry. in all tests, it was dry. i wrap my ppb's dry, and any moisture in the chamber will affect the onion paper patching.

[Toymaker]

Thank you, Chill Wills! Told ya, give me half a chance and I'll do something wrong. Dry patch behind the felts, not ahead. Ah, HA!!!

Then rfd comes across with a report that saves me from making another mistake. Thank you, rfd!

I use a 2 inch patch so I put two felts that had been soaked and squeezed on the dart. That goes in the chamber and a dry patch goes on top. Then I push everything through with the jag on the ramrod. I'm still not getting any "squeegee" action from the O ring but it works very nicely. Maybe I'll hit the hardware store and see if I can find a thicker O ring.

AND you both helped me find an issue I didn't know I had. Curious I cut a patch down so it would go on the dart before the felts and dry the bore before the squeegee. That would be a 1 1/4 inch round patch. It goes in mega-tight, almost to the point you can't do it by hand. Too hard to become part of the regular routine. BUT when I picked up the dart and looked at the patch I found splotches of lead, three of them about 1/16th inch square. (No, rfd, I'm not shooting PP. Mine are cast from 20:1) Cut down two more patches, soaked one in Kroil and ran it through. Got a couple of flakes. Turned the patch over and did it again. Got nothing. I'll wait a couple of hours and use the other patch the same way to see if anything comes out.

rfd, you ever cross the border and shoot at Marriottsville, MD?

[rfd]

never shot bpcr outside of NJ, PA and NY. what's marriottsville like?

[Don McDowell]

If you're having lead problems one of the better things to get it out is pure gum spirits of turpentine on a patch. Montana Extreme's Cowboy blend is a good thing to use when cleaning the gun up at the end of the day. It will pull lead, and removes the carbon fouling.
The BACO bore wipes in 7-1 water and Napa oil do a great job of cleaning the barrel during a match.

[rfd]

i just finished cleaning the roller, took all of 4 minutes, no leading for me.

SO much left to work on from the load, to the shooting process, my form, aiming, and follow through.

[Toymaker]

rfd, NICE video. It was fun to watch and I picked up several things so it is educational too. Nice looking firing line too. Thank you for posting that.

I have a couple of friends who shoot at Marriottsville on a regular basis but I've only been up there for the Maryland State Muzzle Loading Championships. Covered firing line to 50 yards. There's an open space to the left where you can go to 100 but it's uncovered. Nice club house and space for tents or campers. Electric has to be run from the club house; no other hookups.

I'm new to the BPCR thing and haven't ranged beyond a local competition. Several of the shooters there do range far and wide for competitions. Muzzle loaders are my "thing". For that I wandered around. Age and eyes have curtained my activities some but I still shoot several local competitions and any youth event I can trying to spark a bit of interest in them.

[rfd]

videoing shooting is almost always a humbling experience for me and all the glaring errors show up and make ya cringe. but that's why you video yer shooting - to get better.

i have SO much work left to do with using the bore wipers. what i did in that vid was waay too slow and time consuming, need to cut it down to an average of 30 seconds of prep for a shot, then a good 15 seconds to get the shot off. absolutely must be well under a minute, average per shot. that's just the beginning of things i need to work on, but i do enjoy Everything about bpcr's, from load building to shooting and all the "little" things in between. rapidly approaching 72 years on planet earth, and with macular degeneration in both eyes i may need to start thinking about getting a scope sooner than i'd want. ack.

marriottsville only goes to 100 yards? that's less than short distance for bpcr's! most of my shooting is at 200 or 300 yards as those are the only distances our nor'west jersey range has available. the 200 yard line can't have sheds because behind it is the shedded 300 yard line.

i'm quite Heavy into muzzleloaders, too, shoot 'em at least once a week. love the boom, smoke, smell of anything real black powder related.

[Gunlaker]

Well it took me a while to get enough wipers together to shoot a full match. I'd placed an order with BACO for 40 cal wipers and got 44 cal squeegies sent with them . I stopped by BACO on my way back from Wyoming to Canada and picked up what I needed.

Last week I shot our annual "Quigley" and silhouette match with them. I used one felt, and damp Arsenal patches. Accuracy was excellent in both .40 and .45 cal. Interestingly with both rifles the follower patch came out quite dirty. With the .45 I wiped the barrel after the 28 round gong match and the patch came out clean so I'd say it was a success.

With the .40 it was more mixed. Although the rifle shot very well and ended up winning the match, the rifle needed significant cleaning after each set of targets. I pulled significant chunks of lead out each time. Interestingly the rifle held very tight vertical despite this. When patching wet with the same solution on a nylon jag this problem doesn't occur, so something needs to be changed to get these working right for me.

I will have to spend more time playing with the wipers before I commit to using them in a BPTR match where there is rarely a chance to clean between relays. I'm sure that in a midrange match I'd have been out of the running as a result.

Chris.

[Chill Wills]

With the .40 it was more mixed. Although the rifle shot very well and ended up winning the match, the rifle needed significant cleaning after each set of targets. I pulled significant chunks of lead out each time. Interestingly the rifle held very tight vertical despite this. When patching wet with the same solution on a nylon jag this problem doesn't occur, so something needs to be changed to get these working right for me. Chris.

Chris, were you shooting GG bullets when you had the leading issue?
In my use of them, I see the value when paired with PP bullets but we, a number of us that have been trying them, have had bad leading problems when used with GG bullets.
For hot days shooting GG bullets, when there is a need to wipe, I still go with the Tipton thin rod, Delrin/Nylon jag, and two wet patches.

[Don McDowell]

One shooter using the BWS and grease grooves, has found the leading to go away when switching from oil and water to Mpro-7 and pushing a damp (mpro7) patch.
Pushing just one button with a greaser is sufficient, and has worked somewhat decent in a 40-65 with patched, but the rest of the cartridges used around here, 2 buttons are to be preferred with patched bullets.

[Chill Wills]

That's right Don. When I was over in Utah last September, I was talking to some one shooting GG bullets and she was using the mpro7. It was working well for her, or as much as I know. I did not clean her rifle so have no idea about any leading but her scores were strong!

[Don McDowell]

The shooter I mentioned is a target rifle fanatic that has been doing quite well this year, and he attributes a lot of his success to the speed of the BWS allowing to get off good centered shots in a prevailing condition. Works the snot out of the target pullers, but makes for decent x counts.

[Lead pot]

I always wondered about the shooters wiping the bore shooting GG bullets if that would contribute to lead fouling because the lube from the previous shot is wiped out.
Kurt