how do you clean up after this scenario

[luna butte]

completely hypothetical at this point but,

say you are out hiking(checking cows, fixing fence, or whatever) you are packing a cap and ball type pistol when the opportunity to kill off a mangy ol coyote (or whatever) presents itself. you take one shot.

do you need to completely unload the firearm to clean it or can you remove the cylinder clean the gun and reasemble the pistol.

what about the dirty cylinder? swab it out? reload it quickly? go ahead and knock a few other holes in your coyote and do a proper cleaning?

i don't own a C&B at this point but i can see myself getting into this perdicamund after i do become the proud owner of one.

[stubshaft]

Fire the remaining shots and clean the whole pistol. You will still have fouling in the barrel and from the b/c gap.

[MT Gianni]

Clean it well at night when you get in.

[Jim]

I'm with Stub. Fire the remaining shots and clean the whole thing.

That's one of the down sides of totin' a cap & baller.

[mooman76]

You could clean just what you shot but you would have to be careful not to contaminate the cyls still filled. It really would be more trouble than to just go ahead and shoot the other five first.

[Larry Gibson]

Clean it well at night when you get in.

+1.....been there, done that. With holy black it will take longer than that to rust. I would however reload the empty chamber and then continue with the days activities.

Larry Gibson

[luna butte]

yes Larry, but would you shoot the gun empty first or would you somehow clean around the five charged chambers?

[Chicken Thief]

I'm with Stub. Fire the remaining shots and clean the whole thing.

That's one of the down sides of totin' a cap & baller.

So shooting for fun has a downside?

[Mk42gunner]

I would pull the caps off the unfired chambers before reloading, something about looking at the front end of a loaded revolver doesn't agree with me.

Then fire it empty at the end of the day and clean it. Despite all the horror stories, blackpowder does not instantly turn your gun into a pile of rust.

Robert

[Larry Gibson]

yes Larry, but would you shoot the gun empty first or would you somehow clean around the five charged chambers?

I wouldn't clean at all untill the end of the day, just reload the expended chamber and continue on my business. At the end of the day I would shoot the revolver empty, clean and reload if I was not done with the revolver. If the revolver was not wet or the humidity not high I might not even do that until the next morning when back out in the brush, especially if shooting around camp or home is out of the question. Same with MLers, no pressing need to clean them right after shooting. Just clean them within a reasonable time, given weather and humidity, is all.

Larry Gibson

[luna butte]

that seems reasonable to me. thanks