black powder questions

[starmac]

I have aquired a cowboy in 45 colt, and for some reason I find myself wanting to use black powder in it. What I am wanting to know is will I have to disassemble the gun completely after every shooting. How do you guys that shoot levers with black powder clean them?

[fouronesix]

The revolvers are the ones that really gather BP fouling in all the internals. Levers and single shots not much at all. I use a cradle/gun vise for all my lever and single shot cleaning. Open the action, turn the rifle upside down, clean from the muzzle using a muzzle guard. Patches drop out of the action- not into it. Only once in a great while (year or two or longer) will I break down a BP single shot or lever for cleaning/re-lubing.

After shooting at the range (or wherever) I swab a couple of times with moose milk. At home, using the upside down method with muzzle guard, I'll swab a couple more times with moose milk followed by dry patches. If no fouling or lead showing up, I use straight old Hoppe's #9. If satisfied bore all clean, one dry patch followed by good oil- I use CLP if storing for any length of time. Couple of days later I'll run a dry patch through to check if I did a good job. I deprime the cases and scrub in hot soapy water with small bottle brush, Q tip the primer pockets, rinse and let dry.

pic of cleaning Win M1876 NWMP carbine, 45-75

[Dan Cash]

When you say Cowboy, i presume you have a Marlin. Pull the lever screw, remove lever, bold and ejector. Clean from breach with wet patches followed by dry patches. When clean run oily patch through bore. Wipe off bolt face, oil and assemble. Total time will not exceed 10 minutes.

[Nobade]

Marlin 45s have pretty big chambers. Annealing the cases well and only neck sizing go a long way to keeping any blowback from happening. Once you stop that, only the bore gets dirty so as mentioned above cleanup is nothing.

-Nobade

[starmac]

Great info and tips. That is exactly what I was looking for, and it sounds better than I would have thought.
I am not sure I'm going to use black or not, but I doubt I will ever use this in a hunting application, so thought black would be fun.

[John Boy]

What I am wanting to know is will I have to disassemble the gun completely after every shooting. How do you guys that shoot levers with black powder clean them?
Mac, Am a 99% BP shooter, centerfire & percussion.
CAS: the '92 Rossi is my Go To though I have a '60 and '66. The Rossi has close to 15,000 rounds shot and has been field striped twice. Cleaning is done with a hand held steam cleaner: nozzle down the bore and around the frame, lifter and bolt with the hand exposed. Bore cleaned with 2 patches of Eezox. Hand cut and bolt cut get a couple drops of Eezoz. Frame is wiped with with a shop rag coated with Eezox ... Done
2002 Rugers & percussion's get the same type of cleaning

[fouronesix]

Yep, if a Marlin then removing the lever, bolt, ejector is not much of a problem as posted. Careful sizing and annealing can help keep the blow back around the case to a minimum as was also posted. The open top Winchesters are easier to clean from the muzzle. The Marlin with the enclosed top make cleaning of that area more problematic. Either way will work with the Marlin including from the muzzle- just cock it a little sideways so the port is down when upside down. You'll just have to see how much fouling and gunk accumulates in the bolt raceway area during shooting and when swabbing and cleaning. Still, with the right ammo there should be minimal fouling in the action- with complete cleaning of the bore done as with any BPCR.