Care and feeding of black powder rifle

[SpareMag]

Gentlefolk,

I took my new-to-me Investarms traditional 54 cal for playtime yesterday...first time I had fired it since I gave it back to the previous owner.

I returned it cleaned, and not knowing, had lubed it with CLP. It had not been fired since.

Hanging out here, I learned better and did a rudimentary swabbing out with Bore Butter and got some rust cleaned out, or so I thought.

The piece fired well, perhaps 15 rounds were put thru it using Pyrodex.

After the shoot, I scrubbed out the barrel with hot, soapy water, and then rinsed out with boiling water, and allowed to dry.

Couple hours later, I swabbed everthing out with clean patches, and got some moisture out of the innards. When the patches came out dry, I put a few patches thru it coated liberally with Bore Butter.

Now, 24 hours later, for grins, I swabbed out the barrel again with Bore Butter on patches wrapped arount a shotgun brush, which fits the barrel well, and got back rust on the patches.

A half-dozen Bore Butter patch treatments seems to have removed this round of rust, but clearly I am not doing something correctly.

Where am I erring?

Thx!!!

[Captchee]

you used bore butter. you could spray the bore down with it and come back a week later and your patchs would come out brown . thats just bore butter or wounder lube , both do the same thing

[SpareMag]

So this is a discoloration caused by bore butter or am I using the wrong stuff to treat the barrel?

[Captchee]

bore butter at least for me , allways dries to a brown color that looks like rust . TC says its not rust , but ?????.
anyway . i know some folks like it . myself , i never did .

for the most part i just wipe the bore down real good with Rem oil .
now surly someone will chim in about that . but i have had real good luck with it . i dont get rust and i can get 30-40 shots when using spit patchs .

[Old Stony]

I've been using bore butter for a lot of years with no problems. I clean my barrels with a mix of Windex and Murphy's oil soap, and use the bore butter when I get clean patches out of the barrels. I use the same mix of Windex and Murphy's soap in a spray bottle as patch lube, but I'm sure there are a hundred different opinions about this sort of stuff. I do stay away from any petroleum based oils.

[BirchOrr]

... has a purpose, but rust preventative is not one of them. It works well as a patch lube or to help season a barrel between shots, but that's about it.

The inside of C&B barrels are notoriously rusty. Simply their nature. After the barrel is cleaned and dried like you said above, run a patch with Ballistol or Kano-Kroil down the barrel before storage. When you get it back out again, run a couple dry patches and fire a cap before loading to blow out any oil that might have settled in the nipple. Load and fire. This should solve the issue.

All the best,

Birch

[SpareMag]

K, thanks, all. i will warm up the barrel when I have some time, slap more bore butter in it then officially stop worrying.

While I have youall here, I bought some .54 cal balls, and they fit fine with the lubed patches I picked up. But with the rifle came some .54 pre-lubed conicals that would NOT fit with a patch.

Do conicals not use a patch?

And if you have a lubed patch, should I also lube the ball or conical with crisco or something similar?

Thx!

[BigPapa4147]

A properly sized and lubed conical does not require a patch.

[mehavey]

As per BirchOrr above, forget the bore butter.
I say again, forget bore butter for rust protection.
It is nothing but olive oil, bee's wax, yellow food dye and peppermint flavoring.

Get any good gun oil and/or (recommended) BreakFree and wipe the gun down
inside and out. You're done until next firing.

Then dry patch the cylinders/bore, snap a few caps, and load as usual.

[Old Stony]

I know there are some strong opinions about this stuff, but I still say "do not put any products down your barrel that are not water soluable". For instance outfits like Caywood have told me they boil out any oil products left over from manufacturing their barrels before shipping. The oil will collect in the pores of the metal and create fouling problems. I disagree with the opinions about C&B barrels being rusty and that being the nature of them...rust is not desirable in any barrel.
Black powder is a water soluable product and that is why you clean them differently than modern weapons. Petroleum products and black powder mixed result in tarry fouling.
Most any natural lube that will fill the grooves on a conical will suffice, and no patches are needed with them.

[SpareMag]

Hi all,

I posted my Bore Butter and Forget post in that space of time between reading the previous and when BirchOrr posted.

So, the idea rhen is it is OK to use a CLP to clean and prevent rust, but it should be cleaned out before use, and use something like Bore Butter before firing? Or is BB really just mainly a patch lube?

I DID learn a lesson about firing a clearing shot the almost-hard way.

Loaded up the rifle after storage, swabbed out the barrel with Bore Butter, put in powder, patch, ball. Attached percussion cap. Aimed at unsuspecting and innocent pop can. Pulled primary trigger. Calmed. Touched release trigger. Hammer flew down. Perc cap went off...and heard "snap" but no "boom" and no smoke...

Geesh...ran thru my mind how to yank out a seated ball, had no ball extractor, nothin'....

Thought maybe the cap channel just needed clearing out, so I fixed another cap, fired and heard a nice boom.

So, cleaning shot from now on!

Oh, yeah...and get a shot puller.

(Well, I am real goood at jumping mssgs on this thread... Stony, how do YOU store your BP?)

[steinauge]

FWIW I have used break free for many years as an after cleanup lube and have had no problems of any kind.

[Captchee]

far be it from me to disagree with danny caywood . but frankly modern barrel stels do not act like iron barrels . simply put they dont aseason like that .

the only real issue with patrolim based products is one of if they react well with BP .
personaly , i have never seen anything that fouls as bad as TC wonder lube or bore butter .

[Old Stony]

Sparemag.....I generously coat the bores of mine with Bore Butter and never have a rust problem. I dry out the bores before shooting, pop a cap to clear any remnants and proceed to shooting. Bore Butter will aid in the seasoning of a barrel and any remnants you miss will hurt nothing.
Black powder shooting will bring out LOTS of opinions about what is the proper and most effective procedures. People use Moosemilk, water soluable oil, spit, hand lotion, and god only knows what to lube patches....just as an example. Each of them will probably be somewhat effective and the person that uses them will probably swear they are the best.
One of the beautiful things about shooting muzzleloaders is the ability to develop procedures that work for you with few absolute rules to follow other than the basic safety procedures. If you want to use lip gloss, shoe polish, or camo face paint, to lube your patches, go ahead...they will probably work just fine too.
For what it's worth.....I use my mix of Windex and Murphy''s oil soap to clean and lube patches....and never flush my barrels with water. I use a pretty wet patch and it picks up fouling as you seat the next ball, so you are shooting through a cleaner bore compared to products that just lube and not clean.
Using this method, I can fire 50+ shots and never clean the bore in the process....and the balls will still seat easily.
Listen to all the opinions you find on here, and find which work for you. Experimentation is part of the fun of the sport.

[SpareMag]

Well, when in doubt, RTFM:

2) Flush the barrel with the hottest clean water available. This not only removes the soap but also heats the steel which helps in the drying process.
3) Dry all parts.
4) Apply a good coat of oil displacing lubricant to all metal parts and reassemble.
5) Inspect for the next few days just to be safe.

So, I have two schools of competeing thought.

My sense is that since petroleum products react badly with BP, then it is best to avoid petroleum on the inside of the barrel.

But what works for that? Crisco? Bacon grease?

But the manual is saying petro-lube is my friend, and the manual should know...

[SpareMag]

Thanks, Stony,

NOW, about your patch mix...you are seating a damp patch against the powder? How does THAT work?

The Windex part doesn't throw me, since people who shoot corrosive Russkie 7.62x39 ammo use it to neutralize the effects of that round...so I buy the IDEA of your concoction, I just don't see hoe you get boom with a damp patch against the powder...?

As for patches, for this intial round, I got some store-boughtened prelubed patches. For rifles, will any type of patch material work, such as cleaning patches? Or do I need something else?

I read in the C&B revolver sticky (my next plunge after I get the basics sorted) that wool felt patches are best, though no explanation was given. Does this hold for rifles, or due to the size of the barrel, are they more forgiving?

Thanks, all! This is really VERY useful info for me! I see a C&B revolver and a flintlock in my future, so I may be a plague upon youall here for a while.

[Old Stony]

Almost any fabric store will have pillow ticking and it's generally+/- .015 thick...probably depending on who made it. I would start experimenting with this if I were you, with a .530 ball. Depending on your actual bore diameter, you might have to go to a thinner patch....all rifles seem to be different. You want a pretty tight fit and don't worry about the damp patch, you will never notice the difference. It's not like there is enough dampness left after squeezing it against a tight ball to bother anything.
After firing, go pick up the used patches and check them out. They should show a nice pattern sort of like a flower without any holes in the material.
The .530 ball with .015 patch is just a starting point....some rifles will prefer the .535 ball with .010 patch material. Just experiment and see what works the best for you.
There are no absolutes in this muzzleloading stuff and 10 different guys will probably produce 10 different opinions. I have been pretty successful in competition using my own preferences, but you might find something entirely different you prefer. Good luck....

[SpareMag]

Thanks, Stony!

Wonderful stuff you are offering.

HOW...how are you cutting the ticking? Using a silver dollar as a guide, a shot glass, rotory hole bit on a drill...???

[Old Stony]

I normally use a punch over half a dozen thicknesses of material at a time, but you can use the old tried and true method that has been used forever. Cut a strip about 1 1/2 " wide and place a lubed end over the bore. Place a ball over the material and tap it into the bore until flush with the end of the barrel. Slice off the material across the end of the barrel and you have a fitted patch. Guys do different things with patches, just like other aspects of black powder stuff. I've seen guys even using square patches.
Experimenting is all part of the fun.

[SpareMag]

Where do you find a half- inch punch?

[Old Stony]

You will need a larger punch than that...something like 1 1/8 or 1 1/4 diameter. Scan some of the sites, like Dixie Gunworks, The Gun Works in Oregon, Track of the Wolf...and there are many more. They all carry stuff like that. You might even find one on Ebay for that matter.

[mehavey]

You do not need to punch anything out to make/use patches.

- Instead cut pillow ticking into long strips, 5 red/white (or blue/white) stripe-pairs wide.
- Moisten with your "favorite" lube. (Mine is 7:1 diluted NAPA water-soluble machinist oil and/or plain spit)**
- Squeegee or press-blot and allow to dry (unless it's spit)
- Dump the powder down the barrel.
- Lay the patch strip over the muzzle and place the ball on top. Short-start the ball flush with the muzzle
- Cut the exposed patch strip off flush with a sharp knife.
- Ram the rest of the way home/firmly against the powder.***
- Cap and shoot (50-yd pic below).




(When you pick these strip-cut patches up off the ground, you will find them perfectly circular.)

** If/when I ever use (homemade) bore butter for patch lube, I slather some into the center
of a folded-up ticking strip; microwave until re-liquified to soak through all the layers when pressed
between fingers; then put the strip between two layers of paper towel and hard press
roll/blot with your wife's favorite rolling pin -- repeatedly -- until effectively "dry".

Shoot it that way (dry) for (probable) best results.


*** A proper ball/patch/lube is usually found as one where the ball/patch is very stiff
going down the barrel, but not stiff that you actually have to hammer it. Two hands on the
ramrod going down in stiffly 6 inches at a time is about right.

[kwhi43]

Man, that target would win everything in the heavy bench at Friendship and
set records that would never be beat! You would be famous!

[Old Stony]

One thing I forgot to mention, is wash your patch material before you use it. The factories use a "sizing" on it, and I think it is advisable to remove it in the washing machine. I have mostly used some old drapery material for years that is a close weave tough fabric. I just happened to run into a fair sized roll of it one time and have had some pretty flowery patches since.
Like I said, find what works for you...everyone that chimes in on the muzzle loading stuff probably does things a little differently. It doesn't necessarily make one method better than another but some guys will probably get pretty stiff necked about how their procedures are better than others.

[mehavey]

...that target would win everything ....

Unfortunately, the final useful group for Silhouette and Rambash is the root-mean square of the
bench group size and the shooter's off-hand hold.

The Good news: The rifle didn't miss.
The Bad News: The rifle didn't miss.