AmericanLongRifles Forums
General discussion => Black Powder Shooting => Topic started by: HighUintas on October 24, 2023, 12:24:57 AM
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I seem to always get rusty patches. After cleaning after shooting.
Here's my process for cleaning:
Cool/cold water in a bucket. Remove barrel and put breech in bucket. Pump the rod with a jag and patch up and down for about 5 minutes. Rinse with clean cool water multiple times.
Blow out with air compressor. Dry patch x 2
Spray liberally and n the bore with wd40. Patch it to distribute the oil throughout the bore. Put in some more wd40. Spray into touch hole. Store barrel muzzle down overnight.
Dry patch muzzle the next day and then patch the bore with an oil that is a better rust preventative than wd40.
Here's some pictures of my patches from drying the bore after pumping the water in and out as well as a few bore pictures. I always look at the bore to see what's going on as I'm curious about how it looks in there. It doesn't look as rusty as the patches suggest.
Thoughts?
(https://i.ibb.co/51zzsLd/PXL-20231023-041644273.jpg) (https://ibb.co/TwnnPtZ)
(https://i.ibb.co/JC5VsG9/Screenshot-20231022-222009.png) (https://ibb.co/g6zNRfx)
(https://i.ibb.co/JBtT2Y1/Screenshot-20231022-222114.png) (https://ibb.co/Vj9GDF1)
(https://i.ibb.co/Ln1ZRhm/Screenshot-20231022-222101.png) (https://ibb.co/YphLQTm)
(https://i.ibb.co/4Pkhyk1/Screenshot-20231022-222136.png) (https://ibb.co/cDq45qY)
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I don't think that's rust. It looks like Bore Butter to me. What are you lubing your patches with?
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I've never used bore butter. I use either Hoppes black powder cleaner/lube or mink oil from Track
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water+ steel + air= rust. i know a lot of people clean with water, i don't, i use Windex. i never get rust,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
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I've used Windex for years as well. Never remove the barrels either. Scrape the breech face, few wet patches, dry and 3n1 oil. Another dry patch a couple days later just to check and re oil. Works for me
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WD-40 displaces water; doesn't do much to prevent rust. Use Breakfree or something similar after cleaning.
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I don't understand either. Your cleaning regime is about what I do and I never get rust and I don't put any other oil into the bore after
patching the excess WD40 out. Your bore pictures sure looks like rust to me.
I use only the first bucket of water for cleaning. I use clean dry patches to dry until they get VERY grabby, THEN you know you've dried the bore.
I then spray WD40 into the bore until it runs out the vent. The first patch down the bore blasts WD40 out the vent or nipple seat.
That patch is then used to wipe down the outside of the barrel, re-install and whether it's a week, month or 2 years later, no rust - clean patch.
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Is that a flintlock or percussion barrel ? I'm asking because apparently there have been some caps put there lately which are corrosive :( Even so, your flushing should get rid of anything and everything
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It's a flintlock barrel.
Daryl, it could be I'm not getting the bore dry enough before using wd40. Since it's a round groove colerain, those grooves are hard to get a patch deep into. I figured that a little bit of moisture left is ok as long as I douse it well with wd40, since it's a water displacer and make sure to patch and reoil after letting it set a bit.
Maybe I'll hit the inside with maroon scotch Brite on a brush to remove the rust, reclean it, and make sure I get it bone dry before oiling.
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Some city water has a lot of chlorine in it. I use Blacksolve with diluted Balistol to clean and I use distilled water to make the solutions.
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I agree about the city water especially at certain times of the year as some water treatment plants use more chlorine during high run off events. I would clean that bore with brake cleaner also as you scotch bright it then go back to your regular cleaning as I use your method and it works great for me.
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Thanks for the tips. That's an important point on the city water. I have a water softener also, which could be influencing that.
I'll get some distilled water to do the final rinse before drying and see if that helps.
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Interesting about the water softener. Most of those I am/was familiar with back in the late 60's used a lot of salt. Hmmmmm.
I would do as you suggested, Scotch Brite it, I'd use maroon or one softer as even 0000 wool will do it for you, then re-oil.
I use city water in my barrels, fairly soft, but fairly high in chlorine.
I try to get the barrel as dry as possible with new flannelette patches (I do re-use them). The jag is turned down enough that I can use a doubled patch for cleaning and drying,
to ensure I get to the bottom of the grooves.
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Daryl's last sentence is important. One flannel patch is insufficient to go to the bottoms of the grooves and remove fouling, water, and oil. Turn down your cleaning jag about .020" so you can double your cleaning patches. There should be a significant resistance to pulling and pushing the cleaning rod down your bore. It only takes me about eight strokes to completely flush out the fouling from my rifle barrel. Then I remove the rod from the bore and turn the barrel muzzle down to drain while I dry off my cleaning rod.
When I'm in my shop after a shooting session, I use my machinist's vise with rubber pads to hold the barrel for drying with clean dry cotton flannel patches. The first one comes out with dark grey, even yellow/green oxide. the second often has a bit of grey, and the third comes out almost perfectly white. The forth set of patches goes into the bore easily but is difficult to withdraw as the patches bunch up against themselves in the dry bore. These come out a little shredded or worn looking and perfectly white. Like Daryl, I squirt WD 40 down the bore, wet a patch with the same, and force it down the bore with some authority, to blast the fliuid out the vent. I do this to ensure that there is no water left at the breech face. I have used almost every oil there is over the years, for oiling the bore and outside of the barrel for rust prevention. But now I use synthetic motor oil, and the steel seems to like it. My oiled patch comes out without any additional colour to it, and I find no rust whatsoever in the bore or on the outside surfaces, no matter how long I store the rifle, shotgun, or pistol.
I will also add that at a rendezvous, I almost always clean all the guns I've shot that day in the same water...rifle first, pistol second and shotgun last. My black powder cleaning bucket is a length of black pvc pipe about 15" tall x 4 1/2" in diameter, with a cap glued on. I have a disc of 1/2" plywood in the bottom to support the tang of the rifle barrel. After cleaning three guns, especially the double barrel shotgun, the water is black soup. But I don't bother changing out the water during the cleaning regime.
I remove the barrels from my muzzleloaders every time I clean. I am careful not to slip and mark the stock around the pins or keys, and the pins or keys always are withdrawn and are returned to the stock from the left or off side, same as the lock screws. I confess that the holes around the pins in my rifles become loose after about five years of continually doing this, so I spatula a bit of beeswax over the holes with a small screwdriver, on both sides of the stock to prevent loss of the pins. I find this preferable to leaving the barrel in the wood to clean, splashing fouled water and oil all over the stock, being unsure if I got all the fouling out of the breech area, and having the pins rust in the wood, and become impossible to remove without breaking out pieces of the stock. Just my way of doing this job. I like cleaning my guns and don't find it to be an onerous or tedious job...about 15 - 20 minutes to clean a longrifle. One last thing - I remove and toothbrush the lock in water each time I clean my rifles too. In the shop, the compressor is handy for blowing away the water, and the spritz of WD 40 too, prior to oiling the action and reinstalling the lock.
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To HighUnitas: On you original question on the rust I believe you're doing everything correct. The one addition I do is after the application of WD40 I only let the gun sit with the barrel pointing down for a couple of hours at the most. By then the WD40 has done its job. I then liberally coat a patch with my favorite lube of 50/50 T.O.T.W. Mink oil and pure neatsfoot oil. This provides a barrier to any rust forming. Now here in the Pacific N.W, we don't have the heat and humidity others suffer through.
If you have hard water, or use an online water softener I would consider buying distilled water.
Best of luck,
"Muskrat" Mike
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Try using:
WD-40 Specialist Corrosion Inhibitor
Not just WD40
Long term storage, RIG Gun Grease
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I’ve personally never seen yellow rust. Some thing is being removed from your rifling.
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A good wipe with dexron will stop rust forming.
Best,
R.
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I’ve personally never seen yellow rust. Some thing is being removed from your rifling.
In person I think the color is much more orange than yellow
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Another option too try would be JB bore cleaner. This paste has a ULTA fine silicon grit that might scrub that color out. I have used it mixed in with my bear oil path lube for an afternoon of shooting a friends rifle and it helped clear up his somewhat cloudy bore.
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Here's what I did:
Turned down my jag by about 0.020 on the ring closest to the screw. The middle one was probably half that. The front ring just had a few thou taken off. I can double patch perfectly now! Bore is 0.58 and the jag is 0.550, 0.540, 0.530.
Gray 3m pad on a jag and have it probably 25 strokes. Maybe more.
0000 steel wool on the jag tight enough that it was some work getting it to move in the bore initially. Probably 25-50 strokes.
Ball of 0000 steel wool put into bore and pushed all the way down with the fouling scraper. Put pressure on it and turned it for a few minutes to clean up the breech face.
Rinsed out a few times with tap water. Rinsed out a few times with distilled water.
Blew out with air compressor from the touch hole.
Double patches several times to dry, until it was feeling very dry. The patches were gray instead of orange! They never turned completely white though. This was the same in the past when I've scrubbed the rust out with 3m but it didn't seem to stay that way very long and soon turned orange again.
Checked with my scope... Yup it looked pretty dry, and nice and clean and probably a bit smoother.
Doused with wd40. Saturated a patch with wd40 and rammed that sucker home as usual and squirted some oil out the vent hole.
Let sit muzzle down overnight because it was too late to wait a couple hours and patch it again.
Patched it this morning and the patch was gray... No orange rust. Ran a new patch with oil in the bore a few times and sat muzzle down.
So, we'll see how this looks next time I go to shoot and clean.
Thanks for the tips! I'll try some more of the suggestions if I see more rust later 😀
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Sounds like a good scrubbing. Hope it works out for you. ;)
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I no longer use my compressor to blow out the water, but when I did, I shoved the rubber cone into the muzzle creating a seal, then applied the air, to blow the water out the vent or nipple seat.
With my barrels (maybe they are 12L14?), my last drying patches come out with grey on them. I think this is actually metal, as those patches, if in the can at the back door, have rust streaks on them, next morning or 2.
My WD40 patch always comes out clean, just wet with the WD40. Next day or week later, if patched, that one is also clean.
If it was grey or had streaks on it, likely the bore was not perfectly clean in the corners of the lands/bore.
It normally takes me 5 patches to clean a ML. 1 for pumping water into and out of the bore, and 3 for drying, one for oiling. Sometimes it takes 4 to dry the bore.
I run each one in twice, turning it inside out for the second push down and up.
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Its not uncommon to have a LITTLE tan on a patch the next day.
A lot means that the bore is not properly dried/dewatered. Now the protectant used may actually be pulling stuff out that the cleaning did not remove. Fouling is very water soluble, iron oxide not so much.
I also tend to only clean with water and maybe some windex or a little dawn. But these need to be well rinsed.
I use G-96 Gun Treatment to remove any dampness and protect. But I spray a fair dose in the muzzle and wait for it to appear at the vent. Then stand the barrel/rifle muzzle down on a well folded paper towel to let it drain. This SHOULD remove any moisture I then follow with a patch after cleaning the lock etc. Then a slightly damp G-96 patch and then after assembly stand it muzzle down over night. You will also find that once the wet patches, tight ones come out clean that the dying patches may show some black. As a test put these on a shelf to dry and often the black will convert to red iron oxide not grey fouling color. The powder gases, I have been told, though heat, pressure and the high carbon content of the gases tends to carburize a molecule thick layer and this may come off with cleaning or the solvent of the preservative coating may cause it to come off on patches. I think 4140-4150 barrels are less susceptible to this having both chrome & molybdenum. But finding a ML barrel made of this is very rare. WD-40 will dewater things as well and it will also pull things off the steel that normal BP cleaning might not.
This does not happen with blackpowder guns cleaned from the breech.
JB bore cleaner is an abrasive paste and getting it all out might be difficult on a ML arm
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And I use white diaper flannel for cleaning patches. Like Daryi stated you want to get to the bottom of the grooves the thin patches used for cleaning shallow groove brass suppository barrels are not very good for this.
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The gray on the patches is graphite. Also, the orange gunk could be your oil polymerizing. All oils do to an extent.
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I blew compressed air into a barrel to dry it once and it turned orange before my eyes,flash over rust I think.
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I blew compressed air into a barrel to dry it once and it turned orange before my eyes,flash over rust I think.
That is something I’ve not seen unless the water was scalding hot.
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Yes - that was flash rusting. The effect is accumulative. We had a friend who insisted on using boiling water to clean his rifle.
After years of use, it was mildly pitted one end to the other. We had to lap is twice to get it shooting well again and without needing to be wiped often.
Lapping was done with lead laps cast in the bore & fine valve grinding compound.
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Maybe I should discontinue my use of the air compressor, although I can't see it causing it if I rinse with distilled water.
I'm happy to announce I finally filled my archery deer tag! Do, hopefully I'll be able to get it processed in time to be able to participate in barking the squirrel prior to October's end. And, we'll then see if my barrel has conjured any rust.
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Unless you have paint booth quality air dryer on you compressor the air is full of water especially in high humidity areas.
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Following this thread;
Having been shooting flint locks for over 60years my 2 PENNYS worth.
STOP using WD 40
No air compressor
NO hot water
Cold water in a dish with a couple of drops of Dawn dish soap
tooth pick in touch hole or dry patch in pan with frizzen closed
3 patches sopping wet.
let set for about ten minutes
dry patch
then another couple of wet patches keep alternating wet and dry patches until clean
When dry and clean Oil bore with a GOOD firearm gun oil ---NO 3in 1 or WD 40
Check in 2 or three days
Carney
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Hoppe's #9 Nitro Solvent is the second best firearm specific rust preventative, with Ezzox being the best. Hoppe's #9 Solvent tested better than Hoppe's gun oil.
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Agree on no air compressor. A lot of the time the air leaves an oily film on what ever you blast.
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Just cleaned a .36 caliber Bedford rifle after shooting 20 or so shots without wiping. Tried straight ZEP streak free glass cleaner. Ingredients are all alcohols. Sprayed some down the barrel and let set. The fourth patch soaked with the cleaner came out white! Never had that happen with water or any other cleaner. Barrel dried quickly with no flash rust. I’m sold on it. Used it today also on my 12 gauge flint turkey gun after several shots. Same results. Gets all the fouling and graphite out. No water needed.
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"Flash" rusting is caused by scalding-hot water. At least that is the only time I "got" it, before switching to cold water at Holland and Holland's (British Gun maker's) order.
With cold water from the tap, I get no rusting & lots of time to wipe the outside dry, along with the cleaning rod, then apply dry doubled flannelette patches to the bore for drying.
It takes a total of 5 patches to clean my rifles or smoothbore. 4 of them will be re-usable next time. 1st one down the bore will be too dirty, the rest not so. The last patch, is the
oiling patch used with WD40 already sprayed into the bore until it runs out the vent or nipple seat.
That oil patch then blasts the excess WD40 out the vent or nipple seat (outside) & is used for wiping down the outside of the barrel & lock before reinstalling those in the gun.
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Just cleaned a .36 caliber Bedford rifle after shooting 20 or so shots without wiping. Tried straight ZEP streak free glass cleaner. Ingredients are all alcohols. Sprayed some down the barrel and let set. The fourth patch soaked with the cleaner came out white! Never had that happen with water or any other cleaner. Barrel dried quickly with no flash rust. I’m sold on it. Used it today also on my 12 gauge flint turkey gun after several shots. Same results. Gets all the fouling and graphite out. No water needed.
Is that the ammonia free, or stuff with ammonia in it? I see the blue labelled one has ammonia, whereas the green labelled ZEP does not.
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Well guys, I don't get it.
After I had scrubbed my bore with a maroon 3m and then 0000 steel wool, cleaned it and rinsed with distilled water, dried following Daryl's procedure, I had no orange on my patches. I patched the bore prior to shooting yesterday and no orange. Just a bit of dark gray.
I shot about 20 rounds yesterday, using cotton patches with mink oil. My last load was a squib with hoppes BP cleaner/lube. I cleaned the barrel about 4 hrs later, using the same process and rinsing with distilled water. Orange on my patches! Aggh! I scoped the bore and it didn't look like any rust in the bore so I'm not horribly worried about it. But I bet it will get worse until I steel wool it again.
I don't know what is going on withmy orange patches, but I guess I'll just have to steel wool it every once in awhile.
First patch from cleaning bore. No orange, but the black would probably hide any if it's there
(https://i.ibb.co/M1dTy8b/PXL-20231112-041956748.jpg) (https://ibb.co/B6kDH4m)
Patch from patching out the oil before shooting... No orange
(https://i.ibb.co/BrfyJnc/PXL-20231112-042005909.jpg) (https://ibb.co/fnXkWDq)
Patch from drying the bore after cleaning
(https://i.ibb.co/b1cGBKM/PXL-20231112-041938871.jpg) (https://ibb.co/nrxKcLN)
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Thats from the patch lube. You aren’t getting it completely out. This is why I’m glad I use a wad of Tow to clean with. Those little fibers scrub a dub really good.
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Still using hot water, it appears. That orange patch has not happened to me since I stopped using hot water. I would guess that was probably 1976. I've shot a lot of powder and patched balls since then without any orange patches and I've used about all the "lubricants" one could think up, including "moose snot", Neetsfoot oil, Track's mink oil, Baby Oil. Ballistol/water mix and water soluble oil and water., moose milk(the artificial stuff. Can't imagine a cow moose allowing you to do that to her) - no orange patches.
After drying the bore (those patches have "some" grey on them). After drying, the final WD40 flushing patch comes out wet with WD40- no colour, pure white. I would suggest if that patch comes out coloured, as yours seems to be, the bore was not clean.
It takes 1 doubled flannelette patch to clean, and usually 4 to dry - each patch gets used twice, both sides, even the first drying patch. I will use the old "drying" patches 2 or 3 times shooting sessions. I just let them dry outside, in the stair well, where I clean my guns. I remove the barrel EACH time, dunking the breech in the stainless bucket of water, cleaning with about 10 strokes, then drying the outside with a towel, then patching out the interior until dry, then a flush with a LOT of WD40, then wiping down the gun and reassembling it, whether barrel keys or pins. Take your time and do it well.
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Thanks for the tips. That's an important point on the city water. I have a water softener also, which could be influencing that.
I'll get some distilled water to do the final rinse before drying and see if that helps.
I'd say that's the problem. But you switched to distalled water. I'd now say don't use hot water.
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I must have missed the hot water part.
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Still using hot water, it appears. That orange patch has not happened to me since I stopped using hot water. I would guess that was probably 1976. I've shot a lot of powder and patched balls since then without any orange patches and I've used about all the "lubricants" one could think up, including "moose snot", Neetsfoot oil, Track's mink oil, Baby Oil. Ballistol/water mix and water soluble oil and water., moose milk(the artificial stuff. Can't imagine a cow moose allowing you to do that to her) - no orange patches.
After drying the bore (those patches have "some" grey on them). After drying, the final WD40 flushing patch comes out wet with WD40- no colour, pure white. I would suggest if that patch comes out coloured, as yours seems to be, the bore was not clean.
It takes 1 doubled flannelette patch to clean, and usually 4 to dry - each patch gets used twice, both sides, even the first drying patch. I will use the old "drying" patches 2 or 3 times shooting sessions. I just let them dry outside, in the stair well, where I clean my guns. I remove the barrel EACH time, dunking the breech in the stainless bucket of water, cleaning with about 10 strokes, then drying the outside with a towel, then patching out the interior until dry, then a flush with a LOT of WD40, then wiping down the gun and reassembling it, whether barrel keys or pins. Take your time and do it well.
Thanks for the tips. That's an important point on the city water. I have a water softener also, which could be influencing that.
I'll get some distilled water to do the final rinse before drying and see if that helps.
I'd say that's the problem. But you switched to distalled water. I'd now say don't use hot water.
I must have missed the hot water part.
I'm not sure where the hot water part came from, but I only use cold water to clean. I don't think I've said anywhere that I use hot water.
I just realized though that the line to the sink I get the water from does not go through the water softener, so it is just regular tap. But, this shouldn't matter since I rinse with distilled water
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Interesting. I thought you'd said you used hot water, somewhere. Hot water is the only time I EVER got flash rusting or yellow rust on the patch when drying.
What I said stands though, about rusting - it has not happened since I switched to cold water, no matter what lube I used, oil, water based or a grease - all cleaned up
with cold water.
Now, some say there is buildup with greases or oils. I cannot EVER see that happening with the easy loading loads I use. Thick patch and ball between .010" and .005" undersize
of the bore, even when using a .690" ball in my .69, with a .021" patch. You have to WANT it to get started, but once in the bore, it goes down easily.
The crown's design is MOST important.
Here's that .69.
(https://i.ibb.co/0ZMr1jn/Muzzle-Crown-14-bore-closeup.jpg) (https://ibb.co/RP0ctpg)
These are the before picture with the machined crown that most barrel makers provide.
(https://i.ibb.co/HzQ6Wn3/stretchman-s-muzzle-before.jpg) (https://ibb.co/SnpbhRG)
Here is the same muzzle with the emery/thumb-treatment.
(https://i.ibb.co/JsR2cVd/stretchman-s-muzzle-after.jpg) (https://ibb.co/rwGMQYt)
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Is is possible that you are not using a tight enough CLEANING patch in the bore? As Daryl said, we use two flannel patches on a button jag that is reduced in diameter to permit the use of two patches. A commercial jag that is advertised as for a .50 cal. is too large to use two patches. Turn it down another .015". You should have to work at getting that doubled patch down the bore and out again. If they are not tight, they are not going to the bottoms of the grooves and into the corners of the rifling.
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The gray on the patches is graphite. Also, the orange gunk could be your oil polymerizing. All oils do to an extent.
I use Swiss which, so far as I know, is not graphited. I believe the gray I get is black iron oxide since if set aside for a day or two it turns to red iron oxide. This comes from info I got from Bill Knight years back on how the powder gases react with the iron/steel barrels.
But graphite is part of the fouling when using graphited powders since its ignition temperature is higher than the burn temp of BP and it does not combust.
I agree the orange stuff is weird. But I don’t use any commercial patch lubes the only one I remember was Old Zip which DGW sold, maybe still does. It was tallow and maybe a natural oil added.
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Is is possible that you are not using a tight enough CLEANING patch in the bore? As Daryl said, we use two flannel patches on a button jag that is reduced in diameter to permit the use of two patches. A commercial jag that is advertised as for a .50 cal. is too large to use two patches. Turn it down another .015". You should have to work at getting that doubled patch down the bore and out again. If they are not tight, they are not going to the bottoms of the grooves and into the corners of the rifling.
I did have the jag double patched when cleaning for the first stroke, but had a really hard time getting it down and out while keeping the vent hole in the bucket of water, so I switched to single patch. That's with my turned down jag. I'll figure out a way to do two patches next time.
However, it doesn't make sense that would be the cause, because the orange was on my drying patch immediately after rinsing with distilled water.... Almost like it flash rusted in a matter of a few minutes even though I used distilled water to rinse. Before drying it, I noticed no orange on the cleaning patches.
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Still, really strange occurrence. I agree with Dan's assessment on the orange as in iron oxide = rust. I get the same with my drying patches. If it was graphite, the patches would most likely
be still black or grey the next day. However, they turn orange. I still use them for my next cleaning session & I have witnessed no adverse effect from this.
My WD 40 patch, used to blast the excess out the vent or nipple seat, and for wiping down the outside of the barrel, remains white-wet with WD40. There is no colour on this patch. I assume
if there was graphite in the rifling, this patch would come out with grey streaks as well, due to the solvent/carriers. It has no grey on it.
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Like the rest of you I use cool or tepid water to clean, pouring the barrel full then dumping 3 or 4 times. Then wet patches until the residue is a light grey. I then use dry patches until dry. I then run a patch soaked in original formula WD40 down the barrel. I turn the gun barrel pointing down for a half hour to a full hour. I then run the WD40 patch down once again with no additional WD40 added. I then take and coat a patch in my lube blend of 50/50 T.O,T,W. mink oil and pure neatsfoot oil down the barrel to put a fine coat of grease down the inside of the barrel. I never have a rust issue but then again living in the Pacific NW we don't have the weather and humidity issues some have to deal with. Just one old guys thoughts.
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Very strange indeed. And... I live in dry Utah!
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Bill Knight's suggestion for similar fouling was to clean with turpentine or mineral spirits. Might be worth a try.
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I cannot see how distilled water can make any difference. If you are not getting the barrel completely dry, it is going to rust. Distilled water is still water. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this.
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Yes Taylor I understand what you mean. However a bit of wetness left by distilled water shouldn't cause rust as badly as mineral or chlorine laden water.
I don't think what I'm seeing now is from it being left a little wet after cleaning. If it is rust, it seems it's flash rust for some reason but it's not left on the steel surface.
The patch to remove the oil before shooting had no orange and there was no rust in the bore before shooting when checking with the scope. After washing the barrel (double patch washing this time and boy was it tight) I immediately double patch dried it and the patch was orange. The cleaning patch was just black, not orange. It is either something to do with the mink oil, or the oil I use for rust prevention, or I'm getting a small amount of flash rust after washing for whatever reason.
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I've been using tepid or cold tap water since about 1976, or so and have never had any rusting from or with it, no matter what I used for lube.
Your 'deal' is anomalous to me.
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Flash rust happens....fact of life. cold water let it sit in the barrel for a few, dump out then run a patch or two till there clean. oil with motor oil. I never had rust using this process. Store your rifle muzzle down and stay away from bore butter. my patch lube is 40% bees wax and 60% Crisco. This might help. Good luck.
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Ive shot for 60 years, and I don't think much of WD40. The finest anti rust gun oil I have used is G96. That stuff coats and gets into pores and micro scratches better than any general purpose oil. It will stop any rust in your bore.
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Whether you can get by with WD40 or not, depends on your humidity.
Perhaps another way of saying this, is your humidity determines your requirements for an anti-rust agent.
Since we've never had any problem, except for those guys trying Ballistol (rusted their guns) as an after cleaning & drying oil,
none of us up here (Av. Humidity 50%) have had ANY rust after using WD40 for the same thing - after cleaning and drying.
Thus, I would suggest anyone who lives in an area with higher average humidity than 50%, should use a 'proper' rust preventative.
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Whether you can get by with WD40 or not, depends on your humidity.
Perhaps another way of saying this, is your humidity determines your requirements for an anti-rust agent.
Since we've never had any problem, except for those guys trying Ballistol (rusted their guns) as an after cleaning & drying oil,
none of us up here (Av. Humidity 50%) have had ANY rust after using WD40 for the same thing - after cleaning and drying.
Thus, I would suggest anyone who lives in an area with higher average humidity than 50%, should use a 'proper' rust preventative.
I’ve never had a single metal object rust with Ballistol, whether tools kept in a non climate controlled work place or my gun safe in my non climate controlled garage here at home. I can guarantee the humidity in Kentucky, Indiana and Oklahoma is for real.
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2 guys here did, with Ballistol. Taylor thought maybe the Ballistol he got from the guide and outfitter might have been contaminated, so
buddy Ron bought a brand new bottle of it and used it one evening after cleaning and drying his ML. It was rusty in the morning & it wasn't
THAT humid as it was at Hefley Creek.
I have seen in print many times Clark, exactly what you are saying, however Taylor's and Ron's experience speaks volumes to me. When you
think about it, is or can a water soluble oil, even remotely be considered a rust preventative? It certainly will not keep moisture off the barrel
if it mixes with water.
That brings up the question, is there a Ballistol that is not soluble with water?
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Daryl, all Ballistol is water emulsifiing. As are many quality machining coolants. In fact, about 99% of all gun oils are made from mineral oil, as are many trusted greases. Just what ingredient in Ballistol would cause rust in approximately 1 out of every 10,000 users guns?
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Don't know Clark. I am assuming, for both of these fellows, there was a humidity spike (I think it was raining all night for Taylor and his rifle was hanging in the T-Pee.
Ron's was in the box of his truck. Neither got water on them, but both were rusted in the morning.
I am aware that machine cooling oils are water soluble. That is the reason I would never try one to keep water off the steel.
Even WD40 works better than that. I've been using just that, since 1976 or so. Before that, it was G96 or that synthetic developed for the US Army in Viet Nam - the name escapes me.
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Clark: I don't thing it is an ingredient in the Ballistol that CAUSED the rusting...it was the moisture in the air which the Ballistol did nothing to protect against.
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Good catch, Taylor. I missed Clark's thinking I had said the Ballistol itself had CAUSED the rusting.
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I would not use Ballistol as a serious rust preventative. OR, any light oils for that matter. I also never use animal fats or "natural" anything. I do not risk my guns to historical correctness.
As far as possible water left in the bore there is a certain way to get rid of it. Dry alcohol. Use fuel line treatment that removes water as a bore rinse. HEET and ISO-HEET are 100% alcohol that are sold in auto parts store. I poke a little hole in the foil and it dispenses nicely. I pour in about half an ounce and tilt the barrel to work it on all surfaces. I then pour it out and patch dry. You will have a squeaky clean and dry bore after that.
Then use a real deal rust preventer. I like LPS-3. Fluid film, RIG, Boeshield are all excellent. There are others of course. Use grease not a light oil.
When I clean a rifle for storage I do the above. I have never had any rust. The rinse and grease scheme maybe overkill but will give a good base line.
IF the bore has been etched a little by the rust consider polishing it. Micro rust pits attract more rust. Flitz and Semichrome will leave it gleaming. A highly polished surface is less likely to rust. Maybe start with that.
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I did a test some time ago, using various polishing compounds and found Flitz and AutoSov to be about identical in producing a shine, that was not
measurable with my mic, which runs to .0001". I 'ran' it on one spot on a mild steel shaft for about 4 minutes with each solvent, on a narrow patch,
replenishing the polish often. Nice polish from both, but not measurable as to removed material.
I was able to remove a measurable amount of metal using various 'loading rod' materials, from stainless steel to fiberglass which was pretty much
like a rat-tailed file, with only 40 strokes - about .006" to .008"IIRC. Mind you, the pressure area was only 1/4" wide.
A hickory rod from one of my rifles, just polished the surface - no measurable wear. Something on the order of .001" to .002" was removed using a stainless rod, but .0000" with drill rod
as well as nylon.
Of course, this is another subject.
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I started this thread last year and thought I'd give an update.
I was never able to solve this riddle cleaning with water. The cleaning patches would be black or gray and no orange. Then I would dry that bore IMMEDIATELY after rinsing and I'd get orange patches. After patching the oil out of the bore after a period of storage, there wouldn't be any orange, or at least no increase in it. That makes no sense. The best I can figure is that my barrel loves to flash rust when water is involved.
I cleaned my bore this time with Hoppes BP cleaner on patches. I didn't remove the barrel from the stock. I just soaked patches in that cleaner and ran em down the bore. It didn't take that long nor did it take that many patches. After dry patching, with zero orange patches, I looked in the bore with my scope and found nearly every trace of fouling is gone, whereas when cleaning with water there would be bits left in the small bore imperfections that I couldn't get out.
I'd rather not have to buy a cleaner.... I like the simplicity of water in a bucket. However, this was much more satisfactory to me than what I'd been doing so I guess I'm going to start patching out my bore with Hoppes BP cleaner instead of dunking it in a bucket.
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Found your problem - "whereas when cleaning with water there would be bits left in the small bore imperfections"
There are no bore imperfections in my bores. All the fouling comes out with water- 1 patch, then 4 to 5 for drying.
All patches are doubled flannelette material, purchased by the yard. It's cheap and cleans beautifully, due to being
doubled & it's tight. All of my rifle's bores have square-ish rifling. No rounded rifling and all are .008" to 012" deep.
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Found your problem - "whereas when cleaning with water there would be bits left in the small bore imperfections"
There are no bore imperfections in my bores. All the fouling comes out with water- 1 patch, then 4 to 5 for drying.
All patches are doubled flannelette material, purchased by the yard. It's cheap and cleans beautifully, due to being
doubled & it's tight. All of my rifle's bores have square-ish rifling. No rounded rifling and all are .008" to 012" deep.
Your bores must be mirror smooth then. Have you ever looked at it with a bore scope after cleaning? I would wager there's imperfections in all ML bores. After I washed w water (super tight patch pumped up and down for a long time) the patches would eventually be white. No grey. So it would seem by looking at the patch it's totally clean. Look at it through the bore scope... There's some dark colors in the imperfections.
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Could be, but you get rust, I don't. Rusting caused by hot water cleaning the bore, where the cleaning patch comes out and before you can put in a 'drying' patch, the bore rusts, is
caused by the hot water. This "effect" is accumulative, in that the rust pits that are left in the bore, get deeper and deeper to where the entire bore, muzzle to breech is mildly pitted.
A friend of ours used to insist on cleaning with very hot water. After he passed on, Taylor ended with that rifle. We lapped it twice with a lead lap cast in the bore and now the bore
loads and cleans up decently.
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Could be, but you get rust, I don't. Rusting caused by hot water cleaning the bore, where the cleaning patch comes out and before you can put in a 'drying' patch, the bore rusts, is
caused by the hot water. This "effect" is accumulative, in that the rust pits that are left in the bore, get deeper and deeper to where the entire bore, muzzle to breech is mildly pitted.
A friend of ours used to insist on cleaning with very hot water. After he passed on, Taylor ended with that rifle. We lapped it twice with a lead lap cast in the bore and now the bore
loads and cleans up decently.
But I only use cool or cold water, never hot. I think the only time I don't see the flash rust when cleaning with water is after I've ran steel wool or a 3m pad through it, but I can't remember for sure if that was the case or not.
Maybe I'll put up some pictures sometime soon of what I see after cleaning with water vs the Hoppes cleaner. Regardless of the cause, at least I've found something that seems to work for this barrel.
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Well, quite interesting. I've had a bunch of different guns and especially barrels over the years, but have never had any rusting since stopping with the hot water. That
was on my original rifle, a TC .50 cal. After 1974, no more rusting after cleaning. All the gun writers back then, used to recommend boiling hot water. That's what I used until
I read H&H's (from England) letter to my friend, a double gun collector. They refurbished a cap lock 6 bore SxS all and shot gun for him. The returned gun was bored to 5 bore
with perfect bores. They sent along a letter, explaining cleaning with cold tap water only, then patching that out to dry, then using a water displacing lubricant (suggested WD40)
so that is what I used and have been ever since. I've had muzzleloading barrels of 12L14, 1137 and 4140 since then and none have rusted after cleaning or after drying.
Immediately after cleaning, I dry the outside of the barrel and cleaning rod, then run dry patches into the bore and out, reversing to the other side and doing that with 3 or 4 patches
until they grab hard on the retrieval showing the bore is dry. Then I liberally spray WD40 down the bore(s) until it runs out the nipple seat or vent, then I double up a clean piece of
cloth, then run that down, blasting excess WD40 out the vent or nipple seat, then run that up and down a few times then out. I use that one to wipe down the outside of the barrel
then reassemble. The lock is cleaned with a toothbrush and water, then blown off with compressed air, then sprayed liberally wit WD40, then shaken off, wiped off and replaced into
the gun.
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I started using windex when I was in my teens in the 1980’s. Originally it was used to clean my surplus .303 rifle that I used cheap extremely corrosive surplus ammo in. That ammo was so corrosive I would literally wipe the bore every day for a week to try to stop it from rusting and it would always come out with some rust. Some older guy I met told me to use windex, that something in it neutralized the salts. So I started using a wet windex soaked patch as the first patch down the pipe then would wipe clean with a couple dry patches and cleaned as normal afterwards. Sure enough no more rust. Now with black powder I might start off flushing the barrel but at some point I’ll run a windex patch down the pipe and haven’t had any issues.
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Daryl, I've used your exact process many times, even swabbing that wd40 out and using a good rust inhibitor after. Nothing with water has worked yet. So, certainly you can understand this is a strange case.
Here's a couple batches of the bore today after patching our the ballistol
Near breech
(https://i.ibb.co/Jx7CnqR/Screenshot-20241120-102853.png) (https://ibb.co/Rh072Np)
Other places
(https://i.ibb.co/zfWjGZS/Screenshot-20241120-102823.png) (https://ibb.co/LpDbn1C)
(https://i.ibb.co/bmnZQ8z/Screenshot-20241120-102802.png) (https://ibb.co/LRfWY2n)
(https://i.ibb.co/XtLt77J/Screenshot-20241120-102751.png) (https://ibb.co/KWhW22y)
(https://i.ibb.co/f1yrW3L/Screenshot-20241120-102741.png) (https://ibb.co/JBGrTYg)
(https://i.ibb.co/HGV3NSV/Screenshot-20241120-102735.png) (https://ibb.co/fr2L8g2)
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Yes, puzzling. Last two really SHINE!(on my screen)