AmericanLongRifles Forums
General discussion => Black Powder Shooting => Topic started by: Wingshot on June 25, 2019, 04:41:14 AM
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Over the decades I’ve used/tried a myriad of concoctions related to cleaning my bore for both the short term and long term. My exposure to other BP shooters was fairly limited so what I learned, I learned on my own. What works for me is Wonder Lube, I clean my barrel with water (hot), dry the bore and while it is still warm I run a patch generously coated with WL down and call it a day. I scrub my lock in hot water, dry it and use the same patch to apply some lube to the internal workings. My results: always a smooth loading rifle with minimal fouling and swabbing between shots, (I use WL on my shooting patches) consistent performance in both accuracy and reliability. When I’m putting a gun away for a while I go heavy on the post cleaning application and then wipe the bore out good before shooting. I feel that my process resembles what lard does for a cast iron skillet. I would love to hear what you all think or do differently. If I’m dead wrong in my logic, I welcome the criticism.
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If you’re heating the barrel to 375 to 450 degrees every time, it is probably seasoning the bore like lard seasons a skillet. That of course would make it load tighter.
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If you’re heating the barrel to 375 to 450 degrees every time, it is probably seasoning the bore like lard seasons a skillet. That of course would make it load tighter.
I can say that I’m using water that’s at a temp. well below the boiling point. The lube has a very low melting point and thins out dramatically. I always dry patch the bore before loading before a shooting session or hunting. I’ve been out in some pretty cold weather and to date, have not any issues locks or loading/reloading. My patching is lubed very lightly.
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I prefer a bare bore with only a very thin film of anti-rust type oil on my bore then wipe it dry before shooting. Clean with room temp water only. Ben doing it this way for about 50+ years now and it works.
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I used to "believe" that too.......
Then I could barely get my TC Hawken to fire...... something wasn't right.
After years of that treatment, the patent breech actually clogged up....
My recommendation, stick with what works for you. Whatever you think shoots well, loads well, prevents rust etc. Just be mindful that the grease that turns to liquid is going to turn back to a grease. That's likely to be the touch hole/nipple/patent breech/breech face as you push the patch down the bore. I even store everything muzzle down when it's put away.
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I want my bore clean when I clean it. That nasty yellow brown mess that covers a clean patch "After" the barrel is clean is your wonder lube seasoning. Hot soapy water won't wash it out. But a couple of patches soaked in brake cleaner will get the barrel actually clean again. This seasoning thing ain't what it's cracked up to be.
I've done a lot of shooting with Wonder Lube in the past. There's better lubes out there.
I do still use it though. I lube my deer hunting patches with Wonder Lube because you can leave a rifle loaded all season and WL will never rust your barrel. Works fine for less than 10 shots. But just as soon as a "should be clean" patch comes out with that brown mess on it I immediately clean the barrel with some brake cleaner.
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If you’re heating the barrel to 375 to 450 degrees every time, it is probably seasoning the bore like lard seasons a skillet. That of course would make it load tighter.
Tepid water/cold is all you need ,hot promotes flash rust every time in my guns !
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I have been using Wonder Lube since it came out with wonderful results. Same as the first poster on this thread. I never have loading or rust problems. I can shoot all day without cleaning too.
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Noone is heating their barrel past to 375 to 425 with water as it turns to steam at 212 , the boiling piont.
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Noone is heating their barrel past to 375 to 425 with water as it turns to steam at 212 , the boiling piont.
You can do it if you put your barrel in a pressure cooker...….a BIG pressure cooker....
I have used WL a lot in the past with good results. My fav is Murphy oil soap cut 10% with isopropyl alcohol. The Murphy's, when applied wet, you can load all day and not clean.
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It's easy to load all day with wet patches. Even spit. The test of a good patch lube is being able to use it in a hunting load and stay in the bore for a week. Also, will it run in hot weather and not get still in cold weather.
I know for a fact that WL/Bore butter/ chapstick get hard in cold weather.
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If you season the barrel like a frying pan,,you just have to half clean it,,just wipe it out with sand and a splash of water, heat it hot to dry and rub olive oil all over it,,done,
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The problem with that old line of seasoning a bore is barrels are now hard steel. Not porous like the old barrels and frying pans.
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Here's a link to an article on bore seasoning: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/why-we-dont-season-barrels.61745/
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Seasoning works on those old wrought iron barrels and does not apply to modern steel barrels. It is impossible to season a modern steel barrel.
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Noone is heating their barrel past to 375 to 425 with water as it turns to steam at 212 , the boiling piont.
You can do it if you put your barrel in a pressure cooker...….a BIG pressure cooker....
I have used WL a lot in the past with good results. My fav is Murphy oil soap cut 10% with isopropyl alcohol. The Murphy's, when applied wet, you can load all day and not clean.
I don't see how it can get much better than the Murphy Oil Soap concoction. Cleaning is a breeze afterwards.
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Cleaning is always a breeze - never have trouble with cleaning using cool to cold water, whether I used Track's Mink Oil, Neetsfoot Oil or a water based lube for shooting.
Cleaning is always easy and a 5 minute job using one cleaning patch and 4 to 6 drying patches. I always remove the barrel for cleaning & flush in a container of water.
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Murphy’s oil soap with 10 / cent alcohol is the ticket. Thanks Mike.
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Barrels are not skillets. Good Grief....
Dan
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Seasoning works on those old wrought iron barrels and does not apply to modern steel barrels. It is impossible to season a modern steel barrel.
How do you season an iron barrel and not a mild steel one?
Remembering that back in the day "iron" was anything that would not harden when heated and quenched. So it might easily have as much carbon as mild steel with 10 to 18 points of carbon, especially if its a welded iron barrel since its going to pick up dome carbon from the welding fire.
Dan
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I would not try it on a good barrel but, one might get a seasoning effect by treating the bore with moly paste. I have no idea the dynamics of reducing friction on powder burn and ultimate accuracy. I bet someone tried it back when moly coating bullets and barrels was popular 20 years ago. Anyone?
I see no reason to think that you can season a bore with scented Chapstick.
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If it works in your gun keep using it. Long ago I used WL/Bore Butter for the first load of the day when hunting. If I didn't fire it I could leave it loaded until I did. Later I discovered mink oil which works much better and without any problems whatsoever. I can shoot through an afternoon without wiping although I normally use Hoppes BP Lube for that. After the switch to mink oil I realized just how lousy WL actually was; Chapstick, basically. I clean with cold tap water and protect with Barricade. I also like WD40.
Bore seasoning is a Frankenmyth that just will not die. I can't see how anyone would want a crust buildup in their rifles bore. I clean down to the bare metal and protect it with Barricade. I normally dry patch the bore prior to shooting but not always. Barricade dries and leaves no buildup to wipe out. Unlike some do, I can't clean a gun in 5 minutes; it takes me longer than that to get the lock off! I was born slow and then got slower.
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I’ve got wrought iron barrels I shoot. They don’t season. They are not porous and I don’t think cast iron is either. The seasoning of a cast iron skillet sits on top of the iron which is often poorly finished. There is much mythology about wrought iron, cast iron, and “modern steels”, most of it old wives tales.
You can take mild steel, tool steel, or wrought iron, stick it in the coals, take it out and brush it with linseed oil, corn oil, lard, chicken fat, possum fat, or whatever type of oil that cooks to a polymer when overheated, and regardless of whether mild steel, high carbon steel, or wrought iron, will all develop a “seasoned” finish. Try it.
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I’m glad I posed my question, I’m learning much. I have always been slightly bothered by that orangeish/rust color patch that I get back when I dry patch the bore before shooting after a period of time but a bore light has never given me any indication of rust. The Murphy’s oil soap concoction is something I’ve heard discussed but never in detail. I’d be willing to try it. It’s been my long held belief to never use any petroleum based products in a black powder gun, (I don’t recall the origin of that though) so I’ve always refrained from using “oils”. I’m a minimalist at heart and love the idea of using anything organic or traditional as it relates to care and feeding of my BP guns.
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I’ve got wrought iron barrels I shoot. They don’t season. They are not porous and I don’t think cast iron is either. The seasoning of a cast iron skillet sits on top of the iron which is often poorly finished. There is much mythology about wrought iron, cast iron, and “modern steels”, most of it old wives tales.
You can take mild steel, tool steel, or wrought iron, stick it in the coals, take it out and brush it with linseed oil, corn oil, lard, chicken fat, possum fat, or whatever type of oil that cooks to a polymer when overheated, and regardless of whether mild steel, high carbon steel, or wrought iron, will all develop a “seasoned” finish. Try it.
As to seasoning steel-
Actually prefer my heavy old "sheet iron" skillet (steel) over any of my cast (full collection) because it's slicker and lighter, but plenty heavy. Also it seasoned up quickly.
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I can,t think of any thing more " minimalist or traditional " than plain old water. ;) ;D
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If you feel good about your Wonder lube and have had good results I'd stick with it. If I was an occasional shooter that only plinked or did informal matches that Wonder lube would be just fine Us guys who shoot up to 50 shots in a few matches usually use a liquid type of patch lube that takes the fouling back down into the bore with each loading.
At the end of the day it's cleaned up with tepid or warm water patches and dried with WD 40 and lubed with Break Free. A few weeks later at a new match the bore is wiped before shooting and it is nothing but oil on the patch.
I do like to use lambs tallow for patch lube though occasionally. Especially on my balls loaded in a loading block and used on woodswalks. I figure Wonder lube would work for that also.
Bob
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The seasoning always has confused me. I heard it first in the 70's and believed it. Then I thought about it some and decided that if I could not burn a load of BP in my mom's skillet without damaging the seasoning, then I couldn't do it in a rifle bore either.
Just my thoughts.
DAve
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One thing I never understood is no stick pans. They all say to use an oil like olive oil to treat the pan before using the first time. Put on oil and then warm up pan. It's a pretty hard, smooth, and slippery coating. What does the oil do?
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As Pete asks,
What is it supposed do for you? What are the claims?
What advantage is there with this 'seasoning'? With a frying pan that is seasoned, if left empty on the stove, excess heat will burn off the 'seasoning'.
Will this not happen every shot in a rifle's bore?
Is "seasoning" just an excuse or reason, typical lying advertising to sell a product that no one needs?
After decades of use, my bores remain rust free with cleaning to steel after every shooting with zero/0/no seasoning.
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The "seasoning" myth may have started as a way of describing the breaking in of a barrel. Maybe it got perverted as it passed down from ear to ear. Even today it's used as an "ol' timey" gimmick to market the lube. The lube is okay for what it's used for, lubing patches, but should not be relied on to make a bore, ahem! ol' timey. I've used it some in the past and decided I didn't like it nearly as well as spit patch. Too dry to do spit patch now and found Hoppes and mink oil, along with a handful of others, to be much superior.
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TC was saying it when they started selling Wonder Lube.
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TC was saying it when they started selling Wonder Lube.
Actually the seasoning nonsense started before T/C started selling Wonder Lube. The idea of seasoning the metal came out of one of the large ML supply houses around 1984 or 1985.
The thing here is that no of the so-called Wonder Lube variations that have been on the market are based on animal fats. The various versions of Wonder Lube were based on a petroleum wax. You will find standard mineral oil in them. That points to a petroleum wax base. The yellow coloration seen in some was simply an oil soluble orange dye that could be extracted with the mineral oil. If the various versions of Wonder Lube had been based on an animal fat you could turn them into a form of soap with a caustic. Never could do it when I tried it.
So the idea that you are seasoning the surfaces of the bore as you would season a frying pan for eggs and bacon simply does not fly.
This seasoning nonsense started after Ox-Yoke quit selling repackaged Young Country 103 as their lube. And the Young Country 103 was nothing more than repacked Chap Stick which is petrolatum, a bit of cetyl alcohol and a bunch of water. The first Wonder Lube was basically a repackaged chest rub which is why it had oil of Wintergreen in it. Then some respected person in ML circles commented that one was seasoning the bore much as you would season a frying pan. But he was working under the idea that the lube was based on animal fats simply because he had been conned as to what was in the lube. I used to joke that the orange oil soluble dye gave the shooter the lube had some beeswax in it. The oil of wintergreen odor convinced the shooter that the ingredients were indeed "all natural" and "non-petroleum".
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The only part of the Wonder Lube that I found useful is the plastic container it comes in. After trying it, I threw the lube out and used the container to store my mink oil in my shooting box,
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I kill hogs with mine. Works as well any of the other paste/grease bullet lubes.
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Salt and pepper are seasonings that go back to the "good ol' days". Not so good for a barrel, however.
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Salt and pepper are seasonings that go back to the "good ol' days". Not so good for a barrel, however.
So go with garlic, chives and onion!