Baking Soda

[jerrywh]

I hope I don't have that trouble when I get old.

[roundball]

"...hot water with a little dab of Dawn detergent in it made a pretty good solvent for BP. The dawn will help with any grease or oiley res..."

I agree...I'm sure there are other ways...but steaming hot soapy water (Joy Diswhwashing detergent in my case) is all I've ever used...then a clean hot water rinse...get it bone dry...then run a couple of sloppy wet WD40 patches up and down a few times, then nose down in the cabinet...bores are still in factory mirror new looking condition today...its worked so perfectly for so many years I won't dare change it 

[William Worth]

I am convinced that the corrosiveness associated with BP residue is due to alkalinity, not acid.  That and salts resulting from acid/base reaction during firing.

[Daryl]

I don't know if that's correct or not, W. North - I've never had any corrosiveness from BP to test for cause. I flush-pump straight tap-cold water for the wash, wipe dry with dry flannel patches, then WD40 flush & wipe with another patch. The entire cleaning uses only 4 to 5 patches, all of which are re-useable for next time.

[JCKelly]

If you do not get rust after cleaning with soap, dishsoap, etc it is because you did a very good job of rinsing off the soap.
Soap contains salt, sodium chloride, and is just acidic enough to be corrosive. Residue from dishwasher soap, especially the stuff with lemon, if not well rinsed can deeply pit your stainlessware left in for several days.
This is heresy, of course, we all know soap is lard cooked with lye, how can it rust steel?
Gramma doesn't make your soap anymore.
Modern Soap Producers add salt to their product because salt makes it flow better, that is, easier to pump through the piping system in the plant. I suppose it is a bad analogy but salt also makes your garden slugs flow nicely. . .
Just a few decades ago soap was OK around steel. Then things changed.
Before anyone cared about algae blooms in lakes & ponds the soapmakers neutralized the excess lye in the product by adding just a little phosphoric acid. The phosphorus made great fertilizer for the algae in lakes, not nice for the fish.
A little phosphoric acid also inhibits the rusting process in steel. One example is the "phosphatizing" treatment used on contemporary military weapons.
Along came them dang environmentalists. So to clean up the waterways phosphorus was prohibited in soap. The soapmakers switched to hydrochloric (like, muriatic) acid to neutralize the lye. They still kept the salt, for processing reasons (remember the garden slug). Now there is no more phos acid to inhibit corrosion from the salt. Instead there is just a trace of hydrochloric acid. Hydrochloric is very corrosive = eats the $#*! out of steel. 
The wonderful lemon additions to various soaps are also acidic. There are those who might say that leaving lemon dishsoap set in your stainless sink for a week or two will do very unpleasant things, like pit it all the way through.
My education in all this came from:
1. Stainless research at Allegheny Ludlum
2. At Rolled Alloys, years of providing technical support for stainless & nickel alloy applications at chemical process customers.
3. Private conversations w metallurgists at a very large midwestern soap manufacturer
4. Watching the after-rust in my barrels rinsed w hot water & some kind of soap.
Grampa never shot a breechloader til he was 18. Told me he used Cold Water to clean his rifle. Grampa knew his stuff.
Me, I'd keep soap, ammonia and hydrogen peroxide, all of them, out of my barrel. Cold water does wash out black powder residue. Hot water rusts things faster than does cold. I suppose that a further addition, soap anyway, may be needed to clean out patch grease. Do rinse out the soap with cold water. Then dry & oil with your favorite hopefully water-displacing oil
Jim Kelly,  Heretical but Humble Metallurgist

[Daryl]

Thanks Jim - no wonder Holland and Holland warned a friend of mine not to use hot water, but only cold water for cleaning his double rifles and shotguns of the 19th Century. I guess they KNOW at well.

[Mad Monk]

George F. wrote:
"We all know how corrosive black powder residue can be.  Has anybody ever thought of running a patch down the bore with some solution of baking soda on it to neutralize it?  Just curious as if it was beneficial,"

The subject of the constituents of black powder combustion residue was beat to death by Lammot Du Pont, Nobel & Abel, etc., in the mid 1800's.  They found that 55% of the weight of powder charged to the gun will be found as post combustion solids.

The primary solid products of combustion are potassium sulfate and potassium carbonate (potash).  The ratio of sulfate to carbonate will vary from 3 to 4 parts of carbonate to one part of sulfate.  If you use a pH meter or pH papers to look at the residue you find a pH that ranges from about 8.5 to 9.0.  Meaning that the powder residue is alkaline in nature and contains a god bit of what makes it alkaline.

Potassium carbonate, or potash, is by itself corrosive.  When damp it will quickly rust iron and steel or corrode brass.


The idea that black powder produces sulfur based acid as a production of combustion is nonsense.
The theory being that finely ground sulfur will form a single molecule thick layer of oxide on the surfaces of the particles.  This then combines with water to form sulfurous acid (H2SO3) which then auto-oxidizes to sulfuric acid (H2SO4).  Sounds good in theory.
When a powder plant would QC check a lot of sulfur arriving at the plant they would run a pH on it.  No measurable amount of acidity was acceptable.

Testing of finished powder batches also calls for a pH check.  One spec called for a range of 6.0 to 8.0 pH.  Some lots of powder may go as high as 9.0 pH if the charcoal used is high in ash content (minerals).

Between 1968 and 200 it was possible to see black powder being made corrosive by the presence of potassium chloride in with the potassium nitrate.  The potassium nitrate having been produced by a process where potassium chloride was converted to potassium nitrate via a reaction with nitric acid.  In some KNO3 producing plants the conversion reaction was less than 100% effecient so the final potassium nitrate would contain some unreacted potassium chloride.  Usually 0.5 to 1.0%.  The potassium chloride would be untouched by the powder combustion reactions and a black powder residue containing potassium chloride would be corrosive and noted for pitting bores.
Corrosion (rusting) by the potassium carbonate in the powder residue gives a light surface rusting of the bores but not pitting the bores.  With potassium chloride present you get surface rusting and extensive pitting.

So heaving one alkaline material into the bore on top of another would prove nothing.

[William Worth]

Hooray!  The Mad Monk is back!

It's like it's the final scenes of the movie and the good guy shows up. 

[Dennis Glazener]

Me, I'd keep soap, ammonia and hydrogen peroxide, all of them, out of my barrel. Cold water does wash out black powder residue. Hot water rusts things faster than does cold. I suppose that a further addition, soap anyway, may be needed to clean out patch grease. Do rinse out the soap with cold water. Then dry & oil with your favorite hopefully water-displacing oil
Jim Kelly,  Heretical but Humble Metallurgist

Jim,
Does Murphys Oil Soap have salt in it? I have been using a combo of alcohol and Murphys and it seems to clean better than plain cold water.
Dennis
 

[Paddlefoot]

Just to throw another nickel in the pot; Don't use the water out of your kitchen sink if you are running a water softener. That would be another shot of salt. Get it from outside sine the water to your outdoors areas shouldn't be "softened".

[Brian]

LB, Daryl, Jerry - why on earth would you mix a decent malt with anything - including water?  That's obscene!

[Daryl]

Don't know Brian - who mixes single malt with anything but their own saliva?