Barrel fouling

[jamesthomas]

 .395 RB,.022 sloppy wet denim patch,44" Rice, angular grooves,50 gr of Goex 2f,yep 2f, 1700+ FPS. Loads easy.  If a deer steps out inside of 75 yards, KerBlam!
  added:  clean up is a breeze with this combo.

 You would never get a .022 patch and a .395 round ball down my barrel. I tried to use a .018 patch and it was very hard to load, went down to .015 and it loads very nice an tight. This is with a Rice square bottom grove barrel. I've gone up to 60grns. of 3fff Goex and got very good groups. I have never known how some of ya'll guys load such a tight ball patch combo, it was all I could do to use a .018 patch, so I went to a .015 and while tight still gave me very good accuracy.

[Dan]

"Bigger Hammer Theory"

[Vomitus]

   Ahh, forgot, one inch cone. Don't matter, I load it with a starter, pre cuts. Starter pushes it well into the rifling. No cut or burnt patches. Slobbery wet patch now!

[bgf]

BobBean, I thought that would be Swiss powder.  I used Swiss 1 1/2 in my .58 flintlock Hawken and it was hard to ignite, had that durned patent breech.  That is a different subject, but when I got over 100 grains, certainly 110 or 120 (would have to check my records), that bore fouled so badly near the breech that I could not get a ball down after about three shots.  I had to wipe the bore after every shot.  I did not know Swiss 3F behaved that way, but I think that is what is happening.  Goex will not foul nearly that badly, even that much powder in your .40.

Look in this Black Powder Shooting forum back to Sep 3, 2009, "FFFG Swiss in .54 caliber."  There is a discussion of this fouling.

That is on page 44.

The Swiss black powder matches late 1800's fine sporting powders out of Germany and England.  Burns very hot.  If you look at original longrifles that still have the original gunsmith provided tin "charger" you see them set up at one grain per caliber.  That is basically a point of diminishing returns charge with the fast hot burning sporting powders.

When the Swiss powder first came into the U.S. I checked it.  Shooting Swiss 3F in my Getz barrel .45 Schimmel.  Started low.  Around 30 grains and worked my way up in 5 grain increments over the chronograph.  At 55 grains in the .45 I started to see a skin of glass-like fouling just ahead of where the patched ball sat on the charge.  At 60 grains the band got thicker and longer.

The fast hot burning sporting powders are capable of combustion temperatures around 2,000 degrees.  When gas temperatures behind the projectile in a black powder gun go over 1600 degrees you begin to see a heat fusing of the combustion residue particles.  Above a certain point the combustion residue gets hot enough to melt onto the bore walls.  While still water-soluble it becomes difficult to remove because there is so little surface are of the fused glass-like deposit to work on.

In working with the Swiss powder I used that point in the charge, where I would see the first indications of a glass-like film, and back off a few grains.

Mad Monk

I had the "glass-like" deposits.  My .50 started getting hard to seat and shredded patches.  A patched jag slid down smoothly all the way to the breech and loading was never difficult except toward the end, right where the ball sits after a few shots, but I tried more polishing and cleaning, to no avail.  Finally, I got desperate and used heavy duty oven cleaner in the bore.  After a few strokes, I got slivers of smooth glass-like material, very thin and shaped like grooves, about 1/2" long.  My theory was they sat right above the charge and acted as seeding sites for fouling.  I think they tore the patch on shooting.  At the time I blamed oil in the lube, but it could have been partly due to powder.  Patches were denim with .495 balls, so not loose by any means.

I haven't seen the problem since, but I went to water or spit lube for most shooting and tend to use Goex due to cost...

[Mad Monk]

Until the Swiss powder came into the U.S. around 2000 the shooters in this country had not seen a good fast hot burning sporting type powder in almost 100 years.  There was a small shipment of good ICI C&H powder in the mid-1970s but few shot it.

GOEX, being a rifle type, i.e. burn rate, powder cannot produce combustion temperatures close to 2000.  Max would be about 1800.  But even then this gas temperature can come in to play.  As the temperature of the gases behind the projectile go up you see more bore fouling and it becomes increasingly more difficult to remove with a damp or wet cleaning patch.  Some shooters describe the fouling as "tarry".  Like tar.  And that is simply a thing with the fouling being subjected to enough heat to start to fuse the potassium carbonate in the powder combustion residue.

Mad Monk

[Dphariss]

I took my new .40 cal flintlock rifle out this weekend and I was loading 80 grains of 3f for a full hunting load and I am getting incredible barrel fouling midway down the barrel stopping me from reloading without ramming very hard.  I cleaned a bunch of residue out.  Any advice?
This was after just one shot from a cleaned barrel.

thanks in advance

Heavy charges will cause very hard fouling due to increased bore temps and the more powder the more fouling left in the barrel. Unless you need this much to shoot well something in the 50-60 gr range is plenty. 40-45 might be just as good if it shoots well. Adding powder is not going to greatly increase killing power. Significant increases in killing power require larger diameter balls.  Can't make a 40 into a 50 with more powder.

Dan

[Dan]

Hammerhead that I am, some years back I purchased some Goex 3f for my flinter. It works pretty well, all things considered. Takes about 4-5 patches to clean and oil.

Then I purchased some Swiss 1.5 for a couple of slug guns. It works very well. Takes about 4-5 patches to clean and oil.

The fouling is distinctly different, but consistent in nature for each powder.

Then I did something different and loaded a .25-20 SS with the Swiss, compressed it until it squeaked and it shot very well indeed. Almost no smoke and over the course of 10 shots, no swabbing between, it left almost no fouling at all. 4th patch was spotless.

I'm pretty much stuck in my ways for now.