Patch Lube, Bore Cleaner, Bore rust preventative recommendations?

[WadePatton]

...a factor is "temperature" but it is not the water temperature but the environmental temperature in which the object sits after exposure to the agent (water).

...

Boiling water heats up The barrel, and by that premise, would accelerate the process.

Grab your chair!!!

uh, yeah.

how does one propose to fill a bbl with boiling water without heating the metal?    

Sometimes the experienced and seasoned veterans of the field are a much better sources than any web search engine and the commercialism it embraces will ever bring you.  Believe it or not we have hashed this one around more than once and professional metallurgists have weighed in. 

Use what you like.  I still take mine tepid, no brush. 

[Molly]

The idea of boiling water for cleaning sounds, pardon me, NUTS!  Scalded fingers would certainly be the consequences.  Yes, I can accept that increases in temp do increase the rate of a chemical reaction and there is even a scientific name for that.  OK, so if boiling water creates "flash rust" why not use ice water to clean them.  I happen to believe that there is no difference in what one will actually see on the patch if you use boiling water OR ice water.  What does cause the rust is not the water temp but leaving water on the metal.  Or at least that's my view.  And I plan to continue to use it the way it comes out of the tap.  Call me hard headed.

But for anyone who likes to think one is better than the other, go for it and do it your way.  For me my question and comments were not about how to clean but why "hot water" causes flash rust and "cold water" does not.

Now, in conclusion, should I go out and get a thermometer so I can know exactly what temp the water should be?  Forgeddaboutit!

[WadePatton]

The idea of boiling water for cleaning sounds...Forgeddaboutit!

Yep.  But you may have missed the concept just a little-despite your research.  In my experience "FLASH" rusting is when one wipes away the water and rust _immediately_ begins forming. It's not a matter of leaving water on for moments of time, but wipe-BAM-rusting as soon as air hits the metal.

While I have not experienced this with LR's, I did experience it a few times when cleaning/restoring neglected antique iron skillets.  It can be quite frustrating. 

[heinz]

I do not usually get into these discussions. Why flash rusting?  Mild steel surfaces have a certain grain and pores that you can see under very high magnification. However these are huge surfaces for water molecules. Oxidation of the iron occurs at different rates dependant on humidity and temperature and lots of other things we do not care about for this discussion.  If you pour boiling water down the bore you heat the barrel up and create a very warm moist environment and accelated rusting can occur. Before you have time to dry the water off.  Especially if some corrosive salts are left behind in those microscopic pores. If the water is cold, rusting occurs much more slowly. Steam and corrosive salts are ideal for rusting. Ice water is not, which is why it does not matterif you leave your lawn mower out all winter 😊. A cold wet bore will rust if left damp but you have longer to dry it off if the bore is cold.
Hope that answers you questionl

[Dewey]

Yes, I can accept that increases in temp do increase the rate of a chemical reaction and there is even a scientific name for that.  OK, so if boiling water creates "flash rust" why not use ice water to clean them.  I happen to believe that there is no difference in what one will actually see on the patch if you use boiling water OR ice water.  

Water solubility for most substances (like BP residue) decreases with lower temperatures, so IMHO
using  ice water is NOT a good idea if you want to dissolve and get rid of it. You might wind up with far more than flash rust!

The results of using hot water seems to vary with the barrel type. For my older flintlock, I always used very hot water (you use a funnel and a towel twisted around the barrel, btw - no burns!) without any rust problems. This is a very old traditional method (traceable to at least the early 1800s - see Roberts), not something just thought up recently.

But with a newer gun, I used tap hot water (cooler than my usual)  and got flash rust.
'Gotta find out what your gun barrel likes, I suppose.

 It is a complex issue ....

[Molly]

Wade, I know it's been kicked around but here's the thing.

It's 98 degrees outside.  The humidity is about 98% as well.  And the only wind is that being whipped up is from the "yella flies" around your ankles.  So what better things to do than jaw about rifles and shooting!  BTW, my "research" is limited to what's been my experience in cleaning.  And for me I have never experienced rust immediately.  It comes fast sometimes maybe 5 to 10 minutes but not immediately.

But then from what heinz says I guess I should switch to ice water. 

I think the scientist can go into salts and molecules but I'm sticking to my view that if the process is performed exactly the same way and at the same pace, one with "hot" and one with "cold" the visual difference on the cleaning patch will be negligible.  Maybe you can put the patch under a microscope and conclude one has .0349877% more or less rust but it don't weigh for much in my book.

Front coming through tonight.  Think I'll go shooting tomorrow early!  This is getting too heavy for my brain and I'm really near falling of the edge!

[Topknot]

Here is my take on it. boiling hot water expands the the metal on the inside of the barrel. All the tiny imperfections in the grain of the metal open up to let the boiling water into them . Very small minuscule cracks  become larger from the heat and let the water into them.That and the humidity caused by the boiling water is what produces flash rust imho.

                                topknot

[WadePatton]

If rusting on your bbl is take minutes to develop (it's not "flash" rusting), then your water wasn't too hot and you've had plenty of time to apply water displacing oil and/or protective oil. 

i say.

[Daryl]

I've been cleaning ML barrels since 1972. The only barrels I have EVER seen flash rusting in, is the TC barrel I started with, and one of Les Bauska's barrels - while I was still using the HOT water method of cleaning.

I repeat for the umpteenth time - Holland and Holland, the longtime Gun Manufacturer for over1 1/2 centuries (not the brand new Bl. maker in the States) stated in a letter to a friend of mine how he should clean his Holland&Holland, Rigby, John Blissett, Wesltey Richards, Ward, Army Navy and some other makes of double barreled black powder rifles and shotguns.  Will, RIP, was a double gun collector who sent EVERY one of them to H&H for refubishing- and, he asked H&H how to clean them properly. H&H responded as thus.

Their instructions were to use water from the cold water tap.  Real black powder fouling is dissolved by cool or cold water.  Boiling or very hot water on the other hand actually has a glazing effect on built-up fouling - overheats the barrels and also causes flash rusting which is accumulative and eventually turns into the fine pitting. 

You can see that in many black powder guns- one end to the other.

 Do you suppose THOSE were cleaned for decades with boiling or VERY hot water? Quite possibly, or probably. Once screwed up by repeated flash rusting - your bores will always "foul" and need wiping while shooting - oh -" it's just so hard to load with your combinations"- wonder why? Do you use hot water for cleaning or not remove the barrel for cleaning? My suggestion is to re-barrel it and do it right from now on.

Since I started using this cleaning method - I've NEVER had any rusting in my ML barrels - flash rusting or other - none.

Now, Holland and Holland should know what they are talking about. They are the company who totally built the guns in the 1800's, locks stocks and barrels, which today sell for many tens of thousands of $$ on the used market and who make modern double guns today, rifles and shotguns that retail for over $100,000.00.  A ten bore side by side hammer gun form 1884, recently sold at auction for $80,000.00.  Maybe they know what they are talking about?

Cleaning a ML barrel does not take very long. In fact, it actually takes less time than is needed to properly clean, that is cleaning all of the smokeless powder fouling and copper fouling from a modern commercial rifle's barrel.

Different areas having different humidity which need different preservative measures applied AFTER cleaning and drying, to keep rust at bay when firearms are stored.

[hanshi]

While I have questioned "flash rusting" a number of times before, I'll repeat it again, here in this thread, since the concept of "fr" is now front and center.  I remain somewhat skeptical that "flash rusting" actually occurs in muzzleloading barrels.  Not that "fr" doesn't occur but that it doesn't occur in ML barrels with the frequency and degree often reported.

Cold tap water is my cleaning solution of choice, although I have used hot tap water at times in the past.  There are any number of things that could be mistakenly identified as rust; and of course rust does affect many barrels.  Steel barrels are more susceptible to rust than the wrought iron barrels of old.  I have one rifle, now retired, that's 50 yoa and has been fired countless times.  And at one time was fired/cleaned/put on the wall and stayed there, untouched, for a couple of years.  The bore, to this day, is shiny and clean as a whistle while for most of it's active life it was cleaned with hot tap water.  What I usually see toward the end of a cleaning are patches stained light gray.  Sometimes a "brownish" tinge may show up but mostly gray.

I try and keep an open mind.  If someone "sees" flash rust and reports it; I take it at face value.  I'm not a flash rust denier; just a flash rust skeptic.

[Hungry Horse]

Smokinbuck, I agree fully where it comes to good old Dr. Sam, and his hot water, upside down swabbing, and double patching. I use his books to illustrate misinformation in print, when working with new shooters.

   Hungry Horse

[Naphtali]

While this correction of one of my previous replies may not be significant, the black powder solvent-cleaner I use, immediately after extravagant amounts of hot water from my bath tub's tap forced through my barrel(s), is BLACK-OFF by Rusty Duck. I selected this product on the basis of extensive testing that was reported in an older Muzzle Blasts' article. Possibly the key to why I have yet to experience any flash rusting may be inherent in the word "immediately" - that is, I may not give hot water an opportunity to rust anything by using Black-Off immediately upon ending hot water flush. And I am convinced that forced hot water is significantly superior at dissolving black powder [and SPG] residue from the I.D. of barrels when compared with cold water. Unfortunately, having never used cold water to verify or disprove this, I have no proof. And since my present method of cleaning does its job well - with no issues - I am disinclined to change or to test.

[Daryl]

Do whatever works for you - as Mark and others have said recently and long ago. I use what works for me and has been for close to 40 years.

[ddoyle]

Not sure why it works but I buy 99 cent a litre "Orange Fabulous" cleaner in a spray bottle.  Works ridiculously well. Seems to be 'the thing' used by a sect of ML guys in the area where I started playing with BP.  couple spritzes and the fouling lifts like magic. 

Being prudish I also use the bathtub faucet and run the hot water tank about empty but have skipped the water a few times and did not regret it ( I am talking days and weeks of time no idea about months and years)

 

[William Worth]

Here's another wrinkle, I like to use soft water to clean with.  I'm generating lots of condensed water from the dehumidifier or one could use rain water.  I think it is a little more aggressive at picking up contaminants and I'm otherwise just pouring it out anyway.