Bore cleaning

[brooktrout]

After firing each round I run a patch down to clean out the "big stuff".  At the end of the day I think I do a good job of cleaning the bore.  Use a "cleaning tool" which attaches to the breach and draws hot soapy water in and out the torch hole (via a small plastic tube dropped in a bucket) when the cleaning rod/patch is pushed and pulled in and out.  Lots of soapy bubbles!  That is followed by tons of dry patch cleaning until they come out almost totally clean.  That is followed with a few lightly oiled patches and then hung back on the wall.  A few days later I run several more dry patches down the bore and always seem to get a fair amount of rust.  After 5 to 10 patches are used, once again they come out nearly clean and that is followed with a lightly oiled patch and once again, it's put back on the wall  And a few days after that 3rd recleaning is done.  I'll check the bore again with a dry patch but it generally comes out pretty clean.

I have not used any "chemical" cleaner....Dawn and hot water only.  Oil has varied.  Rem Oil, Balistol (sp?) and even Amzoil but don't see much difference in their ability to "prevent the rust" as noted on the second and 3rd cleaning cleaning.

Am I missing anything or will some minor rust almost always be there on followup cleaning?

[smylee grouch]

Use cold water.

[Jerry V Lape]

I am like Smiley Grouch.  I usually clean with wet patches with plain tap water without the soap. Follow that with dry wipes and let the barrel warm up in the AZ sun while doing this.  Then a sloppy Ballistol wipe for and dry with patches. Followed by another moist Ballistol path for short term or  CLP for longer term storage.  About 10 minutes does it for the barrel.  Few more minutes to wipe down the outside and thooth brush rinse the lock and re lube it. 

Rust isn't an issue and I don't have to re clean. 

[rmatt]

My procedure is basically the same as Brooktrout, with the same results. I have tried cold water, with and without dawn, warm water with and without dawn and any other concoction I could think of and always get the same results. A couple days later there is rust color on the patches.Not much but there is some.I never let it go more than a couple days to see if the rust got worse for fear of damage to the barrel.
Bob

[brooktrout]

Cold water?  Don't know why that would be better but I'll try anything.  I think maybe Jerry V has hit on something however.  Next time I will make a serious effort to warm the barrel to help dry it out before the patch with the oil is applied.  If I cannot do it via sunlight I might try a hair dryer, not "hot" but just "warm" to get some air moving down there.  The rust must be the consequences of moisture and even with an oiled patch it remains so drying the bore out might help and then hit it with the oiled patch?

A chemist friend visited over the past few days and we discussed the cleaning procedure.  He seemed to feel the interior barrel surface, esp in the groves, can "retain" some moisture.  Don't think it was that it actually "absorbed" moisture during the cleaning but that the moisture was not all being removed before the oiled patch was used.

[PPatch]

"Hot" water will cause flash rust in your barrel, a fine grained rust that forms very rapidly. Tepid or cold water is the right method. That is what I use, plain tap water and no soap which might and probably do contain salts as an element in their manufacture. Hot water and soap is a sure-fire way to form the rust you speak of.

dp

[Pete G.]

I use windshield washer fluid. Pour a little down the barrel then cover the muzzle with a thumb while sloshing back and forth a few times from breech to muzzle. Then let sit while you go retrieve your target frame. Pour it out and swab with several patches. When bore is dry use a patch wet with Break Free CLP, followed by a dry patch.

Since using the CLP I have not seen any problems with after rust like I used to have.

[Kermit]

I too clean with cold tap water. For some reason I just thought about the water softener in the garage that my wife had to have. It uses salt. Is there enough sodium chloride dissolved in the water to be an issue? How about mineral salts in hard tap water?

Or am I picking at nits, finding trouble where none exists?

[PPatch]

The water at my house is well water, just as ma nature made it, so I don't worry about what the city puts in it. It is perfect for getting a boiled blue too, no need for distilled water from the store.

I must say the CLP is good, I now use it instead of Ballistol. For the last year I have had three barrels in the shop awaiting stocking and when I switched from periodically coating them with Ballistol to CLP I have had no more problems with rust. I live in a natural browning environment here in Georgia, its hot and humid a great deal of the time and rusting is a problem you have to keep after.

dp

[brooktrout]

OK, cold water it will be!  Now, what is CLP?

[Jerry V Lape]

Break Free CLP = Cleaning, Lubricating, Protectant.  Break Free also makes other combinations so read the label when buying.  I started using it while in the Army as it was issue stuff.  Only needs a thin film, any excess will migrate pretty quickly.  If you wanted to waste money it can be used alone as your cleaner as well but tap water turns out to be a great solvent for the salts in black powder residue and is relatively inexpensive in most places.  I am told French shotguns prefer Perierre though. 

[smylee grouch]

Brooktrout, I use cold tap water, dry the best I can with clean cotton flannel patches and use WD-40 after that. I feel that you have to be sure that all the water is gone befor you use whatever oil you use. This has worked for me and countless others for many years.

[RonC]

Please keep in mind that deionized (softened) water and distilled water are rather corrosive in nature.
The greater the difference in concentration of salts (including metal salts) between the water and the metal it contacts, the greater the corrosive effects of the water.
Water from your local drinking water treatment plant has salts in it. They never remove all the salts. If they did, it would be very corrosive for pipes and would taste terrible. Natural water has salts in it. Bottled drinking water is purified of everything, then they add back salts to give it taste.
So, don't use softened, deionized or distilled water to clean your barrel.

Ron

[SCLoyalist]

OK, cold water it will be!  Now, what is CLP?

CLP is a BreakFree Corp Product, "Clean, Lube, Protect".

I have the same issues you do with a 70s era .40 cal flinter I acquired a year ago.    A friend owns the companion gun, although in percussion, and his has a very rough bore.   I'm thinking that my bore, while not noticeably pitted, may have some pitting somewhere down there that allows fouling to escape cleaning and sort of 'leach out' overnight.

Good luck,  SCL

[Daryl]

I am SO GLAD and relieved so many guys have switched to cold or cool water for cleaning - makes my heart glad.

Flushing/pumping water into and out of the bore is the right way, in my opinion. The gizmo Track sells will work, but some guys have difficulty with it.
 
Cold water is also right & is not my idea, but that of one of the very best black powder rifle and shotgun makers the world has ever seen, the British Company called Holland and Holland form the 1800's.  

Holland and Holland advised my friend (I read the letter) to use cold tap water to clean his multi ten's of thousands of dollars valued double rifles and shotguns that used black powder - muzzlelaoding and cartridge - and also, after flushing the black powder fouling from the bores, to then dry them with cotton patches until dry. Those patches were not for cleaning, but merely for drying - flushing water into and out of the bore using a tight fitting patch, does the cleaning.

Dry patches introduced into the bore do not clean - the bore/bores are now clean from the flushing/pumping of water into and out and merely need drying.  If the first patch picks up fouling - the bore/bores are not clean and must be cleaned first. That is what the water is for.

Alternate method:

Plug the vent or nipple - pour cold or cool water into the bore right tot he muzzle's edge, muzzle upright - let it sit for 10 minutes - then put a patch on the jag and just start it into the bore, pull the 'pick' from the vent - and push down hard, forcing the water to blast out the vent hole, and with it much of the fouling. Remove the now- filthy-dirty patched jag, plug the vent and do it again. After the second time, use more patches - 2 or 3 if still dirty, repeat the water. It's a @!*% sight quicker to remove the barrel and shove the tang-end into a bucket of water.

Forgot to mention - after drying the bore - CLEAN patches resulting every time or at least by the 2nd or third -  Pour or spray a quantity of WD40 down the bore until it runs out the vent. Then patched jag - blast that out the bore and run it up and down, removing after 3 or 4 strokes. I then use that patch to wipe down the outside of the barrel, and out side of the lock before replacing it.  The WD40 or other good water displacing lubricant is also H&H's suggestion after drying inside and out.

Ask Taylor how to make a wooden 'jig' to protect the tang from bending while it is in the bucket. Tenn. rifles with those long, over the comb tangs - you're on your own - maybe my 'alternate' method of cleaning is all you can do.

After cleaning my guns as above - NO RUST - EVER!

Note - there is a company in the States making ML barrels and/or selling ML parts or kits who calls themselves, Holland and Holland or H&H.

That company is NOT the long time respected firm of Holland and Holland I am referring to above.

As to the locks - removed, brushed clean with a tooth brush (my wife's) under a cold water tap, then blown off with compressed air, sprayed with WD40, then shaken and wiped off and replaced.
Just kidding about 'whose' toothbrush.

[RonC]

I have an ultrasonic cleaner that I use to clean casings for reloading and also gun parts. Of course the cleaned parts are treated with corrosion protectants and lubed where necessary.

What are your thoughts on using the ultrasonic cleaner on locks? After thorough cleaning, the locks would be treated with anticorrosives as above.
It is hard to get into the spaces between the springs and small parts of the lock. Ultrasonic cleaning would seem the tool for that.
Thanks,
Ron

[Vomitus]

   Unfortunately,I don't have a compressor.  After thoroughly submerging my lock in a pot of cold water and brushing clean a la Daryls,on a doubled paper towel I blow the lock out with a steady stream of wd40. Let it sit a few seconds and hit it again, then wipe dry, lube and re-install. BORE CLEANING...boy do I catch a lot of flack around here how I do it. Daryls calls it the "Alternate Method", Taylor calls is it "the shitting with your pants on" method! Others have worse names.Even so,others have worse methods. I use it only because I have a pinned barrel and bolted tang.Hooked breach type I pump flush,barrel in a bucket. With a pinned custom rifle I'm paranoid of screwing up the wood pushing pins that I see double of! The pump flush method,in my humble opinion, is faster and far more thorough the SWYPO method.

[WKevinD]

For years my standard cleaning routine has been cool water with Murphy's Oil Soap (4 to 1)poured in the barrel with a toothpick plugging the touchhole, let it stand while I cut old cotton teeshirt patches, when I have the jag and patch in the barrel I pull the toothpick force the water out while pumping the cleaning rod. More patches are used to dry the bore and when they come out dry a patch heavy with CLP is used to swab the bore, barrel exterior, muzzle and nosecap. A damp patch with my soap/ water mix cleans the stock around the lock.
I am always fascinated by the variety of "tried and true" or "best" ways to clean our rifles and the reasons we swear by them.

[brooktrout]

Seems there is more than one way to clean a bore and more than one prefect treatment to prevent rust.  Went out looking for some CLP.  Got myself a can and gave the bores a dose.  Well see how it works.  I probably am the only one who did not know that the stuff can be hard on a newly finished stock.  Some of the excess dripped on the wood at the muzzle and turned the rag red as it was removed.  No damage but it probably should NOT be allowed to get on the finished.  I'll do future cleaning with it and WD40 and see which seems to work best.

[Hadden West]

I've used most of methods, that have already been mentioned. I have several black powder rifles, and some barrels just seem to be more prone to rust, than others. I use the tightest patch that I can get down the barrel. Some of the round bottom rifles barrels, seem to need patches with more texture. I sometimes put a thin rimfire patch behind the main patch, to make it tighter in the bore. I keep records of rifles, that have rusted in the past, and keep a close eye on them. Black Powder rifles, are not for the lazy, and require a lot more attention, than modern rifles.

[brooktrout]

No doubt about that!  Labor/maintenance intensive I'd say.

BTW, for those who might not know, Remington makes a product called Bore Squeegee.  It's similar to a jag but made of rubber and the rings are further apart and slightly flexible.  When using a patched jag to push water in and out I found the water saturates the patch and thus the effectiveness lessens.  Yes, using multiple patches may be an alternative but I got a bore squeegee just to see if it worked.  I think much less water passes it than any patched jag.  The only ones I have seen are typical shotgun size and well as typical rifle size but that does include 50 and 40 cal. 

[Kermit]

http://squeeg-e.com/home

[Hadden West]

I've been wondering about those squeegee things. Sportsman's sells then, by caliber size, individually.

[RonC]

They do look interesting!
If the squeeG lives up to the hype, there is a lot of labor to be saved.

Ron

[moleeyes36]

They do look interesting!
If the squeeG lives up to the hype, there is a lot of labor to be saved.

Ron

I guess I'm going to be one who has to see this thing work to be convinced.  I don't see the advantage to something that rides on top of the lands and won't get to the bottom of groves when cleaning like a cloth patch will.  Something with wide and shallow groves like a suppository gun or even a plastic Buck Rodgers ML might get reasonably clean, but I'm not buying it will do an acceptable job on a round ball barrel with deeper groves.

Mole Eyes