Persistent barrel rust problems. What am I doing wrong?

[Darkhorse]

Darkhorse, question for you.  I don't disagree about taking the barrel out for cleaning being the best way to clean.  Do you have an SMR with a lollipop tang and if so how do you handle that??  I have one and bent the tang while cleaning and was lucky no real damage.  I have not taken it out since for fear of seriously damaging either the tang or the wood or both.  .  Any ideas welcome.


Dave

Strongbear, I don't have a lollipop tang nor do I have any experience with one but I can see your point. So I will defer to Daryl or others who possess the knowledge to give advice.
However, just thinking about it, What if a strong draft was filed on the the entire tang. Would this make it easier to remove the barrel? Before I start to finish the wood I open up the barrel and tang mortice just a few thousandth's of an inch until the barrel can be lifted out without chipping the stock. I do this knowing I will be pulling the barrel to clean it.

[rich pierce]

I’d never mess with removing a barrel with a long lollipop tang. The tang is fragile and eventually the wood screws will wear some.

From reading all this I tried the soaking treatment after shooting on Saturday and it seems like it makes cleaning much more efficient. Pour some water in and leave it a bit. Pump it out and repeat the soak. I’m guessing it softens the fouling so it washes away easier. Still little tricks to be picked up here.

[Daryl]

I've used the soak method at rendezvous when to lazy to set up the bucket.  Mosly with the .32, though as it shoots so cleanly with such a small charge, there is not much accumulated in the breech area.
2 soaks are usually enough, so about 8 to 12 patches gets it done.  As soon as I'm home, I go back to bucket flushing.

[Dave Marsh]

Thanks for the input guys.  The lollipop tang rifle will continue to be cleaned in the gun.  Just don't want to take chances with it.  The rest of my guns I am not worried about taking the barrels out of the stock.  Appreciate your thoughts. 

Dave

[Mike Brooks]

Just so new guys know, not everybody takes the barrel out to clean a pinned rifle. NOBODY I ever shot with did so. The first time I ever heard about it was on this forum.  I'd take the lock off, plug the vent hole with a tooth pick and fill the barrel with water and let it sit for a while. After starting the patch and jag at the muzzle I pull the tooth pick and push the patch and jag down to the breech spraying all the gunk and water out the vent hole. I may or may not repeat depending on how dirty the water is when it sprays out. You can stuff a small rag into the lock mortise if you are worried about water getting in that area....I usually didn't find it to be a huge problem. After that just patch it out with wet and then dry patches followed by some sort of oil.
 However, I do pump out any barrel in a bucket that has keys and a hooked breech, as they are intended to be.

[fishdfly]

"I use a 1 gal. plastic ice cream bucket with a 3 inch or so piece of 2x4 lumber in the bottom that has a shallow 1 inch hoke drilled into it to hold the tang,"

I really like your idea and will have to adopt it, thanks,

[hanshi]

I'm another one who never removes a pinned barrel for routine cleaning.  The lock is always removed.  With the lock removed I don't put it in water or scrub it to get it clean.  Maybe I've been fortunate but the flint lock internals are never actually that dirty.  A couple of Q-Tips, a pipe cleaner and a few minutes are all the locks ever need to get cleaned up.  I seldom remove the locks on percussion guns as they very rarely need cleaning.  After the bore soak the patching starts.  Unlike some have claimed, I can't clean a bore with half a dozen patches; it may take three times that to clean to my satisfaction.  I don't use rubbing alcohol; I use denatured alcohol which has no water.  Another thing is that I take my time; there is no hurry bone in my body.  There are times when I use an old hair dryer on the bore and/or lock to rid it of any vestiges of moisture.  And most important of all, the bore gets checked the next day and then the next week and periodically after that.  IMO you can't be too careful.

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

I am in the Mike Brooks camp. My hooked breach/Keyed rifle gets the bucket -- my pinned rifles don't get the barrel pulled routinely. I have pulled a couple after 6-8 years and found no rust..... I do sort of "bed" the barrel in Renaissance Wax. that is coat it well!!  It takes me a couple of dozen patches to get them clean... if I am going to be shooting again in a few days I finish with "Lehigh Valley" lube and set the gun muzzle down.  If I am going to put it up for some time I wipe the bore well with Ballistol as a rust preventative.

[Dphariss]

So I'm new to the world of flintlocks, but not shooting or rifle care by any means. However anytime I take my flintlock or precussion guns out, come home and clean them, the next day I always have light rusting in the bore. My cleaning process is as follows:
-swab dirty bore a couple times with water-wet and a couple dry patches
-plug flash hole and fill bore with warm water
-let soak for a couple minutes, pour out water
-run clean patches through bore until they come out clean
-soak patch on isopropyl alcohol and run down bore, followed by 2 dry patches
-let bore sit while I clean lock parts
-run patch soaked in Slip 2000 gun oil ( cheating, but safe for black powder and great rust preventative on modern firearms)  followed by 2 dry patches to pick up extra oil.

So I feel like my cleaning process is acceptable and not anything weird, so I dont understand my consistent rust problems. I shot and cleaned yesterday, and I check this morning and I already have light surface rusting in the bore. Thanks for the help.

First off dry the barrel and oil it after its clean. The alcohol is not going to remove all the water and two patches is not likely the dry it either.  If you want top dry it this way  use denatured alcohol it has less water content than isopropyl. Leaving water set in the bore while you clean other parts is not a good idea. When i start cleaning the bore I don't stop til its dried and oiled. The barrel after all is the important part.

I also use more water, pour in water slosh by up ending the rifle a time or two. Dump, wipe one ot two passes and repeat a couple of times.
It its a pistol with a key(s) I generally pull the barrel even if its not hooked. I also have a swivel breech rifle that it would be hard to pull the barrels from. But it can be used with one of those clamp on hose things and I have but can't see its any better than the slosh method.

So clean, dry and oil the barrel and then clean the lock.
Stand the gun muzzle down on a folded up paper towel and the excess oil will drain out over night. AND with a little experimentation you will find that the black that comes out on the patches (when the wet ones have come out "clean") as the bore dries is actually black iron oxide. The patches I set aside to dry are always red. Not the color of dried fouling. But this is a whole other subject.

Dan

[Daryl]

Different makes of steel will leave more or less of the iron oxide on the dry patches.

When the bore is DRY, the patch is difficult to pull out. The bore grabs it. That is dry.

When I (tight) patch after the WD40 flush (not just a wet patch), blasting the excess out the vent or nipple seat,
 that patch comes out perfectly clean - it is nothing but a WD40 wet patch.  If you run 2 or 3 more dry patches down and
out, none of them will have any more oxide on them, until the bore is perfectly free of WD40, THEN by patch number 5,6,7
 those patches will start to show more and more grey streaks, it is not fouling.
In the morning, if left outside, all of those drying patches with slightly black or grey streaks will be rusted, with no black or grey on them.

[Rich]

If you're getting rust, there is moisture in the barrel. I use Ballistol. It mixes with water. There are times that I think the barrel is clean and dry. I run a patch with ballistol down the bore and back out and around the muzzle, the ballistol residue is white. That means it found some water. I'll dry the barrel again. Also, you should make sure you push water through the touch hole in your cleaning process to get any fouling left in the vent liner. I don't dump the water out of the barrel, I use a patch on a jag and jet it out the vent.

[Yung_flint]

For you boys wondering I've only shot GoEx out of the flinter although the rifle was shot before I owned it, I'm assuming with The Holy Black aswell. I've had the percussion gun longer, and it has had Pyrodex through it a few times before I knew better, but now all I run is GoEx in it.

[Marcruger]

I believe it is important to go back the day after the gun is cleaned, and run a few oiled patches down the bore using your favorite preservative. 

My mentor (a longtime target shooter at Friendship) says he believes that there is always some fugitive moisture in the bore or grain of the metal on cleaning day, no matter how diligent we are, or how much WD 40 is used.  That leaves a light rust after a couple of days.  I tried the "next day re-oiling" method and have had no issues since. 

I have since learned that many folks also to the "next day re-oiling", so I am not alone in this.  It only costs me a couple of patches and some time.

I pull the barrel to clean on a Hawken, but don't pull a pinned longrifle barrel to clean.  I also wrap a cloth around the stock behind the lock before filling the bore with water on the pinned guns.  That prevent any possible water staining.  I actually use my frizzen to trap my toothpick touch hole plug, plus a dry patch to catch any leak.  This insures the toothpick doesn't work loose.  I pull the lock for cleaning after the bore is clean. 

God Bless,   Marc 

[Carl Young]

A cure for gunners who suffer from insomnia 

Corrosion under oil films: with special reference to the cause and prevention of the after-corrosion of firearms, (Huff 1922)
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=AF6MSyL5wJkC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=corrosion+rifle+barrels&ots=1QPrnIUkFv&sig=Wzf3HQEeeMcQ6RXVC8wcXl2wgV0#v=onepage&q=corrosion%20rifle%20barrels&f=false

-Carl

[nemovir]

[quote  what are mausers anyway?  sounds like dog breed.
[/quote]

I think those are dogs that hunt mice.

[hanshi]

How does someone working on modern rifles have any relevance on an American Longriflle forum??

At one time the longrifles were "modern".  IMHO they still are.

[Scota4570]

Sounds like the OP is removing the oil after he oiled the bore. 

After cleaning,  I hose the bore with Fluid film.  Distribute it with a loose patch, then store muzzle down.  Fluid film spray is easy to find, pleasant to use, and works very well.

https://www.fluid-film.com

The bureau of mines study on Corrosion under Oil Films was very important.  It lead to the development of non corrosive primers.  It is referenced in Hatcher's Notebook also.  At the time people believed that acid gas from smokeless powder was the cause.  Turns out it was the corrosive primers.  That was masked in percussion caps  and BP due to dilution by black powder fowling.  There was a prejudice against using water to clean the rifle, then and now. Yet plain old water is the best way to dissolve the corrosive salts.  After knowing this for 100 years if find it strange  when I read about individuals believing they are cleaning their BP rifle properly without using a water containing solvent, or just plain water.         

 

[Daryl]

Agreed, Scota4570.  The corrosive primers were of Mercury oxides or dioxides, I think as well as chlorates.
The mercury primers were especially hard on ctg. brass, while the chlorates was horrid on rifle and shotgun bores.
Most of the phony powders today, like Pyrodex, contain not just a smidgen of chlorates as in a rifle/shotgun or pistol primer,
 but a full 17% of the charge is perchlorates.  I've been lead to believe the "per" - in front of "chlorates", means it develops 3 times
 the oxygen - thus producing higher temperatures, higher pressures and more power than the same load in normal black powder.
I've also been advised that T-7 does not have perchlorates in it's composition, regardless of what the msds sheets say.

[Scota4570]

The first percussion mixtures were mercury fulimate.  Later mercury fulimate was used in caps and primers.  Mercuric primers ruined brass.  It was less obvious with BP because the fouling diluted it and people washed BP brass before reloading. 

Latter corrosive  US military primers used potassium chlorate, those ate the bore but not the brass.  The Europeans favored mercuric priming, we liked chlorate primers. 

Gads.........I spent way to much time reading dusty old books!

[Daryl]

Don't we all? Well, some of us at any rate.
In Europe, reloading was not and still is not practised like it is in North America. I assume that is the reason for the chance of primer preference. At least it sounds about right.

[Daryl]

As I have noted in the past, had I a long lollipop tang, I would clean the bl. on the stock IF my talented brother could not make a protection cage around it for my/our NORMAL bucket flush. That, to me is just plain common sense cleaning. The only way to get the breech plug face perfectly clean  is buy the flushing  in and out by water under pressure   from a container of water. Taylor makes these gizmos for protecting the tang as a normal part of cleaning apparatus. A tang that stops atop the comb is another matter. A part, to me, to be a worthless, I mean TOTALLY useless appendage - like a 6th or even 7th toe.
In my humble opinion  of course.

[B.Habermehl]

One good way to assure that you are getting dry patches bro a dry bore is to touch your cheek with the used patch. A even slightly damp patch will feel cool against the sensitive skin of your cheek.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I do not remove the barrel from my Kibler longrifle.  The tang is just too fragile or in the least, the potential for bending it is too great.  So I clean the rifle with the barrel in the wood.  And hope for the best, knowing the risk.

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

When I build a pinned rifle I coat the barrel channel and the barrel heavily with Renaissance wax. I think this prevents rust on the bottom of the barrel. I pulled the barrel on one to do some stock repair after 10  years and found no rust on the bottom.

Here is some interesting research:  https://www.ctmuzzleloaders.com/ctml_experiments/corrosion/corrosion.html

https://www.ctmuzzleloaders.com/ctml_experiments/corrosion/corrosion2.html