Crud ring - or, I’m an idiot

[pjmcdonald]

Went hunting in NC at Thanksgiving on my uncle’s place. Shot a nice buck but after trailing for 4 hours, eventually lost him. Very disappointing. Had help from my cousin and uncle but they lost the trail too. Bad shot on my part - c’est la vie. I do not like losing an animal. But thats another discussion.

The idiot part. It is my habit is to reload after a shot. Helps me calm down and wait after shooting a deer. After a long morning searching, I put the loaded, dirty rifle in the truck thinking I’d shoot it or pull the ball later. I didn’t. We drove back to MS, unloaded, and for various reasons I didn’t get back to my rifle. Until this past weekend. Went hunting again, didn’t see anything, took the opportunity to shoot it to clear the load.

Dirty bore with a reload sitting on crud. Add 90% humidity, temperature swings, condensation, then shoot it. Instant baked crud, right about the top of the powder column. Very bad gunk.

Now to the crud ring. Trying to clean it the usual way, with warm water and a touch detergent, I stuck the patched jag so tight that I pulled the handle off my steel range rod. Had to use vise grips and beat it out. Several times. Switched from a .50 caliber jag (.50 cal rifle) to .45 jag. Almost stuck it. Toothpick in the touch hole and filled the barrel with water to soak several hours. Still cruddy.

After several dozen wet patches, dry patches, oil soaked patches, I went to Hoppes solvent and a copper wire brush. Soaked the brush in Hoppes and hooked up the drill to the now handle-less rod. Spun it a couple times and swabbed a dozen more solvent soaked patches down the barrel. Finally got the crud ring cleaned out. Then more wet patches, dry patches, and Ballistol soaked patches and the bore is clean.

Lesson learned. I will never, ever, leave a dirty bore more than the time it takes to get it home. If that long. And I surely won’t leave a load in a dirty bore for an extended period then shoot it out. I’m sure a host of factors contributed to the crud ring at the top of the powder column. Whatever, this experience has reminded me to clean, clean, clean.

Hope this helps some of the other new BP shooters as a case study of what not to do.

Regards,
Paul

[MuskratMike]

Hard lessons learned are never forgotten. Glad you were able to resolve the issue.
 For what it's worth as part of my cleaning protocol after filling the barrel with tepid water and letting it sit awhile to soak (after removing the lock and plugging the vent hole) I drain the barrel and run 1 wet patch followed by a bore brush, then continue on. Again living in the Pacific Northwest the humidity is not an issue, but I never leave a load in the gun unless in hunting camp.

[45-110]

Pyrodex? Not having your type of humidity here, the severity of corrosion sounds like the use of pyrodex......
kw

[Robin Henderson]

Not enough info...what was your load?

Ditto on Pyrodex. I run from it as fast as I can.

Triple 7 is notorious for leaving a glass hard crud ring...especially using heavy charges.

I've never seen real black powder do as you described... 45 years of use and no problems.

[pjmcdonald]

No, I stay well away from substitutes. 70 grains of GOEX 3F black powder. Pillow tick patch lubed with mink oil. .490 ball.

I shot. I reloaded. I let it sit for 2 weeks. I shot again. Crud ring.

In the two weeks, the rifle had been in temps ranging from 30 outside to 70 in the house. And wide humidity range. Was actually 100 and dense fog on the morning hunt. And it is entirely possible that the crud had started to form some time before now and I didn’t catch it.

Rifle is a TVM kit. Siler lock. Can’t remember if barrel is Rice or Colerain.

Wobblyshot -  I was first introduced to muzzle loaders years ago via a T/C “Hawken” and pyrodex. I had forgotten how bad it could crud up. Haven’t touched subs since switching to flintlocks 3 years ago. Maybe I had contamination in my powder horn? No way to know. Big takeaways for me are don’t leave things dirty and pay attention for crud rings.

By the way, searched past posts here and found much helpful advice on how to remedy the problem. I’m going back through my kit and practices to see if I can do a better job of preventing.

Paul

[Daryl]

I've not seen anything like this either, but then, I've not been subject to the conditions.
Glad you finally got it cleaned out.

[recurve]

I use to get crud ring with a type of lube I used, it had  bees wax in it , changed my lube and the ring  was gone (changing to swiss from goex didn't hurt either) now mutton tallow .

[WKevinD]

I've taken a few guns in from neighbors into my shop for similar troubles. It usually ends up with me pulling the breech plug so I can work on it from the short reach end so I can stay away from rifling if I have to get aggressive.
Kevin

[hanshi]

In 62 years of living in the Deep South I had the occasional crud ring form, but a damp patch dissolved it in seconds.  I've never used anything except black powder, and it always easily wiped out with plain water.  There might be the possibility at least a part of the crud ring was actually a corrosion ring in the bore.  Your aggressive cleaning seems to have worked; but I'd keep a close watch out for corrosion.

[pjmcdonald]

Gents,

Thanks for the input and suggestions.

Hanshi, I agree that it might be the beginnings of a corrosion ring, exacerbated by gunk. I’ll keep an eye on it for sure. Ballistol on steel wool, spun with a drill, seemed to do the trick. Everything is nice and slick now. This is not an event I want to repeat.

Paul

[thecapgunkid]

It may take two or three passes, but a soaking wet patch with off the shelf, less than smelly cleaning fluid,  tamped a little bit at a time has always made its way through that crud ring created by the powder charge.   You just gotta nurse it a little.  Uncle Sam's Misguided Children taught me a lot, such as die before waiting in line for food, and don't dare wait to clean your weapon.

[Mad Monk]

Gents,

Thanks for the input and suggestions.

Hanshi, I agree that it might be the beginnings of a corrosion ring, exacerbated by gunk. I’ll keep an eye on it for sure. Ballistol on steel wool, spun with a drill, seemed to do the trick. Everything is nice and slick now. This is not an event I want to repeat.

Paul

Good thinking here.  While the present black powders have no traces of any chlorides that would promote corrosion you can still get metal pitting where grains of powder contact the steel bore surfaces.  Any water soluble "salt" will rust or it steel when the surfaces of the grains pick up moisture.  You set up a large number of electrolytic cells on the surface of the metal.  These electrolytic cells then start the process of corrosion.  Any pitted areas become rather difficult to clean out.

Bill K.