pedersoli flintlock barrel

[kjkoop]

Hello
I am new to the site . I have built several rifles but recently acquired a pedresoli from a friend. She said it would not shoot. I cleaned it and still nothing so replaced the stock touch hole with  a lightning touch hole .
On this gun the  touch hole enters a "pre chamber" then there is a small hole from that chamber to the barrel. This hole was fouled shut!  How are you supposed to keep it cleaned? remove the touch hole each time and use pipe cleaners? I have never seen this before .
Kev

[J.D.]

This antechamber is common on foreign made guns. Many of those chambers are as small as  1/4", so they can be hard to keep clean for someone who doesn't know they are there.

The most common method of cleaning the antechamber is to use a patch wrapped around a .22 cal bore brush.

Depending on how deep and solid the fouling is,  I suggest soaking the bore in a good cleaner, then get in there with a ball puller or .22 cal bore brush with the end cut and the center wire untwisted, somewhat, to make a small patch puller to break up any hard fowling, then scrub with a .25 cal bore brush.

Fouling often gets pushed into these small antechambers while swabbing between shots, with a too large diameter jag. I suggest removing .020-.030" from the diameter of the jag, so that a patch will slide past the fouling on the way down, but the patch will bunch up to pull any fouling out of the bore as the jag is withdrawn.

God bless

God bless

[alex e.]

I'll open the worm can 
At least in relation to cleaning:I BELIEVE the touchole should never come out of a gun until you are going to replace that with a new one.I could tell you a couple stories as others may.
 IMO.in short of replacing the barrel.plug the vent ,soak & flush with the lock removed,and maybe clean as JD described.

[hyltoto]

I fill the barrel with detergent and water and use a patch on a jag to to simulate a piston moving up and down. This breaks the gunk free and blasts it out the touch-hole. Do this in the driveway. If you finish with hot water it will dy real fast.

[LynnC]

I do the same as hyltoto except I stick the breech in a container of water and pump flush the fowling out.

If I don't remove the barrel from the stock, I clean just like hyltoto................Lynn

[kjkoop]

Thank you to everyone for the responses, great site, wish I knew about you when I was building my dickert.
The hole in the pre chamber is larger than originally thought i took  jag and milled it down so it passes through the hole and into the pre chamber. with the right cleaning solvents I should be able to keep it clean with out removing the touch hole or the barrel repeatedly.
Kev

[T*O*F]

The hole in the pre chamber is larger than originally thought i took  jag and milled it down so it passes through the hole and into the pre chamber.

This will get you into problems.  The hole in the flash channel is usually around 38 caliber and that's the size brush you should use.  There is a fairly sharp edge on the channel.  What will happen is that you will push your jag down and the edge will cut the patch and leave the cutout trapped in the channel.  Then you have to worry about getting the patch divot out of the channel.

1.  Plug your touch hole with a toothpick.
2.  Run some wet sloppy patches down the bore.
3.  Pour a bit of water into the barrel and let it soak a bit.
4.  Run the bore brush into the flash channel and clean it.
5.  Pour the water out.
6.  Pour a bit of alcohol in the bore, slosh it back and forth and dump.
7.  Dry and lightly oil the bore.

[Michigan Flinter]

  Get yourself a length of brake line ,make up pipe fittings to the size of the male end of your garden hose on oner end .Hang rifle thirty degree angle ,or so, with muzzle down, insert brake line, turn on the hose .This will flush out all the crud . Run some patches down to dry interior then oil .