KMCCORD spoke of the difficulty of cleaning the rifle and cartridge cases after shooting with black powder . They are very messy , but in September 2002 , I was told an easier and simpler way of cleaning rifle and cartridge cases after use of black powder by an older shooter , in his 80's at that time . This gentleman and his wife were voluntary caretakers at the NRA Whittington Center , living in their travel trailer there at Whittington . He was at the silhouette range shooting his Sharps while my 2 brothers and I were shooting our .45-70 rifles .
When we stopped shooting and began the tedious , filthy task of cleaning our rifles with Hoppe's Black Powder cleaning solvent , this older shooter asked if he might offer a suggestion to speed-up the cleaning process . Of course we said yes .
He asked me to open the hood of my truck , remove the radiator cap , put a clean patch on my cleaning rod , and dip the clean patch into the antifreeze , then run the wet patch through the bore , remove the dirty patch , run 2 -3 clean dry patches through the bore , and repeat the process a second time with another clean patch soaked with anti-freeze followed by clean dry patches to finish the bore cleaning .
He said to use ONLY green anti-freeze mixed with water at a 50 / 50 ratio , and suggested that we buy a 1 gallon jug of pre-mixed green ethyl-glycol based anti-freeze at the local auto parts store . He also suggested that the fired cartridge cases be dropped into that gallon jug of pre-mixed anti-freeze , which not only cleaned the cases , but neutralized the corrosive effects of black powder .
IT WORKS !!!!
The anti-freeze also does the same for the bore and chamber of the firearm , in addition to protecting the bore from rust , same as it does for the inside of a cast-iron or steel engine block .
His advice and method made our cleaning much easier and less filthy and a much shorter , quicker process .
DMP25-06
