Muzzleleoader Cleanup question

[hunter0528]

Everybody has a system with all sorts of combinations of percentages of different chemicals. I've never used Windex, because the ammonia doesn't do anything more than plain water will do.

Here's what I've been doing for the last 40 years: mix up some super hot water and add a little bit of Dawn or other liquid soap in a short bucket.

Take off the barrel. For best water flow take out the nipple if it's a percussion cap gun, or the touch hole on a flintlock, but you can also leave them in if you want. On a flintlock touch hole or a rifle with a larger musket cap nipple it doesn't matter as much, but it will be harder and take longer to push the water back through a smaller standard #11 nipple, so I always remove them.

Put the rifle breech down in the water (none of my BP rifles have removable breech plugs, which would make this even easier), and get a cleaning rod with a couple of thick patches on it.

Run the patches down to the bottom of the barrel, and suck the water mixture back up the barrel and back down a few times. You can pour the rest of the boiling water down the bore using a funnel if you want to chase it from the muzzle.

Pull the (hot!) barrel out of the bucket and wipe it down. It will dry super fast. Run a patch soaked with Ballistol or bore butter through the barrel (or Rem Oil or CLP or whatever you have). Wipe the outside of the barrel with whatever you used in the bore as well. You're done. I can clean 3 rifles in 10 minutes.

In the field I keep a little bottle of Ballistol and water and some patches to clean the worst of the fouling out of the bore. Some guys mix the Ballistol up to 10:1 with water, but I approximate 2 or 3:1 which I think works better.

No need for special concoctions IMNSHO. Hot water and a shot of liquid soap. I guess hot water and Murphy's would also work fine. If you don't have any soap, hot water alone will do a good job. I use this for Goex, 777, and Pyrodex, and the bores are pristine. Just be sure to treat the barrels after cleaning with hot water to prevent rust.

Our club has a Black Powder group and when we have either an Open House or Ladies day we are shooting somewhere between 50 and 75 rounds through each the .58 replicas or my Thompson .50 Hawken and to clean at the end of the day or when the loading becomes difficult all we use is Automobile windshield washer fluid. Cheap @ $0.99 a gallon. If used during the day it is just a patch run up and down a couple of times. At the end of the day cleaning we remove the barrel from the stock and fill a coffee can with the washer fluid and run a patch up and down cycling the fluid. At the end we run the air compressor and blow the barrel dry and then run a moist patch or lube down the bore (I use Bore Butter) to lube it for storage.

Never a problem

 

[Doug Herold]

By far, the fastest and easiest cleanup for my BPC rifles was a 50:50 mixture of Vinegar Windex and water. I've been using it for 20+ years. A few wet patches, dry, and a patch or two of Ballistol. Easier then cleaning smokeless.
For my flintlocks/percussion rifles, I plug the flash hole a pour a mixture of 6 parts water, 6 parts Peroxide, 4 parts Murphy's Oil Soap. Pour a few ounces down the barrel, cover the bore with your finger and invert it a few times for a minute or two, pour it out, wipe the barrel dry, lube, done.
Both of these methods have been used with GOEX BP. Store second the mixture in a dark bottle, like the ones that peroxide is supplied.

Greyfox,
Good to see you here on the forum. Hey, I had an awful experience this past ML season. I had bought some CCI primers for my Redemption bc my shop was out of Remington primers. Had THREE misfires with them on a beautiful deer [finally got it killed]. It was @ 13 degrees that morning. Any thoughts other than trashing the CCI's and going back to the Remington primers ???