"How often should I clean my muzzle loader?"
Surprisingly this is a question I just read on facebook and 99.9% of the members that responded had a good knowledge of black powder arms to begin with. Sadly, we still have those that think their muzzle loaders are like their centerfire and you can go a whole "season" before they need to be cleaned.
The real answer is.... As soon as you are done on the range... CLEAN IT!
Black Powder ( the real stuff ) and all of the black powder substitutes are highly corrosive and need a water based ( Or straight out of the tap ) cleaner to effectively wash away the corrosive salts in black powder.
There are many modern day solvents that claim to neutralize black powder fouling, but the hard part is, getting them into the patent breech plug and fully flushing all corrosive fouling and fouling build up, OUT of the breech.
Patent Breech
These modern solvents do not reach the places that really need care and attention. Shooting a traditional muzzle loader, the shooter really should do it the old fashion way and make things easier on themselves by skipping over the modern ways and keep it simple.
Now does "Simple" mean... Doing a half assed sloppy job? No... By simple, I am talking about the way folks have cleaned their muzzle loaders for hundreds of years. A simple bucket of hot soapy water.
Now some will argue, the old timers didn't use soap because it removed the bore seasoning... Seasoning being, rubbing a bore down with animal fat and allowing it to harden in the pours of the iron barrel.
Today's barrels are not the same steel that the old timers used. Completely different! If you are shooting a modern replica and someone tells you to season the bore.. Chances are, they are full of squash between the ears and are just giving you some story that was passed on to them over the years. Store salesmen will be the first to tell you to grab a tube of that 'yeller bore butter stuff and season your bore.
Keep it simple!
How I clean my muzzle loaders after a day on the range:
Hot bucket of soapy water with a little dawn dish soap
Submerge the barrel and let the nipple soak and then scrub with a stiff bristle brush
Remove nipple and clean the threads
With barrel submerged in the bucket of hot soapy water, I attach a cleaning jag on my range rod ( Wood rods can and will swell, greatly weakening them from the water - Use Brass or Stainless cleaning rod when possible! )
With cleaning jag in place, I simply lay a 3" patch across the muzzle and run it down to the bottom of the bore where it will get saturated in the hot soapy water. A dozen strokes, I change the patch and do it over again.
Once the patches come out clean, I dump out the dirty bucket of water, wash it out real good and refill it with clean water, without the soap! Run a couple more patches then I immediately wipe the exterior of the barrel dry with a towel and then run 2 dry patches down the bore. It is crucial to dry that bore fast! Hot water helps dry them out, but it can also promote a light coating of flash rust to develop in the bore. So keep your dry patches close by and swab that sucker free of water/moisture.
Once I feel that the bore is dry, I plug the hole where the nipple screws into, and then I pour aprox 1/2oz Denatured Alcohol down the bore and swish it around. The alcohol will help remove water sitting on the face of the breech plug and inside of the patent breech plug. Remove your finger and let it drain.
Once drained, immediately soak a cleaning patch with the denatured alcohol and swab the bore a few times. Go slow and allow the cleaning rod to rotate as you push it down the bore.
Now that the barrel has been fully cleaned, dried and an insurance cleaning with denatured alcohol has been performed... here comes the tricky part.
What do I use to prevent rust in bore?
Well, on facebook and forums, this simple yet highly important question has started wars between folks!
We often hear, use natural lubricants/cleaners in your muzzleloader or else you'll build up a coating of tar! Keep that petroleum based oil outta them!
Total hog wash! Anything that goes into your muzzle loader bore, MUST first be removed prior to loading it! I have used everything from mineral oil, Automatic Transmission Fluid, RIG #1, Barricade, Birchwood Casey 2 in 1 bore cleaner, Frog lube, Bore butter, Hoppes, just about every oil you can think of.
None of the petroleum products ever showed a tar build up of any kind the next time I went out shooting... Why?.... Because I clean my bores out with a patch saturated with denatured alcohol first of course! Even your so called natural bore butter has to be swabbed out of the bore prior to loading!
Any lube left in the bore will cause the powder to stick to it the next time you dump a charge down!
Now I do have my #1 favorite Patch lube and anti rust lube: Frontier's Anti Rust & Patch lube.. I developed this going on 4 years ago and it does everything I want and then some. It's the only anti rust lubricant I know of that does not have to be swabbed out prior to loading, simply because once it cures over night, its not sticky or gummy and will not catch all the powder granules.
Other great anti rust lubes I have used with high success rates of not rusting while in storage.. Birchwood Casey Barricade is a great spray lube that keeps rust away.
RIG #2 also a spray lube is awesome and does provide a thicker layer of protection than the Barricade does. Which is better? I have no clue! Barricade and RIG #2 are extremely great petroleum based anti rust lubes.
Bore Butter on the other hand has been the culprit of many ruined barrels from the time it was "invented". Now I know there's a good number of folks that enjoy it, but I personally hate the nasty stuff as it does not keep rust away and if there is any sign of moisture in the barrel, it's going to rust. I found this out the hard way on one of my favorite flintlocks and now have rust rings in the bore where the bore butter failed to prevent rusting while it hung on the wall.
Chances are, you also shoot a centerfire.. What oil do you have good luck with in that particular rifle for keeping rust off it? Most likely, if it keeps rust off that gun, it will do the same for your muzzle loader.... Just remove it from the bore before loading it!
Cleaning your muzzle loader is not a hard process! it does take a little time to do it properly. It takes a little time getting down some tricks to improve your cleaning process such as using alcohol to flush away any traces of moisture prior to loading. Once it is cleaned, has been tried, has been swabbed with alcohol... Use what ever damn anti rust lubricant you have had great success with in the past! Just remove it before loading!
This was a customers pistol that I worked on a couple years ago. After verifying it was unloaded, I proceeded to remove the nipple and it was stuck solid. I ended up heating around the drum ( Traditions ) and the heat freed the nipple threads from all the powder fouling. After taking a good look, it was easy to see how poorly the pistol had been taken care of. Broken nipple threads are never good to find!
What was worse.... Finding the patent breech was plugged so bad with fouling, it even worked its way all the way into the drum to form a huge solid powder fouling "pellet". This was a horrible job to clean which involved tons of hot water and special picks in order to get this breech plug and drum fully cleaned.
How does a breech plug get packed full of powder fouling like this? Easy.. Some folks think that just running a few wet patches down the bore until its clean and its good to go! They don't realize that every time they bottom out the cleaning jag/patch, fouled water soaks directly into the face of the patent breech and just stays there unless the owner properly cleans it. Which obviously the previous owner did not. This fouling slowly builds up after each use and "cleaning" until it becomes fully plugged and no longer will fire. Sadly this is not the first muzleloader I have worked on to be in such poor condition when it comes to cleaning.
FLUSH it with hot soapy water folks! It is the only way to actually get them clean!
Surprisingly this is a question I just read on facebook and 99.9% of the members that responded had a good knowledge of black powder arms to begin with. Sadly, we still have those that think their muzzle loaders are like their centerfire and you can go a whole "season" before they need to be cleaned.
The real answer is.... As soon as you are done on the range... CLEAN IT!
Black Powder ( the real stuff ) and all of the black powder substitutes are highly corrosive and need a water based ( Or straight out of the tap ) cleaner to effectively wash away the corrosive salts in black powder.
There are many modern day solvents that claim to neutralize black powder fouling, but the hard part is, getting them into the patent breech plug and fully flushing all corrosive fouling and fouling build up, OUT of the breech.
Patent Breech
These modern solvents do not reach the places that really need care and attention. Shooting a traditional muzzle loader, the shooter really should do it the old fashion way and make things easier on themselves by skipping over the modern ways and keep it simple.
Now does "Simple" mean... Doing a half assed sloppy job? No... By simple, I am talking about the way folks have cleaned their muzzle loaders for hundreds of years. A simple bucket of hot soapy water.
Now some will argue, the old timers didn't use soap because it removed the bore seasoning... Seasoning being, rubbing a bore down with animal fat and allowing it to harden in the pours of the iron barrel.
Today's barrels are not the same steel that the old timers used. Completely different! If you are shooting a modern replica and someone tells you to season the bore.. Chances are, they are full of squash between the ears and are just giving you some story that was passed on to them over the years. Store salesmen will be the first to tell you to grab a tube of that 'yeller bore butter stuff and season your bore.
Keep it simple!
How I clean my muzzle loaders after a day on the range:
Hot bucket of soapy water with a little dawn dish soap
Submerge the barrel and let the nipple soak and then scrub with a stiff bristle brush
Remove nipple and clean the threads
With barrel submerged in the bucket of hot soapy water, I attach a cleaning jag on my range rod ( Wood rods can and will swell, greatly weakening them from the water - Use Brass or Stainless cleaning rod when possible! )
With cleaning jag in place, I simply lay a 3" patch across the muzzle and run it down to the bottom of the bore where it will get saturated in the hot soapy water. A dozen strokes, I change the patch and do it over again.
Once the patches come out clean, I dump out the dirty bucket of water, wash it out real good and refill it with clean water, without the soap! Run a couple more patches then I immediately wipe the exterior of the barrel dry with a towel and then run 2 dry patches down the bore. It is crucial to dry that bore fast! Hot water helps dry them out, but it can also promote a light coating of flash rust to develop in the bore. So keep your dry patches close by and swab that sucker free of water/moisture.
Once I feel that the bore is dry, I plug the hole where the nipple screws into, and then I pour aprox 1/2oz Denatured Alcohol down the bore and swish it around. The alcohol will help remove water sitting on the face of the breech plug and inside of the patent breech plug. Remove your finger and let it drain.
Once drained, immediately soak a cleaning patch with the denatured alcohol and swab the bore a few times. Go slow and allow the cleaning rod to rotate as you push it down the bore.
Now that the barrel has been fully cleaned, dried and an insurance cleaning with denatured alcohol has been performed... here comes the tricky part.
What do I use to prevent rust in bore?
Well, on facebook and forums, this simple yet highly important question has started wars between folks!
We often hear, use natural lubricants/cleaners in your muzzleloader or else you'll build up a coating of tar! Keep that petroleum based oil outta them!
Total hog wash! Anything that goes into your muzzle loader bore, MUST first be removed prior to loading it! I have used everything from mineral oil, Automatic Transmission Fluid, RIG #1, Barricade, Birchwood Casey 2 in 1 bore cleaner, Frog lube, Bore butter, Hoppes, just about every oil you can think of.
None of the petroleum products ever showed a tar build up of any kind the next time I went out shooting... Why?.... Because I clean my bores out with a patch saturated with denatured alcohol first of course! Even your so called natural bore butter has to be swabbed out of the bore prior to loading!
Any lube left in the bore will cause the powder to stick to it the next time you dump a charge down!
Now I do have my #1 favorite Patch lube and anti rust lube: Frontier's Anti Rust & Patch lube.. I developed this going on 4 years ago and it does everything I want and then some. It's the only anti rust lubricant I know of that does not have to be swabbed out prior to loading, simply because once it cures over night, its not sticky or gummy and will not catch all the powder granules.
Other great anti rust lubes I have used with high success rates of not rusting while in storage.. Birchwood Casey Barricade is a great spray lube that keeps rust away.
RIG #2 also a spray lube is awesome and does provide a thicker layer of protection than the Barricade does. Which is better? I have no clue! Barricade and RIG #2 are extremely great petroleum based anti rust lubes.
Bore Butter on the other hand has been the culprit of many ruined barrels from the time it was "invented". Now I know there's a good number of folks that enjoy it, but I personally hate the nasty stuff as it does not keep rust away and if there is any sign of moisture in the barrel, it's going to rust. I found this out the hard way on one of my favorite flintlocks and now have rust rings in the bore where the bore butter failed to prevent rusting while it hung on the wall.
Chances are, you also shoot a centerfire.. What oil do you have good luck with in that particular rifle for keeping rust off it? Most likely, if it keeps rust off that gun, it will do the same for your muzzle loader.... Just remove it from the bore before loading it!
Cleaning your muzzle loader is not a hard process! it does take a little time to do it properly. It takes a little time getting down some tricks to improve your cleaning process such as using alcohol to flush away any traces of moisture prior to loading. Once it is cleaned, has been tried, has been swabbed with alcohol... Use what ever damn anti rust lubricant you have had great success with in the past! Just remove it before loading!
This was a customers pistol that I worked on a couple years ago. After verifying it was unloaded, I proceeded to remove the nipple and it was stuck solid. I ended up heating around the drum ( Traditions ) and the heat freed the nipple threads from all the powder fouling. After taking a good look, it was easy to see how poorly the pistol had been taken care of. Broken nipple threads are never good to find!
How does a breech plug get packed full of powder fouling like this? Easy.. Some folks think that just running a few wet patches down the bore until its clean and its good to go! They don't realize that every time they bottom out the cleaning jag/patch, fouled water soaks directly into the face of the patent breech and just stays there unless the owner properly cleans it. Which obviously the previous owner did not. This fouling slowly builds up after each use and "cleaning" until it becomes fully plugged and no longer will fire. Sadly this is not the first muzleloader I have worked on to be in such poor condition when it comes to cleaning.
FLUSH it with hot soapy water folks! It is the only way to actually get them clean!
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