Baby Wipes

[mushka]

Ah yes, the days of cloth diapers and safety pins. Did three kids that way. People nowadays are missing a lot. I have a septic system at my home and only use the baby wipes in the wilderness and bury them, not at home.

 

[Walkingeagle]

Baby wipes are kept in my vehicle as dust wipes (doesn’t dry out the dash or steering wheel, nor is greasy) and used to clean ones self after a roadside bathroom break. Also they venture into the woods (elk camp) for cleanup after bathroom requirements.
I have no issues with using to wipe the barrel after shooting, both internally and externally, as it is already handy and much better than corrosion.
Walk

 

[Crow-Feather]

When you think about what those little disposable miracle clothes were made to clean up then everything else probably just makes sense.

Now here is the conundrum that I'm attempting to ponder.

We get into muzzle-loading because we like to do some things the old fashioned way. We like the challenge and the nostalgia of shooting a firearm that gives off a pungent odor whilst being enveloped in white clouds of smoke that permeate our clothes and our nostrils. We get our hands dirty with black powder fouling. It gets underneath our finger nails and stains our fingers if we shoot a lot.

Now we are using a modern alternative to wiping a baby's bottom of really pungent %$#@^ to clean an old fashioned firearm of %$#@^ that isn't as offensive.

I am the oldest in the family and I remember the days when I had to change my kid sisters' diapers and we didn't have baby wipes! Those were cloth diapers with safety pins mind you!

So here's my conundrum; I would bet that maybe half you people reading this have never changed a cloth diaper with safety pins and no baby wipes. So why don't you guys try it once or twice to feel the nostalgia?

View attachment 29599

I used cloth diapers on my kids. Tried them on a muzzleloader and they wouldn't fit in the barrel.

 

[Walkingeagle]

I used cloth diapers on my kids. Tried them on a muzzleloader and they wouldn't fit in the barrel.

Make really good char cloth though!
Walk

 

[Crow-Feather]

Make really good char cloth though!
Walk

Forgot to wash mine.

 

[Crow-Feather]

I don’t care about the traditional methods, either. You have to draw a line somewhere and modern things just help out and are far more practical. I’ve also heard lense wipes from Zeiss work well. Also I’ve read of folks using paper towels as cleaning patches, though in these times, one may as well seek out and use frog hair!

I use paper towels for drying my bore after cleaning. They compress and get in the groves and they suck up water better than anything. Hint, touch them to your lips to see if they come out dry. Back them people used paper to clean other things.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I carry them when doing living history events as they stock those events with Port-a-Let commodes, and so it makes it easier to say "clean", as well as giving me damp patches to swab out the crud from a couple dozen blanks in my musket. You live fire boys have yet to experience two dozen blanks fired out a your barrel with no swabbing until it's all "done".

LD

 

[appalichian hunter]

Carry them when hunting better than leaves, I bought a pack last oct. on a antelope hunt in Wyoming at a out fitter shop said they were 100% bio degradable ask the fellow at the shop he said they used them all the time and would stand by the bio part, they were nice an large about the size of a dish rag. Used them after I field dressed my antelope worked great then I dug a hole and buried the used wipes. Have a few left I will use during this years deer seasons should of bought a couple of packs. As to cleaning the flint rifles I am a traditionalist sort of.

 

[Yewbender]

I haven’t fired several dozen blanks but could only imagine the filth and crude in them barrels. At my muzzleloader club we do a 21 gun solute for members who passed. Last year we did it for 2 so that was 6 blanks for my fowler with no swabbing and man was that dirty. Filled barrel with water. Let sit for 10 min and bumped out black soup with sludge!

 

[Flinty Scot]

Isn't the active ingredient in packaged wipes either alcohol or witch hazel, w/ some lanolin or aloe to sooth the skin?
Makes sense they'd work on the bore & exterior, but could foul a frizzen w/ the oils.

I use my practice shooting to try out & get used to more traditional tricks. I've had luck using a wad of tow, tied on eachend of a braided flax cord- one alcohol damp, the other dry-for bore swabbing. it stows rolled up into a small ball. I change the tow wads when too fouled to work; save and wash them for next time.