• Friends, our 2nd Amendment rights are always under attack and the NRA has been a constant for decades in helping fight that fight.

    We have partnered with the NRA to offer you a discount on membership and Muzzleloading Forum gets a small percentage too of each membership, so you are supporting both the NRA and us.

    Use this link to sign up please; https://membership.nra.org/recruiters/join/XR045103

Coating inside the barrel

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Mar 20, 2023
Messages
35
Reaction score
106
Location
Friendship Indiana
I have another question I couldn't find in the search function.
I have someone asking if anyone tried coating the inside of their ML barrel to cut down on fouling. His particular question involved moly, which I found in search to be not so great. He also asked about Teflon or Cerflon coating the inside of the barrel, or using graphite or even zinc.
It this juice worth the squeeze or is this something that would just be more work than good?
 
IF I were going to do it I would have it chrome lined. It is my opinion that there is nothing you can do to reduce fouling from black powder, but you can influence how easy or difficult it is to load the next ball or clean when done shooting. You can also change the corrosion resistance of the bore. End of the day black powder is not clean and won't ever be. If the bore is smooth it will be easier to work with all the way around.
 
I seem to remember seeing some Investarms Hawken style guns under the Cabelas name that had chrome plated bores, but as said it's not going to reduce fouling only slow down corrosion.
 
I have someone asking if anyone tried coating the inside of their ML barrel to cut down on fouling.
You need to have that "someone" explain the nature and difficulty of the fouling. What is he trying to accomplish?
A "Fouling shot" is many times requested as a first non-scoring shot in competition.
And the subsequent condition of that fouling from shot to shot is a considered value, it's not something that needs to be"cut down" as much as "maintained.
Every shot with traditional guns using BP and/or the subs leaves a fouling deposit as a common denominator, really.
How the individual shooter deals with that deposit depends on his goals,, plinking, Hunting(game or the elusive X).
The nature of the fouling itself has many variables along with ambient conditions within seasons and/or region.
What is your person trying to accomplish with his query? August in Florida, July in Arizona. December In Minnesota?
Which powder? What's he using for lube?
There is no magic coating that protects a barrel from BP fouling.
 
Respectfully, if you want to go modern, go modern. Muzzle loading and black powder do not seem to be your game.
I hope that is not the case since I am the Manager of Operations for the nations largest muzzle loading association.

The rubber hitting the road, cards on the table answer here is that I am new to muzzle loading, and I respect the knowledge within this forum. When I have an obscure question from our membership this is where I look for answers. So far I have a good idea of what I can tell him.

This member is from Texas. His mindset was that, as he shoots, it keeps getting more difficult to ram the ball. Then everything else he proposed, I am guessing was an academic exercise that he was working through his mind.
 
The rubber hitting the road, cards on the table answer here is that I am new to muzzle loading, and I respect the knowledge within this forum. When I have an obscure question from our membership this is where I look for answers. So far I have a good idea of what I can tell him.

This member is from Texas. His mindset was that, as he shoots, it keeps getting more difficult to ram the ball. Then everything else he proposed, I am guessing was an academic exercise that he was working through his mind.

Good Morning Mr. Coleman, and thank you for the question.
So your shooter is experiencing what every person who shoots black powder experiences. His experience is normal.

I have someone asking if anyone tried coating the inside of their ML barrel to cut down on fouling. His particular question involved moly, which I found in search to be not so great. He also asked about Teflon or Cerflon coating the inside of the barrel, or using graphite or even zinc.

Fouling is a result of four things. The degree of destruction of the three components in the black powder when fired. The humidity of the atmosphere when firing. The degree of polish of the interior surface of the barrel. The amount of the charge vs. the interior diameter of the barrel.

There is no magic coating.

LONG WINDED RESPONSE FOLLOWS ...

Alas, many have tried to find such. The old technology brings up problems that modern improvements solved. Fouling on black powder cartridge rifles, for example, is not nearly the problem because the bullet is inserted into the breech and blows fouling out as it is fired, while the muzzleloader must push the bullet down the dirtied barrel for each shot.

BUT the bullets then started to deposit lead in the barrel, so the modern guys went to harder lead, using alloys, then that was still a problem so they went to copper jackets but that even eventually needs to be removed to preserve accuracy, then they came up with moly and other coatings for the lead alloy bullets in cartridges, so they don't deposit copper..., but the bottom line is eventually fouling has to be cleaned. :(

The heat of ignition will defeat just about any coating such as tefflon or zinc, with the exception of perhaps chrome lining the barrel. ALL that chroming the barrel will do is to in effect, add a layer of material that is basically the same as polishing the interior surface of the barrel. It's cheaper, and simpler to get a polished barrel. Fouling woes are sometimes amplified by a rough barrel or a barrel made rough by neglected cleaning. A lot of "match grade" barrels are polished, as that reduces the effect of fouling and for folks going looong range, it helps get more consistent velocities. BUT It's even cheaper and easier to not expect a muzzleloader to be like a modern rifle, and become used to swabbing the barrel every shot or two. ;)

There are folks that will tell your friend that he should "season" his barrel like a cast iron skillet. That was true once, when barrel steel was much closer to actual cast iron than modern reproduction muzzleloader barrels. The natural lube would carbonize, much like a cast iron skillet or carbon steel Asian Wok, which actually is carbon filling in microscopic pores in the iron and steel. This is akin to polishing a modern, muzzleloading barrel, because modern barrels are much denser than the steel of their muzzleloading ancestors, so "seasoning" doesn't really work today.

The fouling may be mitigated by a good, natural bullet lube, and using a main charge that gives the shooter the accuracy that is wanted, while not going well beyond what is needed to get that accuracy. If a 60 grain load of 3Fg granulated powder is accurate out to 100 yards, with a rifle from .40 - .54 caliber, then perhaps going up to a 90 grain charge is merely adding 50% more fouling? It's not slaying the deer 50% better in most cases, and going up to a 120 grain charge is most assuredly not slaying the deer 2x as well as that 60 grain charge.

For example I use 70-80 grains in all my rifles and shotguns, with no problem hitting paper well or taking game. Some folks have rifles that are similar to mine buy find 90 grains is their best. Sure they could load 120 grains, instead of 90, but that 30% increase isn't getting them any real advantage other than adding 30% more material to contribute to the fouling.

There was once an old practice of loading 5-10 grains of smokeless powder followed by a main charge of black powder, to get the most complete combustion of the black powder, and thus the least amount of fouling. This was done in the first half of the 20th century, by men shooting custom muzzleloaders 220 yards, so they were using very large charges and very thick barrels. This is not recommended today by any means, and I mention it here as your friend asking the question might stumble across reference books that mention this, and he might try it. Such a practice might turn a muzzleloading rifle into a pipe bomb going off inches from one's face.

So in closing, your friend needs to get used to swabbing, and be sure he's using something like olive oil or lard or olive oil/lard mixed with a bit of beeswax as a lube.

LD
 
I hope that is not the case since I am the Manager of Operations for the nations largest muzzle loading association.

The rubber hitting the road, cards on the table answer here is that I am new to muzzle loading, and I respect the knowledge within this forum. When I have an obscure question from our membership this is where I look for answers. So far I have a good idea of what I can tell him.

This member is from Texas. His mindset was that, as he shoots, it keeps getting more difficult to ram the ball. Then everything else he proposed, I am guessing was an academic exercise that he was working through his mind.
The Manager of Operations for the nations largest Muzzleloading association is “ new to Muzzleloading”??
 
Over the years folks have coated the bore, polished the bore etc. to make it smoother in an effort to improve accuracy. But you can make it too smooth, too shiny, and it will have the same effect on accuracy that a lube that is too slick will have: there needs to be some resistance.

FWIW in the old days the makers of the finest target barrels would often, after a number of shots, roughen up the bore to return the gilt edge accuracy the barrel had before it shot slick.
 
Loyalist Dave,
Thank you for a well thought out articulate response. That was what I needed. I have already forwarded the response to Texas in hopes that not only that it is helpful but may also spark an interest for them to join the forum.
 
I have another question I couldn't find in the search function.
I have someone asking if anyone tried coating the inside of their ML barrel to cut down on fouling. His particular question involved moly, which I found in search to be not so great. He also asked about Teflon or Cerflon coating the inside of the barrel, or using graphite or even zinc.
It this juice worth the squeeze or is this something that would just be more work than good?
I've used Stumpy's Moose Snot since 2004, so almost 20-years. Stumpy was a moderator here and some kind of chemist. He had both a Moose Milk that he liked to use for regular patches that would be semi-dry and a formula for his Moose Snot, which he specifically made to use with loading boards where you will have 6 or so patched lead balls in the board so you can quickly place one at the muzzle of your rifle and either short start it or ram it down. I think I made his moose milk once but have been using the Moose Snot for not quite 20-years now.

It's easy to make and I carry mine in a tin can the size and shape of an Altoids tin. It's about the consistency of Kiwi paste shoe polish. I carry a strip of patching material in my shooting bag and will grab one end (all-cotton ticking material) and rub it on the paste with my thumb until I feel it come through the other side. Then I'll put that part of the patch over the muzzle; short start the ball; cut the patching material off at the muzzle; and ram it down in stages. This mixture softens and cleans the fouling our of the bore pushing the fouling down on top of your main charge. The fouling is shot our with the patch and ball and the resulting firing from that shot is cleaned off by the next load using a patch lubed with Stumpy's Moose Snot.

If you have a little trouble getting the ball down, that's because you either didn't use enough Moose Snot to lube the patch or your didn't lube a wide-enough circle of it to lube the part that's going into the rifling. The solution to that is too lube the next shot more heavily and everything will be fine again. You can shoot all day long without the need to stop and use a couple of wiping patches to clean the bore. This stuff also doesn't freeze solid like "Bore Butter" will do in freezing temps and it won't liquefy and leak out of the container in hot weather either. It's great stuff! If you want to shoot all day shot after shot, this is the stuff to make and use:

Here's Stumpy's instructions:
837×797
79.9 kB

1682444970253.png
 
Back
Top