Cleaning

How do you go about your gun cleaning? Do you use hot soapy water or solvents? What do you use after for rust prevention?

Well, concerning me this is very hot soapy water and after I rince and lube wit Young's Parker Hale BP solvent and at last pure Young's Parker Hale or Ballistol if I don't have the other...
I'm living in a swamp, the humidity is very important and I don't get rust in the barrels but I have to be carefull...

There are several ways that are used. Here is a link to that question.
https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/help-with-cleaning.93775/

Let's see. There's about 16,000 members and pretty close to 16,000 cleaning methods. Ultimately, the cleaning method will come down to what works best for you. Since this is posted on the percussion rifle forum, I'll keep my comments to percussion rifles. Some advice has variations that depend on your rifle. Is it configured with a drum and nipple, a patent breech, or can you pull the wedges and remove the barrel?

I like to remove the nipple and insert a 1/4-28 threaded bolt to plug the barrel if I can't remove the barrel. If you have an Italian rifle with a metric threaded nipple, its more difficult to plug. I use water with a bit of dish soap. Since I use an oil based patch lubricant, I need soap to lift the oils that have combined with the fouling. I remove the lock for cleaning. Since the bore is plugged, I fill the bore with soapy water and let it sit while I clean the lock with the soapy water. I thoroughly clean the recess in the hammer and any fouling on the lock plate. Time to dump the barrel with the water and do it again. Clean the nipple, put grease on the threads of the nipple and lock bolts. Put your thumb on the muzzle and rotate the barrel to agitate the soapy water and dump it. The plants seem to like soapy, black powder fouled water. Time to wet down a patch and using your utility rod and jag clean the barrel and the exterior by the breech. This may take several patches and may not get cleaner than gray. Use dry patches followed by two or three patches soaked in rubbing alcohol or WD40 to displace any remaining water. Time for a final cleaning wipe with a cleaning lubricant, such as Ballistol. Lastly a storage protectant such as Barricade. Store muzzle down to drain any residual oils from the breech. Two days later wipe with a Barricade patch.

Prepare for the other 15,999 cleaning methods. A search of the forum for cleaning can keep you in reading material for hours.

I was taught to not get my weapon wet with water from an old timer known to me as grandpa. Seeing that I have the old family smoke poles from a bygone era along with some well worn replicas and they are bright and chipper as they always were, I am satisfied a good wiping down and patches with olive oil is what has worked for me. 3 and 1 oil is rampant around my place, used on sewing machines, weapons, hinges, and machine tools.
Soap and water has been a culprit when I have removed locks and triggers to repair in the shop, everyone has their own theory for proper cleaning and I respect them all, well, maybe except water.
WD40 first was put on the market, I thought I would be up to date and use it, It almost ruined a weapon, probably because the weapon had been stored for a while.
I take a rifle that hasn't been used and it is some what grimy, but not rusty. Remember the old fellows were once work horses and just another tool. Like all tools they were thoroughly greased and hung up, if daily use was not required. Not like now days, mud on the shovel, sap and saw dust on the saw, sometimes just lucky to get hung were they belong.

Well out of the 16,000 folks on here I'm probably the only one that uses M-Pro 7 gun cleaner. All my guns have removable barrels so cleaning is a breeze. I use Ballistol to protect the bores and lube the lock internals then RIG on the outside metal. Simple yet effective.

I've tried many of the cleaning methods I've read about and I came up with the one that works for me. I tried filling the barrel with water. I also tried using a special nipple with a tube in a bucket of water using a patch and pumping the ramrod. I always ended up getting water on the stock and everywhere else.

This is what I ended up settling on:

1. I first remove the nipple and the lock.

2. I put a q-tip with a patch wrapped around it where the nipple goes to keep water from squirting out while cleaning the barrel.

3. Cleaning the barrel, I just fill small container with room temperature water and use wet patches until they start coming clean, then switch to dry patches. If I'm still getting fouling after the barrel is dry I'll repeat. Then I run three patches with isopropyl alcohol and then dry patches until the barrel is dry. Next I run three patches with "Barricade". A day or so later I'll swab the barrel and re-apply "Barricade".

This uses more patches and takes longer than filling the barrel with water or the "pump" method, but I don't have to worry about water/fouling running over the stock (my rifles don't have a hooked breech, so I don't remove the barrels).

4. To clean the lock and nipple I run them under room temp water in the sink and use a toothbrush. I thoroughly dry and oil.

I clean my flintlock the same way.

Hot soapy water then heavy dose of G-96 for storage. Clean out G-96 with a couple of patches soaked in alcohol followed by dry patches on day of shooting. Tried storing with Thompson Bore Butter and barrel started to rust.

Boomerang said:

There are several ways that are used. Here is a link to that question.
https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/help-with-cleaning.93775/

Click to expand...

What he said.

Whoops, its 17,008 different cleaning methods.

I’ve started using Ballistol.