Removing rust from old flintlock?

Just got an old beat up Japanese flintlock for cheap.
It has some rust and I wondered how to clean or prep rifle before I try shooting it.

Should I just use Ballistol?

check to see if it is loaded first thing. Get a small wire and see if you can feel anything in flash hole. Use soap and water to clean and then use Ballistol or something like that to protect bore. I use gunzilla for bore protection can load and fire without cleaning oil out of barrel.

Try Ballistol and 0000 steel wool for surface rust.

Check to see if it’s loaded as above. Then dissemble. Go over the barrel with 320 sand paper. Rebrown.
If’n it were mine I would sand the stock sharpen the lock molding, thin the fore stock then stain dark and refinish. I would sew a wet rawhide repair over the joint and another over the wrist. Replace the sights and resight in as they may not be tall enough to clear your ‘repair’.

Just like I clean my Hawkens I guess....except there doesn’t seem a way to break this one down for cleaning(?)

The barrel should be pined in. Such a barrel won’t be removed for normal cleaning. It will take a pin to tap the one out, then remove the tang screw and lock. Then you can remove the barrel.
It may be held in with screws on the ramrod channel.
After cleaned and reassembled it should only be taken down on rare occasion. I like to wax the channel pretty heavy with furniture wax.

I haven cut these off to fit yet

tenngun said:

After cleaned and reassembled it should only be taken down on rare occasion. I like to wax the channel pretty heavy with furniture wax.

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I do it with a water repellent grease, not so traditionnal than beewax but efficient ...

Armando said:

Just got an old beat up Japanese flintlock for cheap.
It has some rust and I wondered how to clean or prep rifle before I try shooting it.

Should I just use Ballistol?

Click to expand...

I recovered for free a Mountain rifle rusted like this one, I did try the Ballistol and steel wool and it was not nice clean and the rust let a brownish sheen when coming out of deep rusty pores. So I have disassemble the barrel, rubbed in the barrel line with number 600 water paper for car repair and perfectly dried. After that I didn't do a blue or black tan but a brown/red (Brown Bess color in fact) of the most beautiful effect...
In fact it took me less time than with steel wool and Ballistol and now the barrel is really nice and clean...
You can find very good brown/red really cheap by Brownells or other...
The time that the barrel take he's color I worked on the wood et finish with tint and finish with True Oil...
That cost me around 30.00$ for a good flinter (not marvellous but good: it's a Tradition .45" rifle) given to me by a guy I know...

tenngun said:

The barrel should be pined in. Such a barrel won’t be removed for normal cleaning. It will take a pin to tap the one out, then remove the tang screw and lock. Then you can remove the barrel.
It may be held in with screws on the ramrod channel.
After cleaned and reassembled it should only be taken down on rare occasion. I like to wax the channel pretty heavy with furniture wax.

Click to expand...

In some cases the rear lock bolt may pass through the tang and will need to be removed before the barrel can be lifted from the stock.

Zonie said:

Many of the rifles I've built, both flintlock and percussion, have the rear lock bolt going thru the projection on the breech plug, located just under the tang.
With all of these guns, a person has to totally remove the rear lock screw from the gun before they can remove the barrel.

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So basically, just clean the gun without disassembly because it sounds like quite a chore.

The only screw I could find was on the tang.

It’s not a chore. A six penny or four penny finishing nail filed flat, or a punch of that size can tap the pins out. Easy peasy. Pull the lock unscrew the tang and out the barrel comes.
Unless:
Some imports were made with blind pins, that don’t go all the way through. I’ve only seen this on one gun and read about it once. In that case it would be a real pia to get it out.
Howsomever if I saw a gun in that shape I would want to see the bottom before I shot it.

Armando said:

So basically, just clean the gun without disassembly because it sounds like quite a chore.

The only screw I could find was on the tang.

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If the gun is a "right hand" design there will be one or two screws on the left side side panel opposite the lock. The screw or screws hold the lock in place. These are the screws I was talking about. The rear one, closest to the butt goes thru a hole in the exposed part of the breech plug. Since the breech plug is firmly screwed into the barrel, the screw must be removed before the barrel can be lifted out of the stock.

I rebuilt a very similar rifle a couple of years ago. Rust on the outside of the barrel to the point I put the barrel in a vise, milled filed the entire barrel by hand and then browned it. Turned out quite nice.