Cleaning bore: Is boiling water advantageous?

[M. De Land]

That little test changed my mind and it happened by accident as I remember it.
I remember dropping a fouled revolver cylinder into a pale of warm soapy water and watching the powder fouling float off in a cloud as it passed down the water column to the bottom.
That got my attention and when I went after the baked on stuff with a tooth brush it became immediately apparent it was a better mouse trap. Mike D.

 

[Al Bently]

In 1978 when I got my first m/l I bought every chemical cleaner available in my area. Some worked some not so good. Tried all the handmade juju mixes that I heard about at the range and read about. Again some worked some did not so good. I am not a chemist and did not do this as a doctor's thesis. Just a guy trying to keep his weapons in shootable condition. Then the guy who took me under his wing and I were at a 3day shoot. At the end of the day when we started cleaning guns. I got out my box of cleaners he put a pot on the Colemean stove. So t o cut this drivel short. He just warmed the water not hot started his cleaning. He was done and tipping little brown bottles while I was still cleaning up my mess. This man joined the NMLRA in 1935 started shooting originals then. As he explained to me that the guns had always been cleaned with water back then and were accurate enough to set records at Freindship that can never be broken just tied. My point is if hundreds of years of no chemicals to clean black powder guns that some of them to this day are shootable. Why do you need or want any thing different. The shoot that John and I went to was in 1983 to this day I ONLY use warm to the touch water to clean and rinse then a patch with bear oil good to go . The barrels of any of the guns as still as nice to day as when bought. Just my rant.
The point is if it is not broke why try to fix it. Attention to your investment in your gun makes it worthwhile to keep after it and not be negligent in it's care . I am done.

Because there ARE superior cleaning alternatives (namely water and soap/detergent) that DO clean better (or at least easier) with no opportunity cost in terms of cost or convenience.

Run this little test: The next time you clean your MLers with water, use just water (no soap) as well on your hands before eating your next meal.

I have no doubt if a bottle of modern dishwashing liquid became magically available in a Civil War camp, that the troopers would have used some of it to clean their weapons once they realized what it would do.

 

[bpd303]

They had lye soap. I have used my wife's homemade lye soap & it works very well.

 

[Col. Batguano]

It's amazing how a boy's seeming allergy to using soap and water goes away once they find out what girls are. :shocked2:

 

[AZbpBurner]

I always remove my rifles barrels before I clean them.

Then, I use the bucket method with the breech of the barrel under the surface of the water and pump a cleaning patch on a jag up and down the bore with my range rod.

This not only cleans the barrel nicely but it also sucks in and blows water out of the vent/flame channel so those areas get cleaned by high velocity water.

Doing this always ends up pumping water up and out of the muzzle, right where my hand is holding the barrel.

My hand and its skin had a long talk with me and we all agreed that having boiling water dumped on them would make them very unhappy.

That is why I never use boiling, or even overly hot water to clean my muzzleloaders.

And now, you know the rest of the story. :grin:

Guess I'll have to share the secret ingredient to using boiling water: you can get it at any local 99¢ Store: It's called a potholder. Most often I can pick up the barrel with my bare hands by using just warm water, but for a long day at the range with a really fouled barrel, I'll boil up a pot and use it. Although after boiling water and soap wash with clear water rinse dries almost instantaneously, I'll still run some WD-40 patches thru - never a hint of rust with my water.

 

[pargent]

ff But how do you guys that are scared of hot water cope making a cup of tea or coffee ,

 

[bpd303]

I have used hot coffee to clean my smoothbore while in camp and it did a good job. :surrender:

 

[AZbpBurner]

ff But how do you guys that are scared of hot water cope making a cup of tea or coffee ,

Maybe they're part of the Iced Cafe Mocha Latte Foo Foo and Iced Tea generation :idunno:

 

[coloradoclyde]

Hey! Iced Tea goes back over a hundred years.
Here's just one reference. http://www.teasetc.com/tea/article.asp?ID=11&Name=Iced+Tea+History

 

[Al Bently]

They had lye soap. I have used my wife's homemade lye soap & it works very well.

SOMETIMES they had lye soap. Other times they used ashes (a base.) If someone is touting "water only" in a reenacting sort of situation, that would make sense, but otherwise? No.

 

[garra]

This a general question as I agree with the cleaning with water plus soap.
In a couple of M/L I recently acquired the bores were pretty dirty from years of neglect. On both of them I tried the water/ soap routine, a couple of times on each one, even filling the barrel with soapy water and letting it sit. did the swabbing bit, tried bore brushes, but when I ran patches down them soaked in Ed's Red I was getting dark color for quite a few patches. One of them took an additional 50 swabbings. What gives, is the fouling so imbedded in the rifling or imperfections in the bore that I will never get it spotless? Any remedies I could try to get them really clean?

 

[necchi]

It's really a wide open game with used rifles, we can never know for sure what's been done to them in the past.

One fairly common issue, and it's one that will destroy a rifles accuracy, is shooting the rifle when there's still a petroleum based packing grease or rust preventive still in the bore.

New rifles have a packing grease from the factory and if folks don't clean it out well, that stuff along with heat, pressure and BP residue becomes like an asphalt tar. Or they use gun oil to store the rifle and don't clean that out before shooting and the same thing happens
Now they have a rifle with the bore fouled and the rifling plugged and accuracy is gone,, they decide to sell the POS Trad rifle because it doesn't shoot well.!

I use the pump method and some gasoline in a soup can! It's the fastest thing I've found that will cut through that kind of fouling, then follow that up with brake cleaner, then a proper soapy water clean up.

I've bought dozens of rifles (cheap) from folks that are selling because of this condition, cleaned'm up and re-sold.

 

[Grumpa]

I've always used "boiling" water (yes, it's no longer boiling off the fire), with the idea that it heats up the barrel, to remove fouling that might get trapped in the metal's pores when the latter was hot from the firing. Probably an old wive's tale.

I also added some detergent, and wore gloves ( you don't spill piping hot water on your hands when making coffee or tea).

Has anyone tried distilled water? I might give it a go next time.

I find that the process goes a lot better if the barrel is swabbed at the range, while still hot from shooting. I don't think it has anything to do with "pores" in the metal, just that the residue hasn't had time to solidify.

 

[Billnpatti]

If your soapy water is hotter than you could wash your hands in, it is hotter than necessary. As you know, modern steel does not have the same structure as the old steels and cast iron so, it does not have pores to gather fouling and need to be cleaned. Wash with good warm soapy water, rinse with warm or cold water, thoroughly dry and then apply a light coat of a good oil such as Barricade and you have done a proper job of cleaning your rifle. That's all it needs to remain in good condition.

 

[LaBonte]

They had lye soap. I have used my wife's homemade lye soap & it works very well.

SOMETIMES they had lye soap. Other times they used ashes (a base.) If someone is touting "water only" in a reenacting sort of situation, that would make sense, but otherwise? No.

FYI - water filtered through ashes produces lye which is a very strong base. Traditional lye soap has been and still is made using ashes.
And FWIW - I've been shooting BP since 1962 and other than a few trials of other products have never used anything but room temp water and have never had problems with my guns or needed anything else - soap in fact can cause problems that can't always be seen unless you unbreech the barrel.

 

[coloradoclyde]

This a general question as I agree with the cleaning with water plus soap.
In a couple of M/L I recently acquired the bores were pretty dirty from years of neglect. On both of them I tried the water/ soap routine, a couple of times on each one, even filling the barrel with soapy water and letting it sit. did the swabbing bit, tried bore brushes, but when I ran patches down them soaked in Ed's Red I was getting dark color for quite a few patches. One of them took an additional 50 swabbings. What gives, is the fouling so imbedded in the rifling or imperfections in the bore that I will never get it spotless? Any remedies I could try to get them really clean?

Water and soap will remove real black powder and some synthetics effectively but not all. The question you have to ask with your fouled barrels that water and soap won’t clean is; what are they fouled with?
Could be some type of patch lubricant, barrel protectant, wadding material, plastic sabot, and lead”¦.etc.
If it’s dirty then it’s dirty ”¦.keep cleaning and trying different things.
Some copper scouring pad or super fine steel wool may help too.
P.S. I didn't know what Ed's Red was so I looked it up it says it "Wipes out plastic wad fouling, heavy leading, and caked-on carbon fouling."
So my advice would be use that whole bottle on the gun and see if they come clean, it's probaly lead fouling.

 

[Billnpatti]

Here's your solution http://www.brownells.com/gun-clean...g-paste/j-b-bore-compound-kroil-prod1159.aspx

Be sure to watch the video, too. He is using it on a modern gun but it will show you the best way to get the crud out of your bore.

 

[M. De Land]

I've used JB for years on hard to clean barrels and can whole hardheartedly agree on it's cleaning virtue. It's especially good on lead or jacket fouled barrels. Mike D.

 

[longcruise]

P.S. I didn't know what Ed's Red was so I looked it up it says it "Wipes out plastic wad fouling, heavy leading, and caked-on carbon fouling."
So my advice would be use that whole bottle on the gun and see if they come clean, it's probaly lead fouling

Dont think its for sale. Gotta make it. Ed Harris is on one of the cast bullet forums and he can probably give the recipe. OTOH, its surely all over the internet.

Dont remember the receipe but recall that my initial reaction to it was that it had nothing in it that would dissolve or remove lead. One of those internet legends that has become self sustaining.

Steel wool wrapped on a jag will get rid of lead. You can see it embedded in the steel wool if it is there. When a fresh piece shows no lead in it, you got it.

Another option is electronic cleaning but the steel wool is too easy in comparison.

Never considered using steel wool in a barrel until I saw top level Scheutzen competitors using it to wipe their bores between strings.

 

[dikman]

Yep, nothing in it to attack lead specifically, but there are several variations on it. I leave out the acetone (so it won't dissolve plastic, but that's ok 'cos I don't use plastic in my guns :wink: ) mainly because if it spills onto the woodwork the acetone probably won't do the finish any good.