Flintlock cleaning?

[Jerry Gowins]

Okay, now that I have a flinter in my sweaty little palms ("Brown" dropped it off yesterday. Woohoo!), could someone please explain the correct way to clean a flinter? Seemed to be several opinons on the vent liner thread. Is it really necessary to remove the barrel?

Thanks!

Jerry

 

[jtmattison]

You don't have to remove the barrel if you have a flush kit to clean it with.
You will have fouling inside the channel and sometimes into the area of the lock.
I recommend removing the barrel so you can clean everything.
You can remove the vent liner if your's has one. Some guy's don't. I do because I feel if it is left in you will never get it out if need be in the future.
:m2c:

Huntin

 

[Leonredbeard]

Okay, JG, I'll wade in.
Thorough cleaning: take the barrel out, fill the bore with warm water, maybe a little soap (anything will do) run a patch down the bore on a correct size jag and blow the water out the flash hole. Do this several times. Then dry with patches and put whatever lube/preservative in the bore that you like. Do this before storing the gun for a while.

Less thorough, while shooting often: use alcohol/murphy's oil soap, or whatever of the dozens of prepared cleaners out there for sale. Soak a patch run it down the bore, repeat with new patch until it comes out clean. Get your breech plug scraper out and twirl it around on the plug face and then get the crud off the scraper with a patch. Then lube the bore.

spray your lock with a bit of windex, or somesuch spray cleaner until black crud quits coming off it. Or put it under the hot faucet until black crud quits coming off it. You may have to wipe with a patch with this method. Dry it and then spray on your favorite lube/preservative.

Wipe the barrel outside with any of the above. Preserve with any of the above.

This will get you started without overly complicating your life.

Soon you can graduate to mink oil, bear grease, moose milk, moose snot, or whatever you eventually prefer. What ever way you go you will be okay. Your gun is likely made from modern steel and modern wood. The only way you can hurt it is to not clean it for a year or two at a time. I know guys who let there dirty guns set around for months without cleaning. I don't recomend this at all, okay? But don't worry about the process. Enjoy shooting and cleaning and learning about both.

Everyone here has an opinion about the optimum way of doing things. Examine their ideas and choose what appeals to you. Clean and lube at least moderately and you will pass your gun along to your children and grandchildren.

But mostly enjoy.
God bless.
volatpluvia

 

[doverdog]

Jerry, I checked out the link to your photo albums and I must say, if you handle a gun as well as you do a camera, you should be one hell of a shot. Very nice photos. :master:

 

[Zonie]

As you noted by now, there is some disagreement on whether to remove the barrel or not.
If your shooting a half stock with a hooked breech, this should not be an issue. The gun was obviously made to be disassembled.
I personally always remove my hooked breech barrels and my pinned barrels for cleaning. It may not be necessary but I don't want to get water into my stocks barrel channel or the lock mortice.

If your shooting a Flintlock, I don't think there are many who will recommend leaving the lock on the gun while your cleaning it.
The Flintlock seems to have ways of getting powder fouling in every external nook and cranny. Often, even though my locks are fitting tight to the barrel, there will be little bits of fouling from the powder blast that seems to get inside the lock as well.
That is why I recommend Always remove and clean and oil the Flintlock's lock when your done shooting.

 

[freetrapper20]

I agree with you. I always remove my hooked and pinned barrels when I want to give them a "good" cleaning. At camp I may give'em a quickie but before I put them up they get a good going over. (If you're careful I guess you can keep water out of the barrel channel but I'm not that good).
And likewise, there always is some residue on the back side of the lock. I like to get all that out of there and keep it nice and clean. :agree: Thats what works for me.

 

[Jerry Gowins]

Thanks, Superflint! How I shoot a ML remains to be seen...

Thanks for the replies. I should have been more specific as to the gun I bought. It is a Pedersoli Frontier Rifle, full stock. I don't have it in front of me now, so can't comment on how it might come apart. Anybody familiar with this gun feel free to chime in!

 

[Rat]

If the barrel is pinned in place, I would not remove it for cleaning.

If you don't give it the soapy water/rubber duck treatment, wash your bore with water in other words, you won't get water between the barrel and stock. Get some Hoppe's #9+, and clean your rifle with that, some regular #9, and some Kroil. Just use damp patches...no need to pump gallons of anykind of liquid through a firearm...especially water!!!

:imo: :sorry:

I always remove my lock to clean those hidden areas, and to do a better job of cleaning the lock. If you over oil your lock, oil will creep up between the pan and barrel, and soak your prime...making you think it has absorbed water "from the air" or something. So clean the lock well, but be conservative when you oil it. Probably best to lightly grease it. Again, if you don't wash your lock with water, as some do, you won't have oil it heavily when you are done wiping it down. (that old toof-brush works great on a flintlock)

Enjoy...them sweaty hands will give the rifle a nice "patina"!

Rat

 

[Rebel]

The Blue Ridge has a screw that goes up through 2 of the ramrod thimbles to hold the barrel on. You remove those and the tang bolt and the barrel comes right off.

 

Anybody use one of these flash-hole tube clamp flush thingies? I don't currently need one, as both of my flintlock guns can have the barrel removed easily, but I'm thinking this will be the way to go when I finally have a longrifle with a pinned barrel. Thoughts?

(Photo courtesy of Track of the Wolf)

 

[Rebel]

Never used one, but don't see why they wouldn't work, as long as they don't leak. A cheaper alternative would be to find a nipple that is the same threads as your vent liner and replace the liner with that. Then just get some of the tubing and put it over the nipple and into a bucket of water with something on the end to weigh it down enough to stay in the bucket. I know this means you have to remove your vent liner, but from the replies to another thread, a lot of you already do this anyway. :m2c:

 

[Twisted_1in66]

Never used one, but don't see why they wouldn't work, as long as they don't leak. A cheaper alternative would be to find a nipple that is the same threads as your vent liner and replace the liner with that. Then just get some of the tubing and put it over the nipple and into a bucket of water with something on the end to weigh it down enough to stay in the bucket. I know this means you have to remove your vent liner, but from the replies to another thread, a lot of you already do this anyway. :m2c:

I have something similar for my percussion kentucky pistol and it works great. However, it came with a special nipple because the normal ones only have this little tiny hole where they go into the drum. So, at the very least, you'll need to drill out the nipple to make it work. I do like that idea though and I have a longrifle with a pinned barrel. It's a bit of a pain to take out and put back together.

 

[Rocky Johnson]

Static - I use the c-clamp thing to clean my fowler, it works ok.It don't leak. Getting the barrel off is a lot better deal but I don't like to pull the pins. :winking: Rocky

 

[Hoyt]

I ordered one of the TOW barrel things also..don't want remove pins either.

 

[berickson]

i've got a couple of flinters with pinned full stock. so what i do is take the lock off, put a round toothpick in the flash hole. turn the gun upside down (trigger guard up). then i pour in a bit of windshield washer fluid., cover the muzzle with my hand and sloosh it back and forth and pour it out.
that takes out most of the crud, then i attack it with the bp solvent du jour and patches. so far so good, no rust etc.
i've had the 36 pedersoli for about 20 years, and the trade gun for about 5 years. i don't get chinzy on the oil when i finish cleaning. oil's cheap, guns aren't. i have a flusher kit but can't be bothered .
course as soon as i got them tho i made sure the stock was sealed under the barrel and i put a light coat of grease on the metal. should maybe pop the pins and check things out one of these days.

 

:m2c:Taking the pins out in order to clean the barrle sounds OK, the only problem one might have, and I like realy when someone does, is that you have a 99% chance of spliting wood on the stock. Most every one that has been shooting for a period of time can clean a flint with out removing the barrel. As for what to us, just HOT,BOILING water with dish detergent and fouling scraper follow by flushing with HOT BOILING water and of cause oil. The use of the so called C clamp cleaning thing works fine. As for removing the vent, well lets say that after 40 some years of shooting flints and doing gun repair never had to remove either breech plugs or vents.IT goes back to proper CLEANING!! Why look for trouble! :redthumb:

 

[brubincam]

can clean barrel ...use a tube small enough to fit in barrel loosely..connect to a hot or cold water hose ''install in muzzle most way up...tilt rifle down turn on water just enough preasure to run into barrel...let run until water comes out clean...pull out hose swab barrel dry and oil...works great with stock on and no wet wood...try youl like it...

 

[Twisted_1in66]

I rarely pull my barrel off and would prefer not to have to do it at all.

Normally, I pull the lock and then put

 

[cayugad]

My two flint lock rifles have removable barrels. So I always pull them. I know I read posts about not pulling the vent liner, but I still do. I guess I always figured why put such a nice hex wrench removal ability and then leave it to sooner or later seize in place.

I then give the barrel a good hot soap and water bath. Then follow that up with an additional hot water bath to rinse any soap that might have collected in there.

I also run a bore brush with solvent in the barrel and then follow that with a few patches or Black Off - Rusty Duck or Butch's Bore Shine. It always surprises me how much stuff will come out of the barrel on the patches of Rusty Duck, even though the patches from the water bath appeared clean.

After that I dry patch the barrel until the patches come out clean. I then oil the barrel with a quality gun oil.

I then clean the locks and if necessary remove them and clean behind them. Then clean the stocks of all powder traces. After I put a little anti seize back on the vent liner thread I put that back in the barrel.

After I wipe the barrel down with an oiled cloth, I reassemble the rifle. Wipe all the metal parts off with the oiled cloth. And take a dry towel and wipe and buff the wooden stocks until they shine... Then it is back to the gun rack until the next time.

 

[2172]

Cayuga Dad, I have 4 flinters, 2 with removable bbls, 2 with pinned...I follow your methods with the hooked breechs, and I plug the touchholes on the pinned bbl guns and again use the process..I make sure the butt is down, and, if I sometimes get a little water leakage, the stock is paste waxed, and I wipe it off easily...one of the guns has lived with this treatment since about 1975, and shows no sign of trouble...it has been unpinned 3 times...re-browning of the bbl as I got more picky about color...Hank