I'm afraid of corrosion with rifles

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Dogfood

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I know there are a multitude of way to clean the corrosive fouling and perhaps this just boils down to be being an anxious sort, but I find myself not using the muzzleloaders as often as I'd like.
BP revolvers aren't a concern since I can see each part very well and know it's been cleaned. Similarly, smoothbores I don't mind. I shoot both traditional and inline. Inline has the bonus of having a removable breech plug, but the rifleing there still gets me worried that I can't get it all and that a rust-out is just a matter of time. In the past i've just been using the cheapo Hoppe's gun cleaning kit. So maybe it's a matter of investing in some quality cleaning rods and associated bit and bobs.
Any thoughts, suggestions, etc would be greatly appreciated.Cheers,
dgfd
 
I guess my first question is where does the extreme concern for a rusting bore come from? Are you finding signs of rust after they've been cleaned and sat for a while?
I can't speak from any kind of experience on the inline, especially if you're using BH209, as I don't own one and they just simply don't interest me. There are tons of folks here that do use them and I expect they'll chime in. I believe it is best to use an actual solvent like Hoppes with BH209 like you would on a modern CF rifle.

I do shoot a fair amount of real BP in my TC Renegade though. I've caught it starting to show rust only one single time...well, besides flash rust if I clean with warm or hot water I should say. After shooting I remove the barrel, remove the nipple and then stick the nipple end of the barrel into a small bucket of room temp water with a couple drops of dish soap. I really feel that water is the absolute best for cleaning BP fouling. It is abundant and cheap too. Doesn't hurt a thing as long as you make darn sure you get the bore very dry after using it. (Note: If you are a married fella, you may have heard about doing this in the bathtub. DO NOT do it in the bathtub!...especially if you're planning some romantic gestures later in the evening. Just getcha a bucket). If you don't have an easily removable hooked breach, then one of those kits with a tube that threads into the nipple hole will get it done. I wet a cleaning patch and then run it up and down the bore multiple times with the ram rod and a jag holding the patch. It will syphon the water up higher and higher into the bore each pass until it is pouring out the muzzle end each pass. Then I swap out the water for just plain clean room temp water and do it again to rinse out any BP residue and the soap. (Note: if I use hot or even warm water I see flash rust every single time on the first drying patch I run. Room temp or cold and it isn't there, but hot is really useful if using a chap stick style patch lube such as bore butter). After the barrel has been rinsed I tip it up so excess water will run out of it. I dry the outside of the barrel and use canned air to blow moisture out from around the tenons and sights. Then I run dry patches down the bore until they are coming out dry. (IF I'm seeing color on the drying patches I will wet patch - dry patch until that quits happening, I use Hoppes BP solvent & Patch lube on the wet patches.) Pour some denatured alcohol through the nipple hole and let it run out the barrel. Then another dry patch. Then I run a patch to the bottom of the bore and leave it there and blast some air through the nipple hole and flame channel. Remove that patch, blast some more air, and run a couple more dry patches for good measure, you absolutely want it dry. Now it is ready for rust preventative.
I started out just coating it with bore butter. Never found rust. (I truly believe the folks that have found rust after using bore butter simply didn't get the bore clear dry before applying it...or they think they saw rust when in actuality it was the dried out bore butter. It turns very brown after it has sat for quite a while. Any animal fat should work too, as long as it blocks oxygen from getting to the walls of the bore)Then I read about using oil and just swabbing it back out before shooting by running a patch of 91% or better alcohol, so I started storing it with a coating of Hoppes gun oil. (Stored it barrel down always so none would get into the flame channel). Never found rust. Then I read that gun oil isn't a great rust preventative and is mainly just for lubing, so I switched to Ballistol. Successful the first few times...but then I did find rust! It had sat for about 4 months since I'd last shot. Very mild thankfully, but it was there. So then I switched to Barricade. I've never read a bad word about the stuff, and I like that it dries into a film. This means I don't have to swab it out before shooting, I can actually leave it protecting the bore and load up for hunting and know there is still rust prevention in the barrel. Never found rust with it to this day.

From all the rust preventative switching above you could probably surmise that I was a might worried about rust too at the beginning.
I don't worry much about it anymore, I've only ever found rust the one time, but that don't mean I just ignore the possibility. After cleaning and applying Barricade, I do go back a week later and run a patch to make sure everything is good. After that I will check once a month until I shoot again.
Just running a clean, tight fitting dry patch down the bore on occasion will tell you all you need to know.
Now, go make some smoke. It is just sacrilege to not enjoy shooting your muzzleloaders whenever you fancy to do so.
 
An inexpensive borescope will help with (knowing) you got it clean and it is in good condition. Teslong for around $60. There may be others cheaper?
 
Clean your rifle well. Keep running patches down the pipe till they come out clean. A little light oil to finish up. I always recheck my guns a few days later by running a patch down the barrel. Usually everything is ok but occasionally I find something on the patch, so I just clean the barrel again.
 
After trying a multitude of products (many of which work well) I determined that dish soap and hot water works and is cheap.

Fill a bucket insert barrel use a bore brush from other end and brush. Then repeat with rag. Dry with patches and towel. Now spray with alcohol water mix. This will help evaporate water. Dry patches again. And finally an oiled patch to finish. Then oil exterior.

Don't forget under the front sight. If the barrel was in the bucket muzzle first. Water likes to get trapped there.
 
I've been using good old windex to clean my guns as of late. The stuff works great.

My ex used to use that stuff for everything. A good gp cleaner. It's a good basic evaporate cleaner I could see it applied to black powder.
 
I use Awesome Orange (from Dollar Store) squirt maybe 10 times, boiling water next from tea pot pour it thru and usually 2 or 3 clean patches. Finish with small amount of Breakfree Oil on a patch. I never have any rust and I've been cleaning this way for 15+ years. Never have to worry about drying barrel as barrel gets so hot you cannot touch it and dry inside and out.
 
Thanks everybody. This forum never ceases to impress me with the knowledge and friendliness of the posts.
Much oibliged!
 
Lately I have been using a hair dryer blowing through the barrel to dry/heat the metal. Takes care of water under sights and thimbles as well. Do this while I'm cleaning the bolt/breech plug, receiver. Use it to dry/heat the breech plug as well, just sit it at the exit of the barrel. Check again next day with borescope and is spotless w/o rust stains.
 
Sidelocks using BP I remove the barrel from the stock, remove the nipple, mix Dawn and water and heat to almost boiling, put the breech end in a bucket and swab the crap out of it, after a few patches, it's clean. Then rinse with boiling water, air dry. Then a light coating of Bore Butter. I toss the nipple in the bucket with the cleaning solution for cleaning the barrel.
I hold the barrel with a folded towel. The barrel gets slightly warm or more like hot to the touch, plus the water coming out of the muzzle running down the barrel doesn't feel too good.

In-lines using Triple7 or BP, it's T17 or Totally Awesome from Dollar General. Before swabbing I remove the breech plug, striker, and spring and clean these in boiling water and dish soap. Run a few dry patches through the barrel, and a lightly coated patch of Bore Butter.
 
As deermanok said. Good old windex. It even works with BH209. I fell for the BH209 cleaner (smells like mineral spirits, probably is) it doesn’t get the breech plug shiny without a lot of work, couple of shots of windex, a Q-tip and some compressed air have always cleaned up the breechplug quickly and easily. 3 or 4 wet and dry patches do the same on the bore. Sidelocks, yeah the bucket (or bathtub) of hot soapy water followed by dry patches and then a light coating of bore protectant (oil etc..) followed by another dry patch just so it doesn’t leak out everywhere. That has worked pretty good for me. Just gettin ready to do three BH209 shooters that were shot this morning (boys missed and mine was shot at a target) if I am having a pipe dream about the windex on BH209, I’ll let you know. Sometimes that happens....lately about all I can remember for more than a day is, if momma calls me bad names lol
 
Some new cleaning tools a good idea. Think SpinJag. Just get use to the meticulous cleaning. It goes with the territory. It's really not that bad. Try Butchs Bore Shine solvent.
 
Again, thank you all for you input.
These answers got me to thinking a follow-up question.

What did long hunters and fur trapper mountain men use back in the day? I imagine they could boil a kettle over their campfire, but anyone know if they had any other methods?
 
Again, thank you all for you input.
These answers got me to thinking a follow-up question.

What did long hunters and fur trapper mountain men use back in the day? I imagine they could boil a kettle over their campfire, but anyone know if they had any other methods?
Read once that if water was scare, like in very dry climates, urine was used. I was always skeptical of that due to the salt in urine. I guess as an emergency it would work if you greased it up well.
 
I prefer sealed breech set ups as it limits cleaning to breech plugs and barrels. Couple that with stainless steel because it is more forgiving of cleaning errors. And its hard to screw up as long as you give it an honest attempt. You can also get coatings like cerakote etc that will help protect the metal. But really if you clean with the solvent that matches your propellant until patches come out clean, then coat the bore with oil/bore butter as appropriate to you powder/propellant choice you should be fine.

Also, on bolt action in-lines, tubes that allow jags with patches, and brushes through can be screwed into the breech threats... that keeps the barrel crud out of the action, and just clean from the action side... same for break actions, but no real need for a cleaning tube.

I've sent a gun to a gun writer to test with one of our conversions. He shot blackhorn in it, and didn't clean it. He just ran one patch of hoppies down and out and shipped it back. He said that western powders told him that was enough to neutralize the hygroscopic effects of the powder residue. I got it a week later and couldn't get to it right away... it cleaned up fine and didn't have any corrosion. It was a stainless gun though.

Either way, I'd enjoy the sport. Do some due diligence on after shooting cleaning, and not worry.
 

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