Cleaning between shots

[Far Sighted]

I am only shooting BH209. I have about 8 different muzzleloaders that the family uses and I like to shoot and sight them in. I have .50's, .45's, stainless and blued. Because my range is outside my basement door this winter my goal is to figure this dirty bore , first shot bore, clean bore ,etc. thing out with my guns. Most these guns are shooting 1" groups @100 yards for comparison.

My shooting procedure is to dry patch, damp patch with 50/50 mix Hoppes #9 and alcohol, then 2-3 dry patches.

Just started noting the data and using this procedure.
Here is what I have found so far.
Dirty bore 25-50 fps slower
Clean bore 25-50 fps faster
If the gun sits loaded the fps seems to change a little.
The bullets are still hitting within an inch.

What I found so far with not a lot of testing is if the gun has sat even clean, I will fire a primer and then clean.
I can also clean and patch after I reload.
Doing this the guns seem to shoot back in the group.

I plan on taking each gun and doing a test over several weeks this winter if the weather permits.

Heavens that a lot of ML equipement to test. You may quality for the super tester award. Thanks for sharing!

 

[WVAED]

I have used Moose milk (i part ballistol, one part pine sol and 22 parts distilled water) which worked fine, I have also used windex. Both works about the same for me. And I wipe between every shot at the range. Not for hunting.

 

[GoexBlackhorn]

I use one of those small lens/glasses cleaner spray bottle and fill it 50% Windex - 50% alcohol. I prefer 'swabs', not cleaning, after 2nd shot, reason-being is that a quick 2nd shot may be needed to harvest. So I always practice two shot groups.

 

[Dave951]

For just wiping between shots, blue Windex on a patch followed by a dry patch is fine.

I mainly shoot minies though in most of my guns and don't wipe at all in those. I did a test a while back to see just how many shots I could fire without problems and ran out of ammo at 53 with very little fall off in accuracy and that could have been attributed to the shooter. Gun was Zoli Zouave, bullet RCBS Hogdon, powder 45g 3f Schutzen, Schutzen cap, lube 60/40 beeswax/lard.