Fouling a barrel for hunting.... and what about the end of the day

[bronko220002]

Do you swab between shots in the field? That’s interesting. My cold/clean bore shot mostly shoot low.

To answer your question - yes and no. After the smoke clears and the animal is still in sight and not dead I will reload without swabbing. If I don't see it and a tracking job is in order yes, I swab but only with a spit patch both sides and a dry patch before loading. After all if I need to track I'm going to wait a while anyway and stll take my time.

 

[Seuss]

For many this topic is a moot issue but for many who are starting out and planning to hunt this may help. With hunting seasons starting to ramp up, these questions also start popping up.

I hunt all in-lines and use the same practice on each gun. I live in a city of about 135,000 and within sight of the Mayo Clinic. For several years I'd just wait until dark the night before opener and put a small charge of BH209 in the barrel with a plug made of paper towel, sneak out the service door of the garage and point the gun in the air and let it rip. Some neighbors got a little testy with this procedure after seeing me do this, so I took to just popping off four primers out in the garage with the gun pointed in a waste paper basket. Things are much better on the neighbor front now.

With the wonderful shortage of everything black powder these days I won't use the Winchester primers I have the guns dialed into for fouling the barrel so I picked up a couple flats of regular cci shotshell primers to use for this, but I honestly think any primer including the lower heat muzzleloader specific primers will work for this too. It's fouling we want, not necessarily the heat.

For side locks I think the same method of fouling a clean barrel for hunting can be used only with one's choice of caps. For the range one can just run a light load down range to foul things. I don't know why but my sidelocks don't seem to shoot a wild first shot in a clean barrel when using T7 granular and that's all I use in them.

I'm not a fan of letting a round off in the dark at the end of the day either. I'll pull the primer, give the gun a wipe with an oil impregnated cloth and case it up. A simple primer the next morning and I am good to go. Unless one has been in some serious wet weather, charges within an inline gun should be just fine. If you suspect that the charge might be moisture compromised, pull the plug at home or camp and dump it, cleaning the plug and wiping out the barrel before reloading using a new sabot....the bullet will be fine to re-use. Sidelocks are another thing and I'll let someone more in touch with possible damp load issues offer advice on them.

Have always loaded on clean barrel and have had amazing results.

 

[Hanshi]

Before I quit hunting for good I used flintlocks exclusively. I know that some flintlock shooters shoot a fouling shot, the efficacy escapes me. I've never fired a fouling shot and never even heard of the practice until some 25 years ago. I don't swab the bore after any amount of shooting. I simply leave it loaded if no shot or moisture has affected it and take it back out to the bush next time. If it has had a shot fired or happened to get rained on I'll either shoot the load or pull it. And any gun I shoot with BP gets a good cleaning.

 

[NMSharps]

I hunt and shoot with a clean bore. I have been shooting paper-patch bullets for years in my Sharps rifle and fouling management is paramount to good success. When I take my rifle out I run a dry patch down the bore, then a patch soaked in alcohol, then an other dry patch. The alcohol dissipates and removes any left over oils and dries everything out. Shooting at the range I swab/wipe between shots, slightly damp patch of orange spray cleaner and a dry patch. Works like a charm.

 

[mspaci]

I like a clean barrel, just a few caps is all