HOW CLEAN IS CLEAN?

[flashpoint]

I bought a .45 caliber Seneca a few months ago and haven't had the opportunity to shoot it let alone give it a good cleaning.  Anyway, my gunsmith said the bore looked really good.  So I ran a dry patch through it up and down and it came out with some pretty dark brownish rust (I assume) on the end of the jag.  I unscrewed the nipple and added Murphy's soap to scalding water, immersed the barrel and ran a bristle brush up and down the bore.  I then took a swab and ran that up and down so that the hot soapy water was coming out the muzzle.  After that, I started again with clean scalding water and ran the swab up and down some more.  The water coming out looked very clean.  So I ran a dry patch and the dark rust wasn't there anymore.  On the patch only a very light tea stain showed and it wasn't all over the patch it was mostly where the jag contacted the area where the powder would eventually go.  So  should the patch come out just as white as it went in (being there was no oil in the bore)?  Or is it OK to have a light stain on it?  I got the impression that he barrel itself was clean and that stain is more or less coming from the bottom of the very bottom of the barrel. Thanks.

 

[MattRaymond]

I’d say it’s pretty clean. If you use boiling water you will get flash rust in the bore, very light and very fine. If you run a oiled patch down afterward, it will scrub that flash rust out and after it’s removed, an oiled patch should go in and come out pretty clean.
 I had a bore on my .45 that I thought was rough, but it turned out to just be old bore butter caked into the rifling. Hot water and a red scotch brite pad as a patch really cleaned out the old crud well.

 

[Smokin' Joe]

Flashpoint, when a muzzleloader sits for a long time "without any maintenance" the barrel will gather some slight surface rust.  It takes awhile to get that completely clean.  Jon has a product called "Shootout Patch Lube and Bore Polish" designed just for cleaning up a bore.  It's available on this forum.

I also tried a product called "Vaporust".  Worked really good on a barrel that I had which was similar to yours.

 

[flashpoint]

Thanks Matt and Joe I will try to Scotch bright pad and get some of the Shootout patch lube from Jon.