So I went to the range today and swabbed between each shot with a patch dampened with moose milk. In addition I took your advice and loaded with damp patches. The results were dramatic. The fouling ring was all but non-existent and accuracy was outstanding! Thanks for your advice!!
Tony I got range time yesterday and it was very humid. This played h..l with fouling, heavy and slightly gooy. I thought it might be powder brand and type so I switched to schutzen 3f not any better. Accuracy was poor and low which was a big difference from a week ago. I also got the worst crud ring I have ever seen! Swabbing between was not much better, and this was the same powder that I used prior time, I even broke my range rod and I had not done that before. I crowned the bore and polished the bore with coarse valve grinding compound and oiled scotch bright loaded my slide rod and loaded a patched ball for checking for tares. Tapped the ball out with slide rod to check patch integrity, much better no tares so range time again soon.
Coupe, When I swabbed with a damp patch I could feel the fouling ring. After running the patch up and down a couple of times the ring was no longer felt. I use Schutzen powder also.
A simple polish is plain white toothpaste. Put it on a patch rub it in well. You might want a little water. Run it in and out on a cleaning jag.What polishing compound are you guys recommending?
Today I thought I'd try 80 grains of Swiss just to see how things went. I used the Dawn and water lube and..... well the ball got hung up about 1 1/2 " from the bottom. I tried the palm saver and then a leathercraft wooden mallet to drive it down with no luck. So I tried a ball puller and no go it's stuck hard. I poured some water and dawn in to see if it will loosen up enough to pull it out. After waiting awhile my wife and I tried again with no luck. I kept pulling the puller through the ball. So I tried one last thing before I pulled the breech plug. Screwed the puller in again even farther and put a crescent wrench on the cleaning rod in front of the handle and hit the wrench with a plastic mallet and it finally came loose. This is ridiculous. Like I said earlier it's fine untiI it gets toward the bottom. I hope polishing helps but I have my doubts.
So very much has been said about Dawn detergent. It turns up in many shooters' methods. Dawn is a dish detergent. It has no magical properties. It has been advertised for years as a grease remover. Maybe it is. But how do we know other dish detergents don't do as well. It is simply a soap. For eons black powder fowling was removed with water. Now it seems everyone has a cleaning solution that works better than any other, just like all the concoctions used as a patch lube. I'm 77. I've been shooting BP guns since I was 22. Spit works as a lube and cold water works to clean your barrels. All else borders on silly. I'm all for everyone doing as they please but I think way too much hype has come into our shooting that helps us not at all. Sure, the many other lubed and cleaners work, but I have never found these odd methods to work better. We are involved in the same game as has been going on for decades before any of us were born. The products sworn by now have no great advantage over what was used then. I just think we go overboard fixing what ain't broke.
Thanks. I posted back in May that I used green Scotch Brite and it fixed the ring issue. Still cuts the patch on the first shot only but shoots ok and I'll just keep shooting until that goes away too.
Four ought stainless steel wool works better than anything else I’ve used. Fifty strokes of an oiled steel wool patch will make a difference.
I have actually used spit patches while chewing with no ill effects. I just hate to waste good tobacco spit on patches.
