A Warning about Cleaning and a Question

[Beaver Trapper]

I have a friend that swears by brake cleaner to clean the bore on muzzleloaders after shooting. I would HIGHLY ADVISE against this based on recent experience. I fired my .45 flinter Kentucky rifle a few months ago, cleaned with brake cleaner, swabbed the bore and then oiled using Fluid Film (lanolin based all purpose lube) - the same process I would use for my smoothbore (minus the brake cleaner). I swabbed the barrel a few days ago and found a good coating of rust. My only guess is that the brake fluid residue is the culprit.

My question. The same .45 that will shoot 80 grains, but with 60 gr it won't fire at all. The patch or ball is blocking the touch hole. As you'll note from the attached pics the touch hole is not in an ideal location. Is the touch hole too far forward? Any thoughts on this from experienced shooters or builders would be appreciated.

? I've had this gun awhile and have not yet taken the time to properly work up the load - what is your favourite load for shooting a .45 rifle?

 

[rafterob]

That touch hole is kinda far forward and it looks big enough to drive a truck through it. Still, taking in to account the thickness of the breech plug, 60 grains should be well past the touch hole. But if you load 60 and a patched ball, stick a wire in the hole and see if you feel the ball or powder.
I shoot 65 grains 3f in my .45 for best accuracy. Your mileage may vary.

 

[Phil Coffins]

I contend that it takes water to brake down black powder and remove the nasty stuff it creates.
The vent is forward of ideal but a column of powder 45 calibre and less then 60 grains should cover it. Unless the breech plug was hollowed out some.

 

[Musketeer]

It's hard to tell about the vent location just by looking at the outside of the gun. Unless this gun has a patent breech, drop your ramrod down the (empty) barrel, mark the end of it at the muzzle with a pencil, then line the rammer up along the top of the barrel with the muzzle mark lined up with the muzzle. This will show you how far in front of the face of the breech plug the vent is. If it does have a patent breech, you'd need a skinnier piece of dowel that will fit down into the breech to get this measurement.

 

[M. De Land]

I think what is happening is the brake cleaner is not de-solving the carbon fouling on the breech face that builds up until it covers over the flash hole. I had the same happen to mine a few weeks ago until I got a scraper down bore and cleaned it out. I use water and a bit of dish soap for general bore cleaning but started to get hang fires after about 30 shots of dry brushing instead of wet wiping every few shots , in a match.
It does look like your flash hole is a bit far forward but I think if you switch back to water cleaning and scraping the breech face your trouble will go away. I lube with Gunzilla oil as a final protective coat after the warm soapy water clean and clear water rinse, followed by WD wipe to displace any moisture in the pores or groove corners. The Gunzilla has no water or petroleum in it and works pretty good as a cleaner but testing has shown water still works better for de-solving fouling. It does however work very well as a bore protector.

 

[Jaeger]

Brake cleaner is NOT a solvent for black powder fouling and residue! What you need is WATER! You will not get that gun clean with any kind of hydrocarbon solvents. You could use brake cleaner afterwards to help remove that water/moisture, but then I would re-swab and then do a lube swab.

 

[oldwood]

Can't remember the rifling twist in my old .45 GM barreled target rifle , but the go to load using a .440 ball was 62 gr. fffg . Shot iron targets out to 200 yards w/ reliability except in the wind.

 

[ohio ramrod]

brake cleaner will disolve any rust preventive you may use. It is good for removing oils not black powder residue.Plus it will damage any finish on your wood if it comes onto contact with the wood.

 

[ADK Bigfoot]

As above, run a ramrod with a jag down the empty barrel and measure its internal dimension (length). Mark your ramrod.

Then load your rifle with 60 grains of powder and again run the ramrod down again until you reach the powder column. Measure the internal dimension (length to top of powder.) Mark your ramrod.

Do that again with your 80 grain load. Measure again, mark again. Now you can see, by placing your ramrod alongside your barrel on the outside, just how the touch hole lines up. There will be your answer.

I had a 20 bore fowler that I dry balled in a speed match. That is when I discovered that the touch hole was far enough forward for a round ball would cover the hole unless there was a load under it. No way to dribble in some powder and shoot it out. Not only was the ball centered on the inside of the touch hole, but from ramming it I expanded it just enough to catch the inside. Took a lot of pulling and tugging with three men to get that ball out.

I don't own that fowler anymore.....

ADK Bigfoot

 

[mooman76]

Which break fluid did you use? The newer brake fluids are synthetic so a bit different. I'm not sure how that would compare to the older break fluid as far as cleaning a ML would be but I wouldn't use either.

 

[ord sgt]

It does appear that the builder used a patent breech while building your rifle. I can see the line of the breech plug in the picture. If it were a flat faced breech plug, the relationship between the barrel and the lock would be different. The lock would have been further to the rear

 

[ord sgt]

This is from Chuck Dixon's book "The Art of Building the Pennsylvania Longrifle." It show the proper setup for a flintlock rifle.

 

[hanshi]

I always clean with plain tap-water and protect the bore with Barricade and sometimes BreakFree CLP. Definitely, water should be your BP cleaner with or without detergent. Mostly I load 60 grns of 3F in my .45s, but anywhere from 60 to 70 grns is a great hunting load. Velocities in my rifles range from around 1700 fps (60 grns) to over 1800 fps (70 grns).

 

[Rodd Boyer]

I've used 50 gr of Swiss fffg with VERY good results..... .440 ball and .018 patch.
YMMV
good luck, shoot straight and God bless

 

[Booneliane]

For as big as that hole looks I would think you could just peek in there and see if you see powder or patch! Lol

 

[Livbucks]

Brakleen is most useful for drying a bore or removing the packing grease (forget what that's called). Water is best for cleaning powder residue. I use Ballistol as a finale.

 

[Hawken]

Everything I've ever read (as in the literature) in the firearm instruction manuals always said a great way to clean a blackpowder firearm is with hot soapy water.

What I don't remember is if they ever did a good job explaining why it's a great way. And there is a reason. Blackpowder (unlike smokeless cartridge powder) is corrosive to gun steel, due to certain chemical salt residues produced after firing.

And oil or peteoleum products do not dissolve salt. The only thing that dissolves salt is water. That's the way it was explained to me. Some sort of water or water based cleaner has to be employed or eventually frost or pitting or rust is going to occur, even under a thick layer of oil or grease. Only a small amount of soap or detergent is needed, mostly to decrease the surface tension and thoroughly "wet" all the nooks and crannies.

Hatcher came up with a pretty good universal solvent mixture, now known as "Ed's Red", I don't know if it was effective against corrosive primers then in use? Maybe. Acetone (one of the ingredients) might dissolve salts? I'm not a chemist.

Once the corrosive residues, some of which will be embedded deep in the pores of the metal or rifling have been dissolved and removed, then it's OK to preserve the barrel and fireaem with whatever corrosion prevention stuff you favor, petroleum or whatever.

 

[coloradoclyde]

I have a friend that swears by brake cleaner to clean the bore on muzzleloaders after shooting. I would HIGHLY ADVISE against this based on recent experience. I fired my .45 flinter Kentucky rifle a few months ago, cleaned with brake cleaner, swabbed the bore and then oiled using Fluid Film (lanolin based all purpose lube) - the same process I would use for my smoothbore (minus the brake cleaner). I swabbed the barrel a few days ago and found a good coating of rust. My only guess is that the brake fluid residue is the culprit.

Brake cleaner and most automotive products do not play well with muzzleloaders. My guess is you used chlorinated brake cleaner. It contains methylene chloride, bad stuff on metal, makes it rust.

 

[oldwood]

Hot water will dissolve the salts while since most old ammo used some kind of lubricant on the patching or directly on the lead bullet , the acetone will dissolve the Lube so the water does it's work. The old Lyman reloading manuals had a warning about shooting corrosive ammo in a rifle and cleaning with hot soapy water before applying protective grease in the bore. The same warning can be used for m/l guns as well. My opinion , acetone is too strong of a solvent to be used on m/l barrels...oldwood

 

[S.Kenton]

The ONLY time I use break cleaner in my gun is directly before I shoot. Brake cleaner Is great for cleaning oil residue from the bore... I doubt it’s capability to clean black powder residue.