Barrel seasoning

[Hawthorn1213]

Hey I was hoping I could get some help with a couple of questions: What is the best procedure to season a great plains rifle barrel, and what's the best method to clean it for the first time out of the box before I take it to the range?

Thanks!

 

[spudnut]

I always clean with hot water ,sometimes soap ,NOT DETERGENT, oil with natural animal or olive oil, I use a good gun oil in the lock

 

[wayne terry]

Modern metal bbl. wont need to be seasoned, just shoot it, work up a load, keep it clean, repeat.

 

[ohio ramrod]

A new from factory barrel has a heavy coating of rust preventive oil in the bore. It can be washed out with alcohol and several patches with out worry about your wood finish. Acetone will work faster but can damage the finish on the wood. Steel barrels unlike soft iron does not "season". :hmm:

 

[Katahdin]

Been my experience to season a barrel is to shoot it lots and then shoot it some more,
Hot water and a drop of Dish soap scrub the barrel and then scrub it some more,,oil lightly and be sure to wipe all the Human oil off before you put it away.

 

[FishDFly]

Can season cast iron, not gun barrels.

 

What is the best procedure to season a great plains rifle barrel,

Old Wives Tale!
http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/251958/

 

[coloradoclyde]

"Seasoning" is marketing hokum...
Any such "seasoning" would be removed by shooting and or proper cleaning...

What can happen to a barrel over time depending on how the gun is cleaned an treated, is that....Rust can be converted to magnetite and cleaning chemicals, methods, and lubricants can actually create a type of bluing on the inside of the barrel...but none of these are "seasoning...
Some barrels come blued on the inside from the factory....

Just clean, shoot, clean and repeat..and enjoy.... :grin:

 

[spudnut]

true your not really seasoning the bore like cast iron, but I have found petolium oil cause more fowling imo

 

[Cowboy]

I've owned 3 GPR's in the past and still own one today. When you first get your GPR new out of the box you will for sure need to clean the inside as well as the outsides of the barrel before ever firing. Lyman cakes the insides and on the outer surfaces of their barrels with a thick anti-rust coating of some kind. The instruction manual says to clean barrel out with WD40 and a piece of steel wool. I have tried this and followed it by several alcohol patches. I then put some dry patches through the barrel to dry up any traces left. I finally used BC Barricade to protect the bore. Barricade leaves a nice dry protective film in the barrel. I also use the Barricade as the last part of my cleaning routine. Respectfully, cowboys1062.

 

[jethro224]

What everybody else said.
Plus, automotive brake cleaner spray works really well for the first time out of the box cleaning.

 

[LaBonte]

Can season cast iron, not gun barrels.

Sorry but that's BS despite the late Mr. Vallandigham's (sp?) treatise that Jack posted a link to. He plain and simply didn't do the in depth research regarding porosity of iron and/or steel (a complicated subject that includes much more than the air bubble voids that at times show up in cast iron) and like so many other's he apparently believed that seasoning is an in the metal process - it isn't it is plain and simply a SURFACE TREATMENT created by the heat polymerization of most any oil. Secondly rifle barrels were made of wrought iron not cast iron, two completely different forms of iron - the plain low carbon steels used for barrels today and wrought iron have more in common than does most cast steel.
Now anyone who wants to argue the point and you don't believe me than answer why Lodge who makes both cast iron and steel pan offers them both being seasoned?
For learning about porosity in iron/steel do the research or ask a metallurgist familiar with iron and steel like I did beaucoup years ago.

Now is seasoning necessary for a rifle barrel? No but when done right (and not the way recommended some years ago by one of the lube manufacturer's who apparently didn't understand how-to do it right than yes it can be of help and does not denote a poorly cleaned gun. Yes more than a few messed up their barrels based on the lube manufacturer's incorrect method. On the other hand I've taken several rifles that guys messed up like this and cleaned the barrels down to the metal. The showed them how to do it properly and those that chose to do it thusly had no more problems.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Unless you are cooking eggs and bacon on your muzzleloader barrel, "seasoning" is an unrelated term and guns and cookware shouldn't even be in the same sentence......let alone compared...

 

Lodge offers "seasoned" steel pans because you can season a cooking surface, even if it's cast, steel, or ceramic.

In this application, you are adding a somewhat non-stick coating. BUT, the seasoned pan is not meant to be scraped (or wire brushed) or the coating will come off. It's a rather fragile coasting to begin with. It's not "sealing pores"as much as putting on a thin layer of hardened oil.

Unless you're going to cook in your rifle barrel, seasoning it is BS.

 

[coloradoclyde]

I beat ya to it jack.. :grin: but we are both right.... :thumbsup:

 

[Claude Mathis]

I've seasoned both cast iron and steel pans. They go in the oven at 500 degrees until the oil has polymerized. I can't imagine doing this to a rifle barrel (even if it would fit in the oven). If I could treat the inside of the barrel like a pan, the coating would be removed the first time the gun was fired and cleaned. No?

 

[coloradoclyde]

Correct! and then there's the issue of the seasoning being applied evenly, and overall thickness....fry pan seasoning can be quite thick on some pans.....in a barrel it would be like trying to load a fouled barrel.. :td:

 

[coloradoclyde]

Even if you could season a gun barrel your eggs would still stick to the rifling....and forget about sunny side up... :rotf:

 

[Archer 756]

:rotf: Salt and pepper with a little butter

 

[LaBonte]

Well as I said do the research and at least Jack got his part right but I was not comparing barrels and cook ware (although the process is basically the same) I was simply stating the fact that both iron and steel can be seasoned and the process only serendipitously fills in any voids in the metal. The plain and simple fact is that the late Mr. Paul got it wrong in several ways including comparing cast iron to steel when rifle barrels were not made of cast iron but rather wrought iron.
As for the word season not being applied to barrels so you say and your opinion which are like backsides we all have one, but the term is a broad one (seasoned wood, etc) and has been commonly used for this process for a long time and is easily understood by most.

As for whether seasoning a barrel is necessary or not as I stated above no it is not, but neither will it ruin a barrel as some folks claim when done right - if it did then my barrels, some 40 years old would have been ruined a long time ago.