Chemicals vs tadpoles

[user 49399]

The following information may be old news to those who have been shooting muzzleloaders for a while, but it may be useful to new shooters. Either way it’s free.

I have been doing some testing the last few times I cleaned my muzzleloaders using tap water (we call it city water) and rain water. Whenever I cleaned muzzleloaders with tap water, hot or cold, I had flash rust in the bore. When I used water from the rain barrel, hot or cold, there was no flash rust.

This is my conclusion. Chemicals in city water cause flash rust but tadpoles in rain water don’t.

 

[HSmithTX]

Science right there

 

[Dale Allen Raby]

Well, rain-barrel water is technically distilled water, well water, tap water, creek water, etc. certainly has minerals in it... may have acid or other chemicals in it. Sorta makes a certain amount of sense.

Back in the day, there were some photographers (think wet darkrooms here, not digital) used distilled water to mix B&W developer in. I never bothered, but some folks swore it made a difference. I did wonder, though, if the manufacturers of liquid concentrate developers like Agfa Rodinal used distilled water to mix the concentrate. Then there was the wash water. The wash-aids were basically filtered sea water, but the rinse, unless you had an unlimited source of distilled water, was tap water.

Sorry... mind tends to wander back to the time I did a different kind of shooting...

 

[The Crisco Kid]

Could be the chlorine in the city water. It's a powerful oxidizer.

 

[tenngun]

I’ve not had that problem, but just a thought. If you’re doing a fish tank you let the water set out in the air for a couple of days before you add fish to the water.
Maybe put a bucket out for a couple of days to use in cleaning

 

[SDSmlf]

The water that comes out of the ‘taps’ in my house goes through a carbon filter that in theory removes many things, including chlorine from the water. I honestly have not had a flash rust problem when I cleaned my guns with cold, tepid, warm, hot or boiling water.