Cleaning a flinter?

[Jfoster]

Do you clean a flinter any different than a percussion? Remove barrel, set in hot soapy water, pump with a patch? Just curious because i wana get my first flinter and want to know before hand.

 

[Grizzly Adams]

It depends, if the barrel has a hooked breech and is easily removed, then yes, it is the same. But many guns, like longrifles do not have barrels that are easily removable. In that case you can plug the touch hole with a toothpick and fill the barrel with water, soapy if you want, let it sit, then drain it out and run a patch through. The main thing is you don't want your stock getting wet. Others here will give their 2 cents. Hope this helps :hatsoff:

 

[Jfoster]

Can you not remove the barrel from a long rifle? Im lookin at getting the traditions kentucky and the barrel goes in with pins? Cant push the pins out?

 

[ncmtmike]

That will take about 3 times and then you either bend/brad/break pins,or wallow out the holes,and then the fun has begun :surrender: Plug holes (vent,barrel) let set with soapy water bout 10 minutes,scrub barrel, rinse barrel and dry & coat,remove lock and clean,check flint,vent hole.reassemble,ready for next time :grin:

 

[Jfoster]

Oh okay. Guess im just spoiled to my hawken. Lol. What about water on the wood?

 

[ncmtmike]

Plug vent with toothpick,feather,what ever fits,fill barrel ALMOST full,plug up end,sit it aside for a spell,facing the vent hole away(tilt) from wood.

I promise you the lymans,and thompsons are a whole lot easier to clean. :wink:

 

[Jfoster]

Ya but those long rifles are purdy. Lol

 

[Grizzly Adams]

"What about water on wood?"

As a general rule, guns don't like being wet. Water can damage the finish of your stock and cause the wood to swell and discolor. Cleaning a longrifle is much easier than it sounds; I just cleaned mine a few hours ago and it took maybe 15 minutes.

 

[Jfoster]

Thanks. Gives me hope. Lol. I dont mind puttin the effort in to clean. Just dont wana ruin a perfectly good rifle.

 

[trent/OH]

I recently added a small, cheap plastic funnel to my shooting box to more easily pour water down the INSIDE of my barrel, instead of the outside. I also marked an old prescription bottle so that two bottles of water fills the barrel with as much water as I'd like in there. Those two "devices" only took me 30 years to figure out.

 

[mr.flintlock]

The method that I use on my long rifles with pinned stocks is: After removing the lock I plug my touch hole liner and fill the barrel with plain water and let it stand while I clean the lock. After I have cleaned the lock I pour the water out and remove the touch hole plug. next I run a brush up and down a couple of times then I run clean patches up and down until they come out pretty clean. I then finish it up with Thompson Center #13 bore cleaner and dry patches until clean. This actually takes less time than it sounds like. It is also a good Idea to scrape the breach plug face with a breach plug scraper.

 

[stantdm]

I use water as outlined by others and always wrap a towel around the barrel when I pour the water in the muzzle. Be very careful about getting the wood wet. When I first started cleaning a pinned flintlock I got the stock wet and the wood swelled up so badly that I could no longer get the ramrod to go all the way in. I had to sand the ramrod down until I could find someone with a long enough drill bit to re-drill the ramrod hole.

 

[rr11]

I have a flint cleaning fitting from TOW it is a "C" clamp with a rubber seal that clamps over the touch hole a plastic tube to place in the hot water, Works great and helps with the non removable barrels.

 

[Marc Adamchek]

Grizzly Bar - Make sure your "hot soapy water" isn't really hot. Make it tepid, lukewarm. Hot water in barrels leads to an ugly phenomena known as "flash rusting". Yep, you'll end up making the bore rusty with hot water, and I know you don't want to deal with that!

 

[ptaska]

Ask a dozen flint-heads how they clean their rifles and you will get 13 different answers. They all work, too. I use Eric Bye's method which is really similar to Mr. Flintlock's...except I leave the lock in place when plug the touch hole with a toothpick. I fold a patch over the toothpick and close the frizzen on it to hold everything in place. After I finish, I massage in some bear grease for the benefit of the stock.

 

[Col. Batguano]

You don't have a nipple & clean out screw to remove. Other than that, it's pretty much the same. I remove my barrel each time, but not everyone else does. Pans are notorious for getting fouling all over the barrel flats under the lock and wood in the barrel channel that you can't always get at with the barrel still in the stock. Even though all my wood is sealed with a coat of varnish I still prefer to keep water away from it. Water has a way. That also lets me completely dry and oil all areas of the barrel before it goes back in.

 

[dikman]

I don't see flash rust as being a problem. It's simply a very light surface dusting on the metal, and as long as you follow up straight away with dry patches to wipe it out then it will simply wipe off. Then use whatever you use for protecting the barrel.

Or run patches soaked in WD-40 (or whatever) straight after washing to get the water out, it will also get the flash rust out.

It will only be a problem if you wash it in hot water and then do nothing else - and NO ONE would do that, would they?