Cleaning a flintlock?

[pepperbelly]

I have had TC hawkens at one time or another. They were easy to clean- remove the wedge and nipple, put the breech in a pan of hot water and pump the gunk out.
I have a flintlock coming and that method won't work.
How do I clean the barrel?
Do I clean the lock too?

Jim

 

[Halftail]

In my Flintlock Longrifle I plug the vent hole with a lil' pine stick.Fill er' full of hot soapy water and empty it a couple of times.Then I continue scrubbing with a wet patch until satisfied.I think there is a clamp on hose rig you can get but I find a longrifle with one of them it's hard to get the water the whole way up to the muzzle.I alway pull the lock and clean it after every time of shooting.Sometime I hold it under a hot water tap and scrub at it with an old tooth brush untill clean.,

 

[cowpoke1955]

Check the TVM web site and click on cleaning: http://www.avsia.com/tvm/ . They spell it out, step by step :thumbsup:

 

[Birddog6]

Use a flushing kit. Dry it well, oil it, put it away. Reswab it the next 2 days.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Remove the lock. Lay the rifle on an old towel (or two) with the nose angled down slightly and the vent over the towel. Wipe with damp patches using soapy water.

Scrub with three wet patches, then alternate dry & wet until satisfied, then wipe with an alcohol soaked patch and finish up with a patch coated with a protectant oil (Sheath or Barricade).

Wipe with an alcohol patch before you load up the next time to clear the oil out.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Always clean, oil, and check screws to make sure they are not loose. EVERY TIME YOU SHOOT.

If you put the barrel across a table , or counter top, with the barrel down, and the stock up, any water that might run out the bore, or vent hole will drop, and drip, down , and not over your stock or other gun parts.

You can plug the vent hole, and then carefully pour water down the barrel, with some liquid soap added, then run a bore brush down to break free any crud stuck in the corners of the rifling grooves. pour the stuff out in to your sink, or toilet, and then rinse the soap out a couple of times too.

Then you can dry the barrel with clean dry patches, followed by oiling it. Then clean and dry the outside of the stock and barrel, and oil or grease it for storage.

Patches should come out of your barrel as clean as when they went in, if you have cleaned the gunk out of it. I don't hesitate to blow down the muzzle when the water and crud have been poured in to the sink, holding the gun so that the vent hole points down into the sink. This removes a lot of the water left in the barrel, and clears the vent, too.

Just don't hurry in cleaning your gun. Let the soap and water SIT for at least 1/2 hour to do their thing. Don't rush it. Its like putting soap and water into a pan that has food baked onto its sides. Hurry it, and you end up scraping the crud off with a spoon, or coarse brush or pad. Let it sit for a half hour to an hour, to let the soap do its chemical thing, and you pour the crud out of the pan. It works the same with cleaning barrels.

The soap works to emulsify the carbon deposits in the barrel, after the water has dissolved the salts of Nitrate, and Sulfur, left over from burning BP in the barrel, which are poured out with that first dirty wash waste water. It takes time for that to occur. Give your soap time to work. Let it do the heavy labor for you. :shocked2: :hmm:

Remember that water is a natural solvent. It does NOT have to be boiling hot. It will dissolve the crud all by itself. The soap simply helps to break up the carbon deposits, and float them in the water for removal.

Use Tepid( skin temperature) water to avoid flash rust from using water that is too hot. For short term storage, WD40 ( water displacing oil formula #40) does a pretty good job. For long term storage, consider a product like "Sheath". But, nothing beats checking our guns every week and giving them both a dusting and a new coat of whatever- oil, wax, etc. you use to protect them from rusting.

 

[Joel/Calgary]

I'll throw in a variation in the soak, slosh, and dump cleaning procedure. All of my flinters have chambered breeches and I like to get some serious sloshing down there and through the touch-hole, as well as in the bore.

I pull the lock, plug the touch-hole, fill 'er with water, and stand it up while I clean the lock and otherwise wait til I think it's soaked long enough. Then I pour out some of the water, plug the muzzle with my thumb, slosh the remaining water back and forth, then pour it out. I'll partially fill, slosh, and dump another time or three, until the water's coming out clean enough, then I'll mostly fill the barrel again and get my cleaning rod with a jag on and a patch ready. I set the firelock down, holding it at an angle with the butt on the ground, barrel down - trigger up, and pull the touch-hole plug. I use the jag & patch in a push-pull action to pump the water out in spurts. It at least seems like I get more turbulence in the breech, and thus a better cleaning, with the alternation of water forced out and air sucked in. **WARNING - it squirts out rather forcefully!** After that, this patch and a few more to finish cleaning and drying the bore, and usually a slosh of alcohol in the breech to speed drying there. If I'm being cheap

 

[DEWB]

I bought one of those flusher kits from track of the wolf. Its a clamp with a hose attached to it. You take your lock out and clamp the thing over your touchole and drop the tubing in some hot soapy water and then plung away.Then dry and oil like always. It has an o-ring on it for a seal. Works good.

 

[texcl]

Yup, that's what I use.

 

[Grenadier1758]

A quick note. When you reassemble the lock in the rifle remember that the lock is a very close fit to the wood. This means that you do not want to overtighten the lock screws. You can easily cause the springs to drag on the wood. Snug, not loose or tight will keep the hammer falling freely and you will get the best sparks from the frizzen.

 

[Metalmechanic]

I don't recall where I learned of this but it works well. After dry brushing my Charleville barrel to remove most of the crud, I plug the vent and use windshield washer fluid, jag and patches to swab out the bore. When dry, a good coating of WD-40 inside and butcher's wax outside finish the job. Less time, less mess, no rust.
I cannot use a solid lubericant in the bore due to the breech plug configuration.
Hope this helps
Larry