cleaning a fullstock flinter

[Swampman]

I used Jojoba oil in the early 1980s with good results. It's pretty expensive to get the pure stuff.

 

[paulvallandigham]

It is expensive, but a lot less expensive than whale oil. :hmm: :thumbsup:

 

[Swampman]

I've been using the $5.00 a pint olive oil for 10 years now with great results. Publix has it 2 for 1 sometimes.

 

[huntman58]

I may be some what new here but have been shooting BP. guns for over 30 years now. being I still own that first gun from then I let it's barrel tell me what works and what dose not and so far I have never used an aerosol oil that has work well for me but a few none sprayed ones have been okay but nothing has worked for me like olive oil.. I do hate WD-40 as over time it has always meant rust in my old CVA barrels.
This is what I do. I use warm water and some dish soap. This is pumped threw the barrel. Changed then pumped again. Now patches run threw it tell dry and clean if patches are not clean repeated and try again. When clean and dry I have used WD 40 and rem oil got rust later now use olive oil no rust. I do worry about long term storage as some times my guns have sat for a year or more with out being fired. So far I have found the olive oil to be the best and I was told about it from an old man that only shot original guns some 30 years ago and he was my mentor that got me into black... my thoughts on it all is what they used to use worked then and will today. No I do not remove the pinned barrel from the stock .

 

[Twisted_1in66]

Our forefathers didn't use mineral oil & water. They did use olive oil. :yakyak: :yakyak:

And they used bear oil, and sperm whale oil, and hog lard, and most any other natural oils.

Petroleum oil was not readily available in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries, and I wonder how widely available olive oil was then also.

Olive oil was widely available and used in the 18th century. It was known as "sweet oil" and among other things was used by the Brits to mix with brick dust and polish the barrels of their Bess. Lots of primary documentation for it from bills of lading and manifests from shipping.

Twisted_1in66 :thumbsup:

 

[Darkgael]

So...Olive oil works and is readily available and relatively inexpensive. Mineral oil works and is essentially what Ballistol is (or not?). Lots of us like Ballistol. Jojoba oil works. Bear oil works as does whale oil but are not readily available. Break Free is popular. The jury seems to be out on WD-40. Then there are various other "regular" gun oils used with mixed results if I follow the posts correctly.
Has anyone tried motor oil? Synthetic oils like TSI 301 or even Mobil One (Break Free has synthetics in the recipe)? Pluses and minuses? Regular old vegetable oil? Corn oil? Grape oil, etc.?
Pete

 

[Birddog6]

Well, some say the oil of newt is also good, but it takes allot of them to make any quantity & the lil buggers are fast & hard to catch !! :rotf:

I do know a elderly gunsmith that has used plain ol motor oil on barrels & bores for years & he does allot of the machine work for one of the larger ML suppliers.

:thumbsup: