Cleaning a Muzzleloader

[Deadeye]

I believe they used whatever they had and what they all had was SPIT. A few patches and spit will get most of it out. In the field they just cleaned, dried and reloaded, ran a lightly oiled patch down the loaded bore then wiped the outside with it. Guns were always kept loaded was hard to find a safe time to clean an unloaded gun.
I shot at a rondevous last weekend and cleaned my guns after with spit (shotgun, rifle, smoothbore, and pistol) shot on Sat.and cleaned then recleaned on Tues. after I got back home. Only found a little BP residue at the breach. Tow probably would have removed more of this than my flannel patches.
Deadeye

 

[musketman]

quote:Originally posted by J. P. Butler:
My grandmother used to tell about her father lighting the fireplace in the morning with an old flintlock rifle.This is another way to start a fire using flint, the tinder lighters...

Check out this page...
http://www.p4a.com/itemsummary/43393.htm

 

[Smoke Pole]

There's a short article in the Q&A column, page 20, of November 2003 "American Rifleman". Someone wrote in asking about soldiers cleaning their guns during the Civil War. In the answer, they show a pamphlet titled "The Rules for the Managment and Cleaning of the Rifle Musket - Model 1863 for the Use of Soldiers". Basicly they had them plug the barrel with a wood plug, dump in a gill of water, let it stand, slosh it around, dump it out and let it stand on it's muzzle to drain. Then run dry cloth on a double screw wiper up and down the bore and then oil the bore. I suppose that was all well and good, if you had those supplies handy in the field. Seems to me this pamphlet must have been published by the Union Army as a southern boy would already know how to clean a gun !

 

[Zonie]

Quoting Smoke Pole: "Seems to me this pamphlet must have been published by the Union Army as a southern boy would already know how to clean a gun !"

Not only would he already know how to clean a gun, but each morning after breakfast he would also have known what to use a page or two of the pamphlet for!

If he was real lucky he might even have found a few more pamphlets discarded by some of the City Boys on their first day.

 

[Haggis]

Musketman,
Would those tinder lighters qualify as in-line flinters?

 

[musketman]

quote:Originally posted by Haggis:
Musketman,
Would those tinder lighters qualify as in-line flinters? They sure would...

It's a shame they couldn't make an in-line flint under-hammer rifle...

That would be a tad hard on the shooter, powder burns fown the front of the person...

I'm waiting for the all in one muzzleloader, it has a percussion, flint, in-line, match, cannon and wheel lock system all in one neat tidey package...

 

[Haggis]

Oh, you're talking about the "Swiss Army Lock." It would be great but the rifle would lean hard a-starboard.