Cleaning between shots

[Richard Allen]

Aline,

I wet my wiping patches by putting them in my mouth but my wife doesn't like spitting on or putting patches in her mouth. She noticed the way someone at one of our local matches was dampening his patches and has been using his method ever since.

He was using a bottle his wife had emptied that was designed for dampening cotton swabs with fingernail polish remover. He filled the bottle with water, put a patch on top and pushed down on the top which causes the liquid to go up a tube and through holes in the part the patch is laying over.

Vicki went to a shop that sells beauty shop supplies and found a bottle identical to the one she had seen and a fancy ceramic one with painted flowers and a stainless steel lid. She bought the cheap one , tried it for a few months and liked the method so much that she went back and bought the fancy one. It now lives in her shooting box. She controls the amount of moisture on the patch by how far down she pushes the top of the bottle.

This method is used for wiping the after every shot to return the bore to the same condition each time. We're not trying to clean the bore while shooting, cleaning is done when we are finished shooting.

Dutch Schoultz explains this much beter than I can. I highly recommend his system to anyone serious about getting the best accuracy from any black powder long gun using patched round balls.

Richard/Ga.

 

[RussB]

Howdy folks, I'm new here, real new as a matter of fact. And, I like the way things are handled here so you may have to put up with me for a while.

On the subject of cleaning betwen shots, I thought I may just throw in my own .02 FWIW.
I can't say anything that has not already been said, except I might suggest trying a different media for your swabbing. I use RV Antifreeze. Someone suggested this several years back, so I tried it and I've been using it ever since.
I get one of those little $.69 spray thingies from Wal-Mart, cut up my patches and put them in an old shoe polish can (one that I have burned all the fancy paint off of) and spray a bit of RV Antifreeze on them. I can get 80 / 100 patches in one of these cans and they seem to stay damp forever. A gallon of RV Antifreeze probably cost about $4.00 and it will also last for ever. Seems to do a very good job cleaning with just one swab. I'm sure there are many efficient ways of swabbing, but this seems to work for me. Of course one could ask Rollinb to spit in the jug just to make sure everything does work o.k. (sorry Rondo, couldn't resist)
Russ

 

[45man]

Aline, What you don't want is too wet of a patch. I use Birchwood Casey solvent because it is convenient. Take a pile of patches and put a line of solvent from corner to corner on each and stack in an airtite container. This is all each patch needs and will distribute evenly through the whole pile.
Another good cleaner is 50-50 anti freeze and distilled water. This will also clean the bore when you are done shooting and it has stuff in it that will protect metal so that it won't rust until you oil the bore.
Lots of good ideas here. What you want though is the same amount of wiping between each shot. A soaked patch once and the next not as wet will decrease accuracy. Too wet and misfires will happen. One stroke with a damp patch is all you need. ::