Cleaning my Brown Bess

[Grizzled Roberts]

I was at an educational event last week where I shot twenty stout blank loads for the student each day. I tried a new way to clean my Bess at the end of the day. I tapped a tooth pick in the touch hole and I poured water from my canteen in the barrel, I stopped up the muzzle with a finger. I sloshed the water real good then I poured out the nasty black water. I did this again and the water came out much cleaner. After the sloshing the water came out clear. I put one wet patch with cleaner on it and it was done. I then used a dry patch to swab out the bore and a wet patch with my oil and the musket was clean. I can do the same thing with my cleaning solvent and a couple less patches but I thought this was neat using water which costs nothing!

 

[BrownBear]

Yup. Free water is a good score. Can't promise that my Bess is like yours in the fine details, but after "cleaning" I always get a surprising amount of additional fouling when I use a breech scraper. Always some fouling left down there where the breech plug meets the barrel, and there's just nothing but a scraper that will get rid of it. I always drape a couple of patches over the scraper for a final scrub after scraping.

 

[nwtradegun]

my trade musket is based on a pedrosoli carbine
I use a 58 cal jag on my range rod wrapped with 000 or 0000 steel wool. I run it down 12 x's, turn it upside down , dump out the soot and then run wet patches in until clean. a lot less messy and easy in the field.

 

[Britsmoothy]

I was at an educational event last week where I shot twenty stout blank loads for the student each day. I tried a new way to clean my Bess at the end of the day. I tapped a tooth pick in the touch hole and I poured water from my canteen in the barrel, I stopped up the muzzle with a finger. I sloshed the water real good then I poured out the nasty black water. I did this again and the water came out much cleaner. After the sloshing the water came out clear. I put one wet patch with cleaner on it and it was done. I then used a dry patch to swab out the bore and a wet patch with my oil and the musket was clean. I can do the same thing with my cleaning solvent and a couple less patches but I thought this was neat using water which costs nothing!

That is pretty much all I do, but then heat it all up with numerous hot water fills.

B.

 

[stantdm]

I got my first muzzle loader about forty years ago and that is the way I was taught to clean it. I use hot water if I am at home and it drys the metal pretty quickly after I am done. A light oil down the barrel and its done. I do scrap the fouling every so often.

 

[tenngun]

Clean my rife guns ans my smooties that way. I use hot but not boiling water at home or in camp, air temp water from my canteen in the field.

 

[Ken Cormier]

I am with Tenngun on this one

 

[pargent]

:hmm: :applause: :applause: :applause: pretty much what some of us have been saying for years and we did not think of it either , apparently some bright spark came up with this idea back around 1500 ,pretty soon it should catch on in the US as like yourself there are some who swear by this method .

 

[satwel]

Every chemical component of black powder is water soluable. Water is all you need to clean. I add one drop of dish detergent to break the surface tension. It makes the water "wetter".

 

[Grenadier1758]

I do the plug the touch hole and add soapy water. The water is all that is really needed to clean the black powder and the soap is needed to dissolve any grease and oils left in the barrel. While the water poured from the barrel is clear I have found that I will still pick up remnants of fouling when I wipe with a solvent cleaner such as Ballistol. Therefore after I clean with water and a drop or two of soap, I use WD40 to displace the water, Ballistol for a final solvent wipe and a Barricade dampened patch for storage. lubrication.

 

[Wes/Tex]

You betcha! I f good old water didn't work there wouldn't be a single leftover antique muzzleloading gun in the world! :wink:

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Every chemical component of black powder is water soluable. Water is all you need to clean. I add one drop of dish detergent to break the surface tension. It makes the water "wetter".

COOL learned something new! :grin:

As Mike mentioned, the soap helps with the grease if you're shooting stuff that's been lubed. As a bess shooter they didn't normally shoot patched ball or cartridges that had lube.

I always check my barrels two days after the cleaning and rust prevention...,just to be sure I was sufficiently thorough... and if I find rust I wipe the bore several times, then reapply the rust preventative.

LD

 

[spudnut]

yep been cleaning mine twenty plus years this way
:hatsoff:

 

[Juice Jaws]

Cleaning is very easy and enjoyable for me. All I use is hot water, a little soap, plug vent, let water sit a few minutes and run a few patches through and its done. For some reason people make cleaning muzzle loader's a lot harder than it is.

 

[Mickc01]

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: