Everyone has their own methods of gun cleanings, for my Brown Bess Style Guns I do the following.
General Cleaning Method, First I remove the lock bolts, and lock.
I clean the lock off with a brass brush dry first to get the big stuff off. Then I use a scotch brite pad with warm soapy water (not too hot) to clean the visible fouling.
I then wrap the lock in a chamise and let it air dry for 30 min to an hour. I then inspect the internals for moister or rust or fouling. If it looks good I oil it out. Pay special attention tot eh underside of the frizzen, frizzen to spring contact and face of the fintcock and top jaw and jaw screw.
Oil the lock with barricade, and oil up all contact moving parts.
If the lock is supper fouled I dissassemble the lock and clean off each part with warm soap water and a brass toothbrush like brush.
Remove Tang Bolt.
There’s always a debate to unpinning the barrel, I unpin mine. I have my pins tapered for left side entry, I use a punch to tap out the pins and I do it very carefully as to not accidentally punch the wood, I had a special jig out of tooling leather to cover the radius of the pin area.
Barrel cleaning, plug up the vent hole, or tape over it, I first run some war water down it to lose up the fouling, water with solvent. I run a rod with a worm on the end, and on the end of the worm I wrap some scotch brite steel wool with soap, that cleans off most of the fouling. I rinse out the barrel over and over until the water is clear, then run mop, and then jag out with oiled patches until the barrel is dry. I run an oiled snake down the barrel while its drying to absorb as much moister as possible.
Run dry patches down until they come out clean.
For the breech area, I jam down a chunk of magic eraser on the end of slotted dowel and turn it until the black is gone.
For very through cleanings, I remove the breech plug completely, I have special tools to do this, you’ll need a round barrel vise or wooden clamp, its not the easiest thing to do with care. I don’t recommend removing the breech plug unless you have the right tools do it with care. Otherwise removing the breech isn’t totally necessary.
Before reassembling I clean off the stock with mineral oil, after it dries, I polish it with pure caranuba wax and a chamise. I rub a soluble wax sealant into the barrel channel and inspect the lock mortise.
Reassemble the gun.
Dont forget to oil the ramrod, and trigger.
