The rubber hitting the road, cards on the table answer here is that I am new to muzzle loading, and I respect the knowledge within this forum. When I have an obscure question from our membership this is where I look for answers. So far I have a good idea of what I can tell him.
This member is from Texas. His mindset was that, as he shoots, it keeps getting more difficult to ram the ball. Then everything else he proposed, I am guessing was an academic exercise that he was working through his mind.
Good Morning Mr. Coleman, and thank you for the question.
So your shooter is experiencing what every person who shoots black powder experiences. His experience is normal.
I have someone asking if anyone tried coating the inside of their ML barrel to cut down on fouling. His particular question involved moly, which I found in search to be not so great. He also asked about Teflon or Cerflon coating the inside of the barrel, or using graphite or even zinc.
Fouling is a result of four things. The degree of destruction of the three components in the black powder when fired. The humidity of the atmosphere when firing. The degree of polish of the interior surface of the barrel. The amount of the charge vs. the interior diameter of the barrel.
There is no
magic coating.
LONG WINDED RESPONSE FOLLOWS ...
Alas, many have tried to find such. The old technology brings up problems that modern improvements solved. Fouling on black powder cartridge rifles, for example, is not nearly the problem because the bullet is inserted into the breech and blows fouling out as it is fired, while the muzzleloader must push the bullet down the dirtied barrel for each shot.
BUT the bullets then started to deposit lead in the barrel, so the modern guys went to harder lead, using alloys, then that was still a problem so they went to copper jackets but that even eventually needs to be removed to preserve accuracy, then they came up with moly and other coatings for the lead alloy bullets in cartridges, so they don't deposit copper..., but the bottom line is eventually fouling has to be cleaned.
The heat of ignition will defeat just about any coating such as tefflon or zinc, with the exception of perhaps chrome lining the barrel. ALL that chroming the barrel will do is to in effect, add a layer of material that is basically the same as polishing the interior surface of the barrel. It's cheaper, and simpler to get a polished barrel. Fouling woes are sometimes amplified by a rough barrel or a barrel made rough by neglected cleaning. A lot of "match grade" barrels are polished, as that reduces the effect of fouling and for folks going looong range, it helps get more consistent velocities. BUT It's even cheaper and easier to not expect a muzzleloader to be like a modern rifle, and become used to swabbing the barrel every shot or two.
There are folks that will tell your friend that he should "season" his barrel like a cast iron skillet. That was true once, when barrel steel was much closer to actual cast iron than modern reproduction muzzleloader barrels. The natural lube would carbonize, much like a cast iron skillet or carbon steel Asian Wok, which actually is carbon filling in microscopic pores in the iron and steel. This is akin to polishing a modern, muzzleloading barrel, because modern barrels are much denser than the steel of their muzzleloading ancestors, so "seasoning" doesn't really work today.
The fouling may be mitigated by a good, natural bullet lube, and using a main charge that gives the shooter the accuracy that is wanted, while not going well beyond what is needed to get that accuracy. If a 60 grain load of 3Fg granulated powder is accurate out to 100 yards, with a rifle from .40 - .54 caliber, then perhaps going up to a 90 grain charge is merely adding 50% more fouling? It's not slaying the deer 50% better in most cases, and going up to a 120 grain charge is most assuredly not slaying the deer 2x as well as that 60 grain charge.
For example I use 70-80 grains in all my rifles and shotguns, with no problem hitting paper well or taking game. Some folks have rifles that are similar to mine buy find 90 grains is their best. Sure they could load 120 grains, instead of 90, but that 30% increase isn't getting them any real advantage other than adding 30% more material to contribute to the fouling.
There was once an old practice of loading 5-10 grains of smokeless powder followed by a main charge of black powder, to get the most complete combustion of the black powder, and thus the least amount of fouling. This was done in the first half of the 20th century, by men shooting custom muzzleloaders 220 yards, so they were using very large charges and very thick barrels.
This is not recommended today by any means, and I mention it here as your friend asking the question might stumble across reference books that mention this, and he might try it. Such a practice might turn a muzzleloading rifle into a pipe bomb going off inches from one's face.
So in closing, your friend needs to get used to swabbing, and be sure he's using something like olive oil or lard or olive oil/lard mixed with a bit of beeswax as a lube.
LD
