Curious, How do you clean your Pinned barrel Rifle or Smooth bore?

[FlinterNick]

It all depends on your talents and skills. I always unpin my barrels without any issues for cleaning.

The key is the make sure the barrel is installed so that it can be removed hassle free. The pins should be polished and deburrd and the pin holes should be counter bored slightly so that when drifted the stock isn’t damaged.

 

[Jason holgate]

Great post love this

 

[French Colonial]

It all depends on your talents and skills. I always unpin my barrels without any issues for cleaning.

The key is the make sure the barrel is installed so that it can be removed hassle free. The pins should be polished and deburrd and the pin holes should be counter bored slightly so that when drifted the stock isn’t damaged.

Nothing to do with talent or skill.....

You remove the barrel and everything looks the same as when you put it in a year ago, why after shooting it would you remove it again just to see you did not need to? And then repeat? And then Repeat?

As with the wood screw debate you guys can complicate the simplest tasks.

 

[Freedom]

I fire my rifle almost every day...cleaning is a breeze. No way am I going to pull pins or screws every day.

Clean in a caddie with your rifle level,.. close the frizzen on a thick dry patch, wet terry cloth patches down the bore until they come clean, a dry patch or 2, and a squirt of BreakFree,... you're done.
(Unless you like ugly black streaks on your stock.) Toothpicks leak,..almost as bad as those hokey magnet contraptions.

My lock gets greased once or twice a year with tractor grease. Tested at -27° F this winter and it functioned flawlessly.

It's great to be alive and to be shooting!

 

[FlinterNick]

Nothing to do with talent or skill.....

You remove the barrel and everything looks the same as when you put it in a year ago, why after shooting it would you remove it again just to see you did not need to? And then repeat? And then Repeat?

As with the wood screw debate you guys can complicate the simplest tasks.

You’re saying there are no reasons to remove a barrel for cleaning.

I’m saying if you can do it correctly you should do it, i have a lot of experience unpinning barrels without issue.

Wood screws ? I didn’t bring up wood screws but if i had to remove a wood screw a few times, you would simply use a wood wax line in inside of the wood screw mortise / hole, this preserves the threading. You can also use arca glass which makes the hole machined, neat trick i learned from Clay Smith.

Finally there are reasons to remove the barrel while cleaning, it mostly depends on the gun, how its seated in the channel and where the vent is located.

Moisture can build up on a barrel thats not cleaned underneath and you can end up with wood root in the barrel channel, this can also weaken the breech area as well as dry rot the lock mortise.

Gases and fouling can build up in places you cant get to without unpinning the barrel.

So yes, they are real reasons why you ought to remove the barrel when cleaning.

I’m saying if you can remove the barrel, and your abilities (talents) and skills (tooling ability and understanding of how to properly unpin a barrel) you should.

I’m currently restoring two brown besse’s that have never had their barrels removed, the result of never unpinning the barrel is a dry rotted barrel channel in the breech area and significant wood loss in the lock mortise.

It’s a simple task to leave it be and never disassemble a musket for cleaning, its much more complicated task to restore a gun with 5-7 years of BP building up, rust and wood rot, wood rot is a bad thing, it shrinks the wood, creating uneven surfaces, makes the stock brittle in places you need it to be strong.

Don’t mind me I’m just complicating things here, you clearly are the GO TO for common sense.

 

[French Colonial]

And I am saying, if you properly sealed the wood under the barrel and applied a good product to the underside of the barrel such as RIG there is no reason to unpin the barrel.

I pulled the barrel of the .32 I built back in the late 70's last year and there was no wood rot and no rust on the underside of the barrel. But then clearly I AM the go to for common sense.

Or maybe I just know how to do things.

 

[FlinterNick]

And I am saying, if you properly sealed the wood under the barrel and applied a good product to the underside of the barrel such as RIG there is no reason to unpin the barrel.

I pulled the barrel of the .32 I built back in the late 70's last year and there was no wood rot and no rust on the underside of the barrel. But then clearly I AM the go to for common sense.

Or maybe I just know how to do things.

Or just enjoy hearing yourself.

There are many ways many opinions we are sharing here from a question asked.

The fact of the matter is most people don’t care for their guns appropriately and the guns are often no assembled correctly.

I have five guns in my shop two with pins rusted into the lugs.

Clearly there’s a need from time to time to disassemble a gun for cleaning.

And I’m saying I can do it without issue as many times as I want to. Never had an issue unpinning barrels and never will.

 

[brazosland]

OP you can use a finish with sealer on the barrel channel to keep water from penetrating the stock as you clean the barrel, some will get in there.

You can also put a light coat of grease on the barrel if it makes you feel better before you reassemble the gun.

If you live in an air conditioned home, any errant moisture while be evaporated soon enough.

When I first started in this hobby a little surface rust on my gun barrels would drive me nuts. Now I just rub it out, apply a little lube of some sort and realize that’s just a sign of proper use and age.

 

[Flintlock Whiskey]

If you're still hunting for information, check out this thread:
https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/...your-rifled-barrel.153171/page-4#post-2352216