Gun Cleaning---AGAIN!!

[George Hoskins]

Gentlemen,
I know this has been done to death but dag nabbitt I still have some questions and concerns on how to keep my beauty pretty inside and out. I currently clean with tepid water and a little dish soap (switched from boiling as I thought it might cause flash rust)Any residue remaining I swab with Blue Thunder. I dry the barrell thoroughly then swab with Ballistoil(sp?)which usually brings up more crud. I keep swabbing with Ballistoil until the swab comes out clean. The last pass in the bore I make it a heavy Ballistoil. Now the problem, in a day or two if I swab with Ballistoil again it brings up brown and some black. Continue swabbing until it comes out clean and leave a couple of more days and repeat. It takes about a week before the swab comes out clean after sitting.I shoot about once a month this time of year and don't want to be going thru this every time. I know Ballistoil dissolves in water and a discarded patch eventually drys bone dry. Now my question, as Ballistoil is water soluable can it be drawing water out of the air as it sits in the barrell. Is there a better solution to leave in the barrell on the final pass for short term protection. Any and all ideas will be duely considered. Thanks

 

[bwhoffman]

I wash with not hot water, a patch over a bronze brush and several strokes up and down.
I follow this up with a jag and patch and pump water in and out several times until flush is clear. i then use a brush and scrub the breech/nipple area. All of this in a big sink.
I towel dry the exterior and run a few patches down the bore to "towel" dry. This is followed up with 1 or 2 alcohol soaked patches and 1 more to dry. I then spray some wd40 down the bore and wipe with a wd40 soaked patch. I wipe the exterior with same patch and then place that over the nipple and under the hammer.
I store with the muxxle down and have had ZERO issues since doing it the way.I do run an oiled patch down the tube every 10-14 days just because I fondle my guns often!

I used to use real hot water and store with bore butter. Much happier now! have a few guns havent been touched for several months to a year...No issues, load 'em and shoot!

 

[Kentuckywindage]

after washing the barrel with warm soapy water and a windex patch i have been using Hoppes to swab the bore a little more and then a couple dry patches. Never had bores this clean!! But i do shoot conicals too and they leave a bit more crud to clean up.

 

[paulvallandigham]

A Close look at your dirty patches would give a good idea WHERE the crud is remaining after you have cleaned it. Without that info, I am only guessing.

Try changing how you clean it.

1. Run a bore brush down the barrel a few times to break loose the crud stuck in the corners of your grooves. I do this with soap and water in the barrel, so that the soap gets to go through and under the crud with the bore brush bristles( say that 3 times fast!).

If you have space between the vent hole and the face of the plug, where crud has gathered, its mostly carbon, and you will need a plug face scraper to fit on your cleaning rod to go down and scrape the crud off physically from the plug. A soaped patch on a jag is just not going to get it done, IMHO.

2. Pour out that water. soap, and large chunks of crud. Now, put clean tepid water with soap down the barrel, and also dampen a cleaning patch and put liquid soap on it, and run it down using either the bore brush to hold the cleaning patch firmly to the brush, or with an appropriately sized CLEANING JAG. A cleaning jag needs to be at .east ..030" Smaller in diameter, than your bore( land to land diameter). In smaller caliber guns, you may have to go down to .040" smaller on those jags.

3. Fill the bore with water( Plug the vent hole, or the flash channel with a toothpick) and soap, and stand the barrel somewhere to let the soap do its thing for an hour. Go watch TV, or play with your wife, or kids.

It sounds, frankly, like you are falling victim to that " I got-to-get-this-done-and-put-away" itis that afflicts a lot of us busy men. SWMBO doesn't like the smell of the stuff, or all your gun stuff lying around her kitchen or house, etc. Only in the very below freezing days did I clean my guns in the garage. It was attached, but it could not compete with the cold coming in through to bottom of the garage door. So, I found that if I used soap and water, and threw out the first couple of buckets of water, all the sulfur smell she hated was gone. The Crud, which is mostly carbon, is what was left. As long as it didn't smell like rotten eggs, SWMBO cut me some slack.

After an hour, the soap will have broken up a lot more of the crud, and you can pour all the liquid out of the barrel, and see just how much more crud comes out. Then rinse the barrel to remove the soap residues, and then dry the barrel.

Now, you can run an oiled patch down the barrel to protect it. I do not consider Ballistol to be a cleaning fluid at all. Others may disagree.

If there is crud still in the barrel( check those drying patches), then flush the barrel with alcohol, as it is also a solvent. My experience is that crud still down there is being bound to the barrel by oil compounds. The Alcohol dissolves the oil, and once that is gone, the rest of the crud goes, too.

Flush your barrel with alcohol Before Going to the range, or field with your gun.(But the cheap stuff from the drug store- isopropyl, which has a small percentage of water in the alcohol, to remove old oil and congealed grease. That way, it doesn't bond with burning powder, or residue to glue to the back( bottom) of your barrel in the first place. The alcohol will evaporate that water, and any other water in the barrel. A cleaning patch will remove the oil residues. This is a case of " an ounce of prevention, etc....")

I have tried Ballistol as a storage lube, and am not impressed. I have been using Young County 101 lube- now Wonderlube, or Bore Butter, and at one time, called by a 4th name- to coat the bore and grooves of the barrel during storage. You do have to revisit the guns periodically, however with additional lube. The more humid the area is where you store the gun, the more often you will need to refresh the lube. I keep the guns in a closet that is both heated, and a/ced, so I don't worry a lot about moisture or humidity. With no direct heat source in the closet, it stays cool even in the summers, and especially in the winter. Cool and dry.

I am not convinced, however, that Bore Butter is the best storage lube to use where humidity is high.( My brother lives in Florida, and we compare notes!) Try a product made by Birchwood Casey, called " Sheath", if I recall correctly. It has good reviews here on the forum.

 

[Johnny Tremain]

After a hard day at the range, I swap 3-4 T/C bore cleaner patches though it, then enough clean ones to make the last one clean.
I take that patch finger rub some bore butter on it, run it down. Im done

No mess, no time, been working great for years now

 

[renovato]

The Ballistol may be breaking up crud on the breechface or in the patent breech if your gun has one. That stuff can be hard to clean out without the right tools. A flat faced breech scraper works well for guns having a drum. For patent breech guns, you will generally need a smaller diameter (.22-.30 or so) brush to get into the breech recess.

I'm a huge fan of Ballistol, and I don't have any rust problems from short term storage with it. But I've sure heard of a lot of folks who have. If you live in a humid climate, you might try protecting your metal with CorrosionX. It's the best rust proofer that I know of.

Also, Ballistol mixes with water, but it doesn't draw it from the air or anything. To make it into a useful cleaning solvent, it actually needs mixed with water.

Another thought is, are you sure you are getting your bore and breech completely dry before oiling? Try drying it out thoroughly with patches, then swish a splash of 91% rubbing alcohol around in bore and breech. Dump it out and give it a last wipe with a dry patch. The alcohol gets out any remaining moisture that might be hiding where your patch can't reach. This can promote rust. I have never had any rust, regardless of what preservative I use, once I started using alcohol to dry the bore. I used to get occasional flash rust issues before that.

 

[Zonie]

Green Horn
I too had problems with rust forming in my guns bores when I used Ballistol to protect them.

After cleaning and drying my guns bores they were absolutely free of rust or fouling, the dry patches coming out clean. I then used Ballistol to protect them.
After a week, running a clean patch down the bore resulted in light surface rust showing on the patch.

I resolved to Never again use Ballistol as a rust protection and went back to using my Birchwood Casey Sheath (now called Barricade).
The results from using this product is my barrels bores never show signs of rust forming during storage.
Also, because these products dry they do not seem to have any bad effects when firing black powder in the guns.

 

[Birddog6]

I suggest using the Non-Aerosol Ballistol for the long term storage. It is allot thicker & I feel does allot better job on long term storage. Been using it for ? 8 yrs now & no rust in Any of them. If I wasn't going to use Ballistol I would go back to BreakFree, as it worked well for me too.

If your gun is not clean clean, the Ballistol will creep under the fouling & it will keep leeching it out as the rifle is stored.

It will do the same on rust. If you have rust deposits in a barrel, the Ballistol will continue to leech it out til it is gone.

The absolute best rust inhibitor I ever used was RIG. But being a grease it is a lil harder to get into every nook & cranny & also just as hard to get out of every nook & cranny. But the 3 mo test on metal I did myself outside for rust protection, nothing even came close to RIG.

:thumbsup:

 

[watmoc]

I also have been using RIG grease with very good results. The last gun show I went to no longer had the grease, but now has RIG liquid. I don't know if the formula is the same, but I am now using it with good results so far.

 

[Zonie]

Thank you for the comment Birddog6.
From now on when I mention my experience with Ballistol I will be sure to say, "...when I used the Non Aerosol Ballistol...".
That is, after all, what I used and it is what gave me such poor results.

To those who use it and have good luck with it may I say I'm glad it worked well for you.

For those who have used it and had the same results that I have had I say, "Yup. Been there, done that. I didn't buy the shirt though." :grin:

 

[FPDoc]

Always wonderful info here on different ways to do things. I've got to give full marks to RIG for long term storage. I once had to put some weapons up for 4 years (no I wasn't incarcerated). I cleaned them well, took the stocks off and covered all metal surfaces with RIG. They went into footlockers (off the floor) in a garden shed. Not a single spot of rust 4 years later.

 

[George Hoskins]

Zonie et al,
Thank you very much gentlemen for your replies. All grist for the mill, so to speak. I too was using the Non-aerosol Ballistoil (they won't ship the pressurized stuff to Canada). By most of your replies it would seem very few use Ballistoil as a storage lube even short term. Of the few that do it would seem it is not uncommon to have the residual rust problem. Guess I'll track down a supplier of Sheath (Barricade). Take care all
Cheers

 

[Swampman]

I clean with Windex or Windshield Washer Fluid. I recently switched to Break-Free CLP after cleaning. It works really well.

 

[Joel/Calgary]

... I too was using the Non-aerosol Ballistol (they won't ship the pressurized stuff to Canada). ...

Hmmm... Usta be they would, or at least some of the sutlers. Have you tried the Canadian Ballistol distributor?
http://www.ballistol.ca/Ballistol/Pages/Ballistol_Index01.htm

Regards,
Joel

 

[zrifleman]

For what it's worth--WD-40 is not a good way to protect your bore from rust. It is a penetrant. Rig is ranked as an excellent coating even in salt air and the tropics. Lately after cleaning bores with a mix of Murphy's oil soap, peroxide and isopropyl alcohol, I swab the barrel with Kroil. Anything I missed, the Kroil breaks it loose.

 

[buckknife]

We all know black powder fouling is acidic,water breaks down fouling easly.If a heaver lube or wax is used for patch lube it becomes hard to remove with just water so soap is used to help break it down.When ther soap is used it takes the acidic barrel a turns it into base.You went from a -4 on the ph scale to a +10.Either side of this will cause rust in a bore.So the bore needs to be as close to a netural or 7 as you can get it before its wiped clean and lubed for storage.That is most easly done by runing water through the bore for a couplke of minutes to remove the soap and bring the ph to a close 7 or netural,
Once you figuare this out you could use any oil or grease under the sun and it wont rust as long as you get it good and dry before you add the storage lube.
I my self just use cutting oil moose milk that test at a close to netural ph for patch lube and cleaning.Nothing else is used in the bore to protect it for storage but my patch lube.No rust and nothing to clean ot before shooting.

 

[sproulman]

i used to store my guns in my basement in gun cabinet.i used rems oil,sheath to protect.
i would take them upstairs and clean each year.

in 39 guns, no rust in any and i had no heat in winter and used a dehumidifier in summer. :shocked2:

thats something ,i worried all time if they would rust and my humidity was a around 70 % in basement .
our bore tests proved also that you have to have a lot of moisture in air for longtime to even rust a bore and with oil in bore,it should not happen under normal homeowner storing we do. :wink:

 

[sproulman]

breakfree is ALL we use on our beretta pistons ,its the best. :wink:

we dont use it in our bores of shotguns only actions but i believe it would be ok in muzzleloader bore because of teflon protectant and less of OIL protectant. :wink:

i heard they took teflon out but i never checked the ingredients to see if they did do this. :hmm:

 

[pichou]

WD-40 is great after a water wash... WD=water displacement. :wink:

IMHO, you will get crud ooze from the metal no matter what you use to clean. The best thing to use is elbow grease. "Clean well and clean often" is the best product on the market, hands down.

my 2¢ :v

 

[sproulman]

respectfully, we tested WD-40 and were very surprised that it was up at no.1 in a bore.in my opinion, its great to use after you clean your bore with water,then you could use any oil you like.

being we are talking muzzleloaders,i use it ,let it dry a day and then add BREAKFREE CLP to bore.

trust me,wd-40 is about as great a protectant/water remover for shorterm in your bore .i dont like it for long storage ,i put oil on top of it if not using gun for year but if using it before that,only wd-40 would be necessary.

there are tests on this if you goggle on net.