It's a question about cleaning

[Stantheman86]

Today I shot and cleaned the '51 iNavy n both formats.
More firing cone trouble but did get off two cylinders full. Since using a heavily lubed 1/4" felt OP wad it was a four patch cleaning job. The cylinder soaked at the same time every thing else was cleaned.
The cylinder cleaned quickly using a cotton mop with the firing cones out.
More on the cones in another post as soon as I calm down.
The gun was fired 15 times as an unmentionable. Those bullets carry no lube at all. The reason I am mention an unmentionable is cleaning was long and difficult with crusty hard fouling even using soaking wet patches on the cleaning rod.
The percussion gun had only 5 less shots and was much easier to clean.
I suspect that hard crusty fouling was caused by not enough lube
Usually I use a 1/8' wad saturated with the Eras Gone (Mark Hubbs) recipe of
1 oz. unsalted lard and 4 oz Gulf Wax canning wax, These wads used the same formula. No oil never bleeds out.

Forget the formula that uses kumquat oil expressed from the fruit's rind picked by a 40 year old blond blue eyed virgin wearing a red thong bikini with a D cup top in the dark of the moon or some such concoction.
WATER simple water and soap or Ballistol.
Easy peasy
lemon squeezy
MAKE SMOKE
Grumpy Curmudgeon
Bunk

Using lubed wads or even smearing lube on top of the chambers makes cleanup WAY easier

I use cheap dollar store baby wipes that are like 2 bucks per 100, on a cleaning rod and the bore comes clean with 2 baby wipes, max. Baby Wipes are basically soap and water anyway in a convenient package. I used them to clean weapons in the Army and they work for cap and ballers. I also used shaving cream to clean M16's but I haven't tried that yet on blackpowder weapons. I might have to now.

I also use rubbing alcohol on a patch because it contains water, and it self-dries everything to prepare for a layer of Eezox to keep rust away

Super easy. I don't like taking the internals out too often because the less I have to put a screwdriver in those butter soft screws that hold the grip frame on the better. Even with Grace screwdrivers, I'd rather not be constantly taking these things apart. Less is more.

Action Blaster is very helpful, it blows the action out then dries. A few drops of muzzleloader lube to oil the internals, Boom, done

Overcleaning can be as bad for a gun as undercleaning. People are out here scrubbing rifling out of mild steel revolver bores with stainless steel or bronze brushes, putting more wear on the rifling than 10,000 round balls but they need every spec of carbon out.

I have probably about 20 cap and ballers sitting at home right now with less than 100% clean chambers, some have been that way for over 10 years. There may be a little hint of crud in the bottoms of some, or some fouling here and there. No rust, no problems. I don't spend an hour sterilizing chambers, I get them mostly all the way clean with a jag. I don't need them to look out of the box clean every time. They might fail a Drill SGT inspection or a Sunday Inspection from a Sgt Major who disliked my face in 1863 but it's ok, I don't have to pass any of that.

 

[Coolhand]

My revolvers clean easy with just water and soap or any other solution, I got the ultrasonic cleaner to reduce time for shooting on Sunday evenings and during the week. The longest part of it now is disassembling and reassembling. Use to I wouldn’t shoot during the week after work because I was to tired and lazy to take the time to clean it.

 

[Johnny Tremain]

simple green all purpose cleaner.

Simple Green is known to stain certain metals, We use only Simple Green Aircraft Grade for anything we dont want yellowed.

I use Windex. set the cylinder in it for 10 minutes or so.

 

[Stantheman86]

My revolvers clean easy with just water and soap or any other solution, I got the ultrasonic cleaner to reduce time for shooting on Sunday evenings and during the week. The longest part of it now is disassembling and reassembling. Use to I wouldn’t shoot during the week after work because I was to tired and lazy to take the time to clean it.

I shoot before work and I "cheat" by taking advantage of being outside, and not having to stink my house up.....plus I can get as sloppy as I need to, and I do a quick and dirty cleaning with alcohol soaked baby wipes, a rod I keep in my range bag, and I leave the nipples on so I don't lose them outside. The Colt types are easy, to just hit the 3 main parts to knock the bulk of the grime off. I even wear latex gloves so I can just slop everything out and not have to go to work with blackpowder fouling stained hands.

If I forget or get lazy , the fouling is mostly out and I can get to them when I can. When I do get to them, then I can clean better, blast the internals and coat in Eezox. A lot of guys here would probably be laying in bed with their eyes wide open knowing there's a dirty gun in the house but I've done the "quick and dirty" and gotten to them in some cases a week or more later, with 0 problems.

 

[Coolhand]

Simple Green is known to stain certain metals, We use only Simple Green Aircraft Grade for anything we dont want yellowed.

I use Windex. set the cylinder in it for 10 minutes or so.

I did not know it will stain certain metals. It hasn’t stained any of the steel or brass parts I have put in it yet, not to say it won’t. I will try a water windex solution next time that I use my cleaner. I’d bet that windex is cheaper than simple green anyway.