Whats your cleaning method??

[Wink]

After a day of shooting, how do you clean your rifle?

 

[Rebel]

Plug the vent and fill the barrel with water. While it soaks a while, clean the lock. Then dump about half the water and plug the muzzle and slosh it around some then dump it out. Then put in some more water and slosh it again. Then use a patch on a jag to pump it up and down after unpluging the vent so that the water flows out and cleans the vent hole. Best to have the vent hole and muzzle pointed down to prevent water from getting on the stock. When patches come out clean a dry patch and then a patch with WD-40 to displace moisture. Then patch with oil.

 

[Halftail]

Most of my Muzzleloaders are the hooked breach kind(T/C's and Lymans).So after a day of shooting I boil up a kettle of water and pour a few inches of it along with some Dish soap inot a small metal bucket.I then take the disasembled Barrell and submerge the breach end(with the nipple out) into the water.Using my cleaning jag on my ramrod with some 2 inch square cut flannel patches I comence to pumping the hot water in and out of the barrell.Usually after a few patches the first bucket of water is quite dirty so I empty that and get another bucket of just hot water and repeat.
After I run some dry patches in the barrell I slather the inside and outside with Ballistol(My choice of lube,opinions will vary)
After the barrell is looked after I clean the nipple if percussion and around the lock area,lube and put away for storage.
With my long rifle i use the same procedure only diff is the flushing tube that is screwed into the flash hole.
My muzzleloaders are in just like new shape.

 

[mrbill]

1. remove barrel from stock and remove cleanout screw
2. put breech end of barrel in empty bucket
3. spray cva's foaming bore cleaner into barrel and wait 20 min(clean stock and lock while waiting)
4. take a patched jag and plunge barrel a few times
5. run two more patches down barrel
6. repeat steps 3-5
7. put cleanout screw back in place
8. repeat steps 3-5
9. once patches remain clean, run a lubed patch down bore.
10. reassemble

 

[deerstalker07]

What about the hammer, do you need to lube that assembly? I have a lyman deerstalker, and I haven't taken the packing grease out yetm but when I do and start shooting it, you basically take the barrel off, then the nipple, then wash real thourough, then reasemble after drying and oiling?I'm planning on using bore butter for my lube for patch/ball, and I have the #13 cleaner from T/C, but what yall are saying, is that you wouldn't have to use the #13, you could you boiling soapy water?

Also, once you have put lube in your barrel, the next time you go out to shoot, do you clean that lube out, and put new stuff on the patch/ball?

 

[Pittsburghunter]

You don't have to pull the lock and clean it every time you shoot but if you shoot the gun a lot or get stuck hunting in the rain or are putting it up for a while yes remove it from the stock and clean it very well make sure it is real dry and use some light gun oil on it.

Depending how dirty they are sometimes I just use CLP (spray can). If real bad hot soapy water a blow dryer to dry it and then Rem Oil or another light oil to lube and protect it.

I forgot to add that I use a nylon brush on these parts an old toothbrush will work fine.

 

[Swamp Buck]

Deerstalker07; make sure to get all the packing grease out of the barrel. I know when I got my GPR kit, the instruction book advised to thouroughly remove all the packing grease and warned that it will look "brownish-orange" like rust when you get it out.

Once out and cleaned, I use Bore Butter to coat the inside of the barrel between trips to the range or hunting. The best way I found to do that was to put some Bore Butter on a q-tip and smear it inside the barrel muzzle before running a Bore Butter coated cleaning patch down the barrel to spread it out evenly.

Then, before shooting, I run several dry cleaning patches down the barrel to remove most of the Bore Butter. I also run a dry cleaning patch down over an undersized brass bore brush to push into and clean the Bore Butter out of the patent breach.

After snapping off a couple caps to make sure the insides dry and free of obstructions - I'm ready to go.

 

[deerstalker07]

Allright, thanks, I'll do that.