When to clean your flintlock?

[Percy]

"While your cleaning your gun your deer is busy growing", I like that.

Percy

 

[larry wv]

To no one in particular. I think the rust idea is like a rolling snow ball. It just keeps getting bigger. It's there and needs taken care of in a timely fashion which is a bit different for most people. At one time I was on a Diesel truck forum. They got in their head that if diesel fuel wasn't FRESH it was no good. When a newcomer would join he was brain washed by the already read it crowd and the idea snow balled. I keep my guns clean. No rust a lot of dings because I don't mind. But I do believe the jump on it and clean it idea is carried away. Sooner is better then later but a little later isn't going to rust away. Mine have no rust but I figure I clean more often than the pioneers. How did they survive. Just my idea's.

Larry

 

[S.Kenton]

I keep my rifles clean.However, about 3 months ago I was shooting and was interrupted with a family emergency. I didn't get back home till around midnight that eve, having to get up at 4 am I had no time to clean my rifle. The next day was the about as crazy as the last evening, so again, no time. The next day things finally slowed down enough for me to clean and I was a little worried....but everything cleaned up just fine and I had no rust forming. So I wonder if I got lucky? Or is that situation just the norm? Or because I seasoned my barrel and that's the reason it didn't rust?.....( joking)

 

[good ole boy]

I know an older gentleman that has been shootin and huntin with his Hawkins for decades.He leaves his gun loaded until he shoots at a deer and that can be for weeks.Plus if he misses he reloads and he won,t shoot it until he sees another deer or till he shoots it off at the end of the season.His rationing is his patch is lubed with bore butter when he loads and when he reloads he is relubin the barrel.I always clean after shootin but I looked in his barrel with a bore light and it looks really good with no pitting or damage of any kind.

 

[mooman76]

Never let the sun rise on a fired gun.


Clean them if fired.

What about Alaska in the summer? :blah:

 

[tenngun]

Place time humidity temputure all effect rust formation. Summer in the southwest will be less likely to rust then fall in the cascades. In side a warm dry home will take longer to rust then a damp camp afield. Bringing a cold gun from the field is worse then a warm summer gun in to an air conditioned home. Dumb luck smiles on us at times, and family is a lot more important the guns, but I would tug the Tigers tail if I didn't have a good reason.

 

[S.Kenton]

I know an older gentleman that has been shootin and huntin with his Hawkins for decades.He leaves his gun loaded until he shoots at a deer and that can be for weeks.Plus if he misses he reloads and he won,t shoot it until he sees another deer or till he shoots it off at the end of the season.His rationing is his patch is lubed with bore butter when he loads and when he reloads he is relubin the barrel.I always clean after shootin but I looked in his barrel with a bore light and it looks really good with no pitting or damage of any kind.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

[rushlake1]

Another another angle to this is...

Would you want to buy a used gun that wasn't cleaned
at the end of the day after it had been shot?

Then we could get into shooting substitute powders and their corrosive fowling overnight.

new replacement barrels run 2-3 hundred bucks for just the barrel and breach plug for starters.


Food for thought.

 

[Dean2]

I know an older gentleman that has been shootin and huntin with his Hawkins for decades.He leaves his gun loaded until he shoots at a deer and that can be for weeks.Plus if he misses he reloads and he won,t shoot it until he sees another deer or till he shoots it off at the end of the season.His rationing is his patch is lubed with bore butter when he loads and when he reloads he is relubin the barrel.I always clean after shootin but I looked in his barrel with a bore light and it looks really good with no pitting or damage of any kind.

During the Civil war, doctors used non-sterile tools to work on you and never washed their hands between patients. More soldiers died from disease and infection than anything else. Even 50 years ago a bath once a week was pretty common and many only took one every 6 months. Fifty years ago the average man lived to age 60, if he was lucky. Not everything that is HC/PC is a good idea.

 

[good ole boy]

They sterilized in those days.Just not to the same degree as today.Yes,disease killed a lot more soldiers than actual instant battle death,but most of those diseases were battle field condition caused,not by the surgeons knife.

 

[Walks with fire]

I like to clean mine as soon as possible. I drive only 20 min. to get to the range I shoot at and they get field cleaned before I leave and then fully cleaned as soon as I get home. There is no way I am leaving fouling in the bore for more than a hour or so.

I wouldn't even reload on a fouled bore in a hunting situation. The barrel gets swabbed clean after every shot even down in the patent breech. If I did reload and got to my dead deer it would get fired and swabbed clean before the knife came out. I hate fouling in my rifles.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Everyone starts of hating to clean their rifles because they don't know how to effectively clean them.

I'm at the point where I clean my gun before I leave the woods or range, and it is no more difficult than loading.

 

[Walks with fire]

I am the same way. Why wait? Cleaning a BP gun has never been a bother to me; I kind of like it.LOL

 

[Dave Marsh]

My method as well. Keep it simple and do it as soon as you are done shooting.

Dave