[TnShooter83]

I finally shot my .36 1862 replica yesterday.
I couldn't believe how accurate it was at 15 yards.
Off hand all would be put in to the bottom of a coke can with EASY.

But CLEANING is a PAIN in the A**.
How does powder get in all those places?
And and what a mess. I now realize what my ancestors went through
just to shoot. I think I'll hang mine on the wall. And shoot it
once a year or so. It's a hassle to clean the thing.

I only thought I wanted a Remington until I went to clean
my Colt. I couldn't imagine the time it'd take to clean the Remington.
The barrel isn't as east to remove on them, ans the Colt......
Not for me, but at least I know the process.

[Old Dragoon]

Actually the Remy is easier to clean than the colt, just remove the cylinder pin, cylinder, remove the grips and toss the whole thing into hot soapy water(not the grips). Clean, dry. disassemble, oil with olive oil and put her back together.

[Father Knows Best]

What?!?! Cleaning isn't hard. In fact, it's easier than cleaning up after smokeless. You just need to adjust your thinking a little.

The beauty of black powder is that you don't need any special solvents. The fouling produced by black powder is water soluble, so the only solvent you need is water, preferably hot. How do you think they used to clean them guns back in the day? Heck, they dunked 'em in the creek and wiped 'em off, and maybe ran one wet and one dry patch down the barrel.

To clean a black powder arm, just take the cylinder out (or disassemble one of them Colts) and flush HOT water down the barrel and chambers. Use as hot of water as you can stand. Then, pull a bore snake through. Wipe off the outer surfaces and dry thoroughly. Apply a light coat of Ballistol (the aerosol cans work well for this) and Presto! You're done. I cowboy shoot with black powder, meaning I put around 200 shots downrange in a day from two revolvers, a rifle and a shotgun, all using black powder. I can have all four guns cleaned and put away in about 15 minutes. By contrast, cleaning up after smokeless takes at least an hour, 'cause I'm forced to run patch after patch after patch down the bores. Ugh.

P.S. The hot water clean-up works best if your guns are lubed properly to begin with. Use only natural lubes -- nothing petroleum based. Plain old crisco or Bore Butter works fine as a grease, and Ballistol for oil. And of course, never ever EVER use one of that confounded black powder "substitutes." They smell terrible and are much harder to clean up than real black powder.

[Father Knows Best]

Old Dragoon's comment about tossing the whole thing in hot, soapy water reminded me of a friend's trick to cleaning his revolvers. He just pulls the cylinders, removes the grips, and runs 'em through the dishwasher. They come out shiny clean and dry. Just don't let your wife catch you doin' it, or you'll be sleeping on the couch for a week....

[TnShooter83]

I couldn't imagine sticking any firearm in water?
I'll give it a try the next time I shoot it.
Any thing to make the tooth brush process go faster.

[Shotgun Willy]

Using water's not so strange. After all the bootwash was a great place to start the wash up on my M-16 when I was in the Army.:D
You'll find though that Windex can be your best friend. Don't use the vinegar type as vinegar is an acid. Just disassemble, windex, swab, rinse, and then put into a warm oven for a while to dry. (of course you don't wash or bake your grips)
When it's all clean and dry I lube with a soft version of the paraffin, beeswax, and canola oil mixture. I put it pretty thick in the cylinder arbor.
I've found that if I put it on/in with the weapon pretty warm it runs nicely into nooks and crannies.
Bill

[arcticap]

No one cleans out the nipple threads?
It's tough enough to just clean out the single nipple threading of a single shot.
And at least smokeless powder isn't corrosive, so to say that cleaning a black powder revolver is even faster/easier sounds fishy to me. :p
Especially since smokeless revolvers don't even have nipples.
Is someone urinating on my leg while telling me that it's raining or what? :D

[Heinrich]

I take out the nipples, and throw the thing into the dishwasher, and take a steam cleaner and give each nipple a quick blast.

As said, open the dishwasher, and everything is nice clean and dry. I never put the nipples or handles into the dishwasher. Even my mortar goes into the dishwasher, of course minus the bed. The locks on my flintlocks also do into the dishwasher.

[Shotgun Willy]

Part of my disassembly is pulling the nipples out. To wash and rinse them I use a spaghetti strainer so they don't go down the sink. I use the same lube on them as on the rest of the gun. I put it on the threads being careful not to get it inside.
Bill

[mykeal]

I have to admit that if someone had said that someday I'd be posting a message on the internet about cleaning my nipples he'd have been unconscious shortly thereafter....

I keep a small glass jar (from some magic salad dressing my wife once bought) half full of No. 13 bp solvent (the brand doesn't matter). I remove the nipples before the cylinder goes in the hot soapy and place them in the jar to soak. They stay in there for as long as it takes to clean and dry the rest of the gun, then I run them through a little of the hot soapy and set them aside to dry while I lube the gun. Once the gun is ready to assemble I make sure they are fully dry, put some anti-seize (Gorilla Grease, but again, the brand doesn't matter) on the threads and do the put together thing. The longest part of the process is installing the anti-seize - I haven't yet figured out how to do that neatly.

I guess the point is that nowhere in the process on any part of the gun do I use a toothbrush or do any kind of scrubbing. Hot soapy water has always been sufficient, with the exception of the nipples due to their tiny little holes. The No. 13 (or other bp solvent) just makes sure they get fully cleaned out without using a pipe cleaner.

In other words, cleaning a bp gun is just about as difficult as washing my hands. Except, of course, I don't disassemble and assemble my hands...but sometimes I do have to scrub them...oh well, never mind, forget that analogy. You know what I mean.

[Father Knows Best]

And at least smokeless powder isn't corrosive, so to say that cleaning a black powder revolver is even faster/easier sounds fishy to me.
In fact, black powder is NOT corrosive. That's a myth. It is true, however, that fouling left by shooting black powder can become corrosive if it is allowed to get wet. That's because there are potassium salts formed by the combustion of black powder. When they get moist, they act like wet road salt on a 1962 Chevy.

I know guys who go a month at a time between cleaning their black powder arms, and they have experienced absolutely no rust or corrosion of any kind. The trick is to keep them dry. If you live in a moist climate like the deep south, that can be an issue. If you live in the west or high plains, however, you can probably go all season without cleaning. Your guns will get filthy, and the fouling may interfere with operation, but they won't corrode.

I lived in Memphis until last summer, and shot a lot of black powder. It was hot and humid, but on several occasions my guns sat for several weeks before I cleaned them. I kept them in a humidity-controlled safe, and never had any rust or corrosion.

When I say it is easier to clean up black powder than smokeless, it is because the black powder fouling rinses out completely with just hot water and a bore snake. Smokeless always seems to leave baked on carbon that needs scrubbing with a brush, special chemical solvents, and numerous patches. It's a lot more work and time.

Now, I have to admit that I wasn't considering the need to remove nipples from a front-stuff revolver, because I generally shoot cartridge revolvers (chambered in .44 Russian and loaded with 22 grains of Goex under a 200 grain bullet, with 50/50 beeswax and crisco for lube). They are ridiculously easy to clean.

[Tommygunn]

In fact, black powder is NOT corrosive. That's a myth. It is true, however, that fouling left by shooting black powder can become corrosive if it is allowed to get wet. That's because there are potassium salts formed by the combustion of black powder. When they get moist, they act like wet road salt on a 1962 Chevy.

While you're right, the BP isn't corrosive itself, it is also hygroscopic, which means it attracts and holds water. Keeping the dirty gun in a dry environment helps, but "dry" is relative.
I wouldn't worry about putting a gun away for a short time ... but I would definiatly clean & oil it if I was putting it up for any length of time.
But ... it can get a biy humid here in the summer where I live.

[sundance44s]

Don`t be afraid to get them wet ..except for the wooden grips ..water is their friend .....and the wife`s hair dryer is great for a quick dry .

[Cap n Ball]

I completly disassemble mine and put all the small parts, (springs, screws etc) into an old fashioned wire mesh tea egg. A drop of dish soap and a shake or two under running hot water does the trick. Dry the parts still in the egg with a hand held blow dryer then spread them out on a towel. For the cylinder I put an old wire bore cleaner in the chuck of my drill press and at low speed it gets all the powder fouling out of the chambers quickly and cleans the nipple threads as well. If I need to really clean the the threads on the nipples themselves I string them all on a strand of fine steel wire and use the soft wire polisher on my bench grinder at low speed. It takes just a few seconds. The frame, bore cylinder pin and loading lever I clean like everyone else does. Lightly oil with good quality olive oil and admire it for a bit then put it away wrapped up in a soft cloth with a couple of packets of silica gel.

[arcticap]

Check out the thread for more details & pictures of Duncaninfrance's home made nipple cleaning device:

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=232586

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f392/Duncaninfrance/NIP-CLEAN-3-WEB.jpg

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=232586

[DaveP (UK)]

Fiddlling with the nipples can seriously add to the time required for clean up, so I've always tried to keep it to a minimum.
I've never really needed to poke anything down my nipples, pouring boiling water into the cylinders as the last wet process seems to leave them clean inside. I only take them out about twice a year at most - but I have coated the threads with copper grease.
I did worry about it, even though someone told me it would work, but it passed the test of time for me!
I have recently been trying dropping a blob of Wonderlube into the nipple recess while the cylinder is still warm, so that it melts and solidifies in the bit at the bottom thats hard to clean. It does seem to stop fouling from building up there.