Questions after first cap & ball session

Nipples can removed by making a wrench from a quarter drive socket cut with a Dremel tool and cut off wheel. Buy a powder flask with a 25 grain spout and trim it to throw the charge you want. The front sight sounds like it's slightly too tall, file it down a little at a time until you get the elevation where you want it. Cleaning, I use a .22 cal rod with a bronze .357 brush wrapped in a cleaning patch soaked in 409. You will need to try different caps until you find a size or brand that stays on the nipple, or you can change the nipples for better ones.... Track of the Wolf is good resource. Hope this helps. Welcome to an addiction that never ends!

So much to go over. But as far as powder goes on a .36 id start at 18-25 grains and shoot whichever is most accurate. You can lube using lube disks or felt wads between powder and ball. This will keep the fouling soft and your cylinder pin nice and lubed so you get no binding. There are different formulas for lube so you will have to experiment. Crisco with beeswax types are popular but id stay away as crisco turns into a gummy sticky gunk once its been heated and cooled..unlike tallow and natural oils. I prefer mutton tallow and beeswax formulas and i use lube disks between powder and ball/bullet. You will have to do a search on this. Felt wads can be purchased or made. I made mine when i first uses them...now i use thin lube disks with an over powder card between powder and ball/bullet. Get yourself a good nipple wrench. Its best to grease the nipple threads before you ever use them but you have already shot your gun so after cleaning you will have to get a nipple wrench and grease the threads with muzzleloader choke lube or a high temp synthetic grease such as mobil1 or i even use pure lanolin (u can get it at walmart in the breastmilk pump section). Lanolin is great stuff with black powder compatibility. To also help with your cylinder running smooth and not binding you should use a good lune on the arbor/cylinder pin. You can use lots of different things such as natural oils like olive oil , cooking spray like PAM, ballistol, Mobil1 synthetic grease...all different types of stuff so long as its non petrol based. Id stay away from the Bore butter type patch lubes..they are poop. And id stay away from crisco too.

Caps can be resized or pinched slightly although i dont like doing this...best to get some good aftermarket nipples such as Slixshots or Uncle Mikes...they fit just about all popular caps perfecrly like remington 10s and 11s and even CCI 11s.

Oh and get a good gun cleaning kit that comes with rods and nylon and bronze/brass brushes. no steel brushes. You can get a decent kit for cap and ball revolvers at Possible Shop or most other sites...but the possible shop i feel has great prices and selection and their customer service is top notch.

Its not made from crude oil...strictly synthetic. I put it inside every gun i own and every gun i tune/smith. Its the best. Keeps the insides safe , lubed, and clean. Better than any gun oil. You can feel the difference. I have yet to have a customer tell me they don't like it. I just pack the insides with grease and put the gun back together.

I forget exactly what charge they throw, but for years I used a .38special case for under a slug, and a .357 case for a ball. Now I use a flask with spout, (actually a small horn with a spout) the spout measures/throws 24 grains, and I just use that for both, although I've pretty much converted/am converting to using just slugs. The .38 case might be around 20 grains. ? That was also my 'light" load for the ball.

Did your wrenches not fit, or were the nipples very tight? When you do get them off, and re-install, just snug them down. Like spark plugs, snug, not tight. Sometimes with new guns, the nipples will be in too tight, (just got one however, where the nipples were loose!) and of course, sometimes those nasty previous owners like to torque them in there hard.

I'll defer to the Kid on this, but I sure would not dunk any of my revolvers in a bucket of water. Maybe the cylinder, maybe the barrel if it was a Colt, but not the frame.

I have an Uberti Remington Navy, sure love that gun. Accurate and reliable. Also a great fan of the .36 caliber. It's better than most people think.

Good luck.

Opinions on this/that vary wildly. So no, I can't say it was not a good idea. People do it all the time, and if it works for you that's fine. I just don't like to mix my guns with water. But, I don't mind cleaning them the slow way either. The bucket-and-scrub is certainly a fast and easy way. I probably shouldn't have said anything, and it certainly did not answer your question.

Water with soap followed by rinsing works but you must be sure to not let it sit without drying it off. Everything has to be totally dry immediately after cleaning. Using boiling or very hot water helps in both dissolving the powder residue and evaporation of all water residue after wiping dry. Of course if you do use water on the entire gun you will have to reapply any oil or grease lost or contaminated by soap and water.

Other people like to pack and coat the inside with grease which from what I read does a decent job of keeping any fowling out as well as preventing rust and providing lubrication. They usually prefer to clean the cylinder, barrel, exterior, pins or arbors, and inner frame without taking the action apart. They may use soap and water, ballistol, or some other black powder cleaner but the inner action remains untouched. This seems to work quite well too from what I read. In my opinion some people are a bit hydrophobic about using any water at all on any part of the gun. I don't agree water works if it's done right.

Others don't like to ever remove the nipples for fear of eventually wearing out the nipple threads from constant assembly and disassembly. I think the nipples need to be removed at least once before firing to address any possible binding and preventing it from getting worse after being fowled by powder residue. Put choke lube or other good anti seize lube on the nipple threads because one never knows you may need to remove or replace them someday. I for one think removing the nipples and cleaning them ofter shooting is a good idea.

Using pyrodex may create a need to expedite cleaning faster than with black but either way immediate cleaning is always in order after shooting if you don't want to risk rust.

Oh I forgot to mention it's a good idea after buying a brand new muzzleloader to do a total strip down and wipe down of all that gunky preservative grease that was smeared on at the factory because it does not mix well with black powder and or substitute residue and will turn into nasty dirty fowling.

A good fitting wrench (as in perfectly fitting) is the best way to ensure happiness.
The best way to get a wrench that fits perfectly is to make it yourself, which is really not hard to do.
Made with a 1/4 in drive socket (I think a deep socket is best) is one of the easiest ways (as previously suggested)
I've also made wrenches with a #8 bolt, but that takes more work and tools.

If the caps are loose, you can tighten them up by filing down the end of the nipple.
Since the nipples are cone shaped, shortening them makes the OD that the cap interfaces larger.
It doesn't take mutch typically to get them fitting just right.

Once the insides are packed with grease the powder fouling has a hard time getting into the works, also the action shield the Kid and Mike from Goons install help a lot as well.

Using mobile1 grease inside the gun keeps fouling from caking onto the moving parts and reduces friction and wear. On my colts i dont have to do a full strip down to clean...just remove the barrel and cylinder and remove nipples from cylinder (i dont always have to remove the nipples as they are well greased and protected from fouling and/or moisture that could cause rust which can/will prevent the nipples from being removed). I clean my barrel and cylinder with a spray bottle of "L.A. Totally Awesome" (its a degreaser cleaner only found in dollar stores and i swear by it. This will remove any wax or oils from the lube that have mixed with fouling and embedded in the steels pores especially in the barrel. I use patches and a bore brush. Once clean i will "rinse" the gun with a spray bottle filled with a mix of Ballistol and distilled water..spray down the gun and do a few swipes with a patch. I do this for the cylinder as well. If the nipples were removed i usually just soak them in pure "L.A. Totally awesome" and it removes the fouling inside and out". If the nipples are clogged ill use a safety pin or needle to clear them. Do not use wood or toothpick as they can break and clog your nipple hole. The frame is just wiped down and cleaned and not taken apart because my guns are all fitted with a hammer sheild...so no fouling or cap fragments ever enter my gun. So its basically sealed from anything entering therefor i dont ever have to clean the inside of my guns. When i do a full break down the grease and parts are still clean. If you dont have a hammer sheild then yes the grease will be a bit dirty but it will be easy to clean by just wiping down the parts and removing the dirty grease. The grease will have done its job and kept the fouling from damaging bolts and parts. You can go a step further and use a cleaner to remove the grease film that the rag/napkin didnt wipe off the parts...but i feel this isnt necessary. Once parts are wiped clean just re-apply the grease to the parts and put the gun back together. I dont even use the sink or running water to clean my guns...all i use are the spray guns and my guns still look new. My cleaners consist of a spray bottle "L.A. Totally Awesome", a spray bottle that has a mix of Ballistol and distilled water, and sometimes i will apply Barricade to my guns because i live in a very humid area. My tools for cleaning are a small rod with a wire brush attachment..i use both bronze/brass and nylon brushes, a dowel rod that i use to run patches down the barrel and cylinder chambers. And of course i have my nipple wrench and lubes/greases that i use to apply on the nipple threads and arbor/cylinder pin.

brewer12345 said:

So after you pack it, does that mean that cleaning the gun in a bucket of hot, soapy water is not an option?

Click to expand...

Yes, that's the rub.
A person needs to choose which way that they want to clean their gun before packing it with grease.

Some folks have used dry powdered graphite lube on the internal parts to keep black powder fouling from sticking.
It may only work for a shooting session or two but doesn't interfere with washing it. --->>> https://www.lowes.com/pd/Hillman-Gr...RFi9eq-9Pe2BRkAx8YxoC5XMQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

brewer12345 said:

So after you pack it, does that mean that cleaning the gun in a bucket of hot, soapy water is not an option?

Click to expand...

Yes. Not an option and unnecessary... I’m detail stripping revolvers about once a year now. Otherwise I just clean the exterior, bore and chambers. Removing any powder fouling I can see. Oil with Eezox, let dry and reload.

@arcticap brings up a great point. There are quite a few ways to handle cleaning. About as many as there are shooters darn near. Experiment. The goal is a gun that doesn’t rust, runs the way you want for as long as you want it to. I live in the high desert and what works brilliantly here might fail miserably in Missouri or North Carolina.

I only detail-strip a revolver once in a great while, depending on how much it's been shot. I'm kind of leery of pulling the little screws out of the grip frame on a Colt over and over, seems like more chances of cross threading one, or boogering one up. But, when I do, I don't find much fouling, and have never found rust. On the Remington, just pulling the grips and trigger guard involves a whole lot less screws and screwing around. Ha ha...get it? So my Remington probably gets detailed more often than my Colts. And besides, she's the Belle of the ball, the spoiled child, the favored one, the Lucky gun, (every time I shoot a deer, she seems to be on my side) the Queen of the Pistolas, the Spoiled child. !!!!

I just weighed the charges that a .357 and .38 case throw, kind of surprised me, what I considered my "light" load, out of the .38 case, is actually 24 grains, which is more of a "nice" load. The .357 case throws 28 grains, which is quite healthy under a ball.

The Remington Navy, built on the Army frame, which is what mine is, and I assume yours also, does not mind a heavy load. I think one could get a little over 30 grains under a ball. I shoot 24 grains in mine for both ball and slug. 24 grains leaves plenty of room for the slug, my slugs seat well under the chamber mouth with 24 grains. Will be trying some different slugs soon, but I'm liking how the gun shoots with 24 grains, and that way I don't have to worry about two different charges when out in the field. Also my 1860 likes 24 grains under a slug, so one size fits all!

Anyhow, if you have a .38 case laying around, that will give you a pretty accurate measurement of 24 grains, which should shoot as well as 20 grains, or better, as those Remington chambers are long and deep.

brewer12345 said:

- How the heck do you get the nipples off the cylinder? I tried two different wrenches and it seems like neither would work.
- I only had my rifle powder measure with me so it was hard to be precise since the thing is designed to go up to 150 grains and the range I was looking for was 9 to 22 grains of 3F. What do I need to measure more finely?
- of the loads I tested, 20 grains seemed the most promising although I will need to experiment further. All loads shot 4 to 6 inches low and a couple to the left. Any obvious way to get closer to POA? The front sight is dovetailed.
- none of my existing cleaning rods are skinny enough for a 36 cal. Any suggestions?
- I started out trying Rem #11 caps but half of them fell off the nipples (which are supposed to take #11 caps) before I could fire those chambers. #10 Rem caps fit and stayed on, although my supply of those is modest. I mostly have CCI #11. are they a little tighter than the #11 Rem? Any obvious solution?

Click to expand...

In order:
1. You may need to soak the nipples in penetrating oil.
2. There are dedicated pistol measures available. Pedersoli has one.
3. Move the front sight in the direction OPPOSITE from the way you want the bullet holes to move.
4. Get a .36 caliber cleaning jag. 9mm/.357 will do.
5. Squeeze the caps before putting them on the nipples. Just a little bit will be enough.