How do you clean your BP rifle?

the wife hates guns in the house unlocked and has a fit when they are out!

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Guess I'm lucky, I don't have one of those hanging around interfering with my hobbies!

Harrod said:

the wife hates guns in the house unlocked and has a fit when they are out!

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You're suppose to keep her distracted just like a magician does when he's doing tricks.

The first time I clean a new gun (I usually do this before I ever fire the gun) I half-fill a five gallon bucket with warm water and dish soap. I remove the barrel from the gun, remove the nipple, and drop the nipple and the breech end of the barrel into the water. With a mop or tight-fitting patch I swab the barrel about 50 times, pumping lots of water into and out of the barrel. Then I scrub the nipple with a toothbrush, rinse it with clean hot water, blow through it a couple of times, and set it aside.

Then I dump the water from the bucket and refill with hot, soapless water. I repeat the swabbing until the barrel is hot to the touch. I blow through it from the muzzle, trying to blow as much water out as possible, then patch it dry with two or three patches. The heat in the barrel ensures that the last molecules of water quickly evaporate.

Then, using Bore Butter or Wonder Lube on a patch wrapped around a bore brush, I swab the bore a few dozen times. I put a bit of the same lube on the nipple threads and install it, then wipe down the outside of the barrel, along with the other exposed metal surfaces, with a bit more lube on a patch.

After that first cleaning, I never use soap, just clean hot water. The idea is that swabbing with the lube "seasons" the bore over time, making it more resistant to fouling and rust, and that soap tends to remove this "seasoning". I have no idea if this is true - and it sounds a little fishy to me - but by the same token, my guns are always easy to clean and never rust, even along my humid coast.

With hot water that I can barely touch. Pushing and pulling patches through to suck the hot water up and down the barrel, which is removed from the furniture and the breech plug and nipple removed.

I use the water that hot so the steel gets hot, therefore dries more quickly, however, just to help it dry, I place the barrel on my boiler manifold near the boiler to really heat it up. In less than 20 minutes, the barrel is bone-dry and ready for a good patch of bore butter. Then I wipe all exterior surfaces down with BreakFree. I then reassemble the entire rifle. Total time, perhaps 40 minutes.

I second the oil soap/alcohol/peroxide mix. Either way, buy a good synthetic preservative oil like Clenzoil or FP-10 to coat the metal with. Steer clear of silicone based stuff like WD40.

Anymore, I don't use anything but water to clean. Just remove the barrel and nipple, then use a plastic bucket with hot water. Finish by pouring scalding water down the barrel (use a towel to insulate your hand!) Quickly dry and wipe down with Bore Butter. It melts immediately on the hit metal. I then let the metal cool and wipe off the excess.

I don't use any soap because after a few cleanings, the oil saturates the pores of the metal. The result is metal that is more resistant to corrosion and water. Water actually beads on the metal when I am cleaning the rifle. I have also been able to wait several days after shooting before cleaning (not on purpose of course) and not a hint of rust.

Another bonus: no solvents means there is no smell in the house, so your Wife might not object.

On my percussion .54 Cal Pedersoli Tryon Rifle.

After a match; 'Hoppes #9 plus' BP solvent and patch lube and cotton shotgun patches. two or three soaked patches followed by dry patches. When patches come out clean, another wet patch to lube barrel.

Once a year or so, take out the nipple & drum clean out screw, put breach end in bucket of hot water & a little dish soap and use tight fitting patch on ramrod to piston the fluid in and out of the barrel to get every little speck of fouling out. Dry, reassemble and lube with Balistol.

I'm with BluEyes. Plain hot water. I saw occasional rust forming instantly when I'd use just a little soap. I never see it with plain water, and I grease the steel immediately when it comes out of the water too. The hot water heats the steel so it dries very quiclky. It may not be strictly necessary, but I always remove the nipple(s).

For revolvers I almost always completely take down the gun, to the last screw. When I shoot I tend to shoot a lot, so everything gets taken down and cleaned. On reassembly I grease & oil the snot out of everything. I believe it makes cleanup easier, and the revolvers seem to run longer without getting stiff. Other than some bluing coming off the rifling and some holster wear, my guns look new after several years and many hundreds of rounds each.

For the percussion long gun, I rarely remove the lock for cleaning, and even then it isn't very dirty and it's never corroded. The barrel comes out is all, and that's because it's a hooked breech affair. With a fixed breech I suppose I'd find a good cleaning attachment for the nipple hole so I could "slush pump" the bore as I do now, or remove the barrel/tang and clean as with the hooked breech. If the inletting were really good, I'd leave the barrel/tang assembly in place for sure, but my Lyman has nasty, nasty inletting so it woudn't matter in that case.

Ah! and don't forget the patent breech. There's often a "powder chamber" at the breech that's smaller than the bore, so you have to get a smaller jag to get down in there. They usually don't tell you much about that, but you can get plenty of gunk out of there even after you've cleaned the rest of the bore very well. IIRC the powder chamber in my Lyman takes a 35 caliber jag. Yours may vary. You may also want to know that some of the bore grease you used to treat the bore is going to get down into that powder chamber, and that may result in ignition problems if you don't clean it out prior to loading.

I have a T/C Hawken. Here's how I clean it. I fill a utility bucket with water that's hot enough that steam is rising from its surface. I put in a little dishwashing detergent. Then I put the breech end in the bucket and pump water into the barrel then force it out through the nipple. I don't always take the nipple off; after all, you're forcing water through it. After the squirting from the nipple starts to clear, I run a couple of patches through the barrel. T
Then I let it sit to dry. This doesn't take long; fifteen minutes at most. Then I run a patch with Bore Butter through it. This appears to be, from reading the posts, standard operating procedure.

I remove the barrel from the rifle and flush it with hot water in a bucket in the basement sink. I haven't found the need to heat the water hotter than what comes out of the tap. I use a tight fitting patch on a jag to syphon/pump the water up into the barrel. When clean, I dry the barrel inside (patch) and out (rag), then lube with Ballistol.

In the field, I have swabbed the barrel with T/C 13 bore cleaner, but when I run out of that, I'll switch to a diluted solution of Ballistol.

Spray and swab Moosemilk (20% Ballistol to water mix)down the bore, swab dry. Spray everything else dirty with Moosemilk and wipe dry....Done