Cleaning black powder

[fishblade2]

I have read many threads over the subject of cleaning and seen many videos of cleaning methods that seem to work for people. Today I had my first experience with real black powder. I have seen many people online shoot over time hundreds of rounds out of their black powder pistols and guns and their gun still remains so clean. Today I shot my pocket derringer about 20 times with real Goex black powder and afterwards cleanup was not only a pain (which I don't mind) but it stained spots on my gun. These spots came up some here and there as I was shooting and afterwards I immeditely went in and rinsed with hot water and began cleaning with ballistol. I let it set some and clean as much as possible but my gun still had spots that were stained black. I was wondering if other people have this problem with black powder. I know it's impossible to keep perfectly clean but the pocket derringer was a little gun that didn't cost that much. My other .44 cal pistol I care a lot about and It's nickel plated with a brass frame. I don't want to go out and shoot it and then come back and scrub the gun to death and clean it properly and still have black stained spots all over the outside of the gun.

Is there any way to stop this from happening and mostly I'm trying to figure out if this is something that happens to almost everyone that shoot black powder. Thanks for the help

 

[[email protected]]

Everybody seems to have their best way to clean. I won't knock what others
do to clean, I'll just tell you my way . I been doing this for over 50 years. I
use plain old tap water. Not hot, no soap, just cold tap water. After drying
the pistols get a shot of WD-40. That's all. All the pistols we use in competition are custom made and cost over 700.00 each. The barrels must
be in tip top shape. These two pistols I am showing you have been cleaned
in this manner. The "Lightning" is over 20 years old and has been shot about
10,000 times. The other one is about 15 years old and has been shot about
the same. I have quite a few more like this. But as you can see, NO RUST!
This is just a example to show you that plain water and WD-40 works. This
is my method and several of my friends method that shoot high dollar custom
pistols. But what do we know?

 

[BCRider]

From the sounds of it in the other thread you shot the derringer with no lube. FOr starters that is part of the problem. It means there was no oil or other carrier to hold the fouling so it wants to stick to the metal all the harder.

When you clean the gun in hot water use a dash of liquid laundry or dish soap with it. Or perhaps a dash of that Murphy's Oil. The MO I've never used so I can't say if it's a better idea than the detergent or not.

And then use a soft but stiff bristle brush. Actually "hard" grade tooth brushes work very nicely. For the bore you'll want to figure out a good brush that will work down at the end of a dead ended chamber and bore. That's one aspect I'm still working to solve. So far I've tried to use a wood dowel that I've sized down to fit the chamber of my revolver cylinders that uses a muzzle loading patch as a jag and patch. The advantage being that it cleans the blank end of the chamber as well as the sides. With any rifling though I'm not sure now well it would work.

If you're the sort that likes to keep their guns very "dry" then try wiping them down with an oily rag before shooting. Hopefully the oil will act a little more as a barrier to avoid the stains getting as strong a hold.

One other thing. Don't let the guns soak in the hot soapy water. I found out that it leads to flash rust on various parts. Now I use hot soapy water but wash and brush out one part at a time followed by a hot water rinse to remove the soap and wipe dry and use a hair dryer to dry out cavites that are not easily wiped down. Shortly after this the dry parts are swabbed down with a cheap 1/2 inch paintbrush and some Ballistol. The paint brush again gets into the nooks and crannies that a wipe with a patch or rag would not reach.

There's no doubt that it takes some time to clean a BP gun. But with a few tricks and special tools suitable for each style you can make the job easier. The big focus for me, as you can tell, is how best to clean dead end bores effectively. It's simply not as easy as it could be to reach down into a blind bore and do a good job at the "dark end" without a few tricks.

 

[royal barnes]

I'm an avid cowboy action shooter and have shot nothing but BP for the last 12 years. I shoot .44-40's with a soft cast lead bullet with a large lube groove containing a mixture of 50/50 beeswax and olive oil. I have shot as many as 100 rounds out of each pistol and rifle without so much as wiping them off. Cleaning is with a mixture of 8 parts water and 2 parts Ballistol. Cleanup is easy with no leading or "flash spots" as you are calling them. The secret is proper lube, soft bullet and real BP. When I get through shooting I clean what you can see, exterior surfaces, barrel and chambers. I only strip my guns once a year for complete cleaning. I find a little black sludge on the yearly clean but never any rust. It takes about 45 minutes to clean 2 handguns, 1 rifle and a shotgun during my regular sessions. My smokeless guns actually take longer.

 

[fishblade2]

Yes the dead end breech on the derringer makes it extremely hard to clean properly but after doing some research I do believe that no lube was the main problem here. I believe that if I had lubed before and cleaned some during the fouling would not have been that bad. The only other main question I have is about the action of the gun being kept clean. I know for instance not with my derringer but with my .44 caliber cap and ball revolver that I could use lubed patches and clean some after so many shots but when it's all done and over I still have the action and trigger assembly that black powder residue has been blown into after each shot. Does this cause these areas an increase chance of flash stains and/or corrosion while shooting like it has my derringer while shooting? What can I do to keep these areas safer for black powder fouling. I just mostly want the gun no matter how dirty it gets for me to be capable of cleaning it off.

 

[hawkeye74]

You are on the right track about the lube. Find a good one that works in your firearm and stick with it.

As for the action areas on my CB revolvers, After a thorough break down and cleaning, I fill them with lithium grease prior to shooting again. This makes the range cleaning and full cleaning much easier. Traps most all of the fouling so that the metal stays pristine. Would not wait a year between cleaning though as over time, the internals might fail on you. Seen it happen over and over among the re-enactor crew.

I use equal parts Murphy's Oil Soap, Alcohol and Hydrogen Peroxide for cleaning. After 20 year's, best cleaning solution tried.

 

[[email protected]]

Since we are talking about revolvers, here's mine after about 2,000 shots
cleaned with just plain water and dryed then Wd-40.

 

[fishblade2]

nice pistols! Yeah that is my main concern now because I can use lube in the cylinder and barrel, oil on the outside to keep fouling down but the action is an area that has all the nooks and crannies in it that are hard to clean.

 

[fishblade2]

By the way here are some pictures of the gun and the stains I was talking about. I wasn't able to clean them off anymore than this.. The worse part of the gun was the inside of the bare frame. It was fouled horribly and I couldn't get it clean. I wasn't able to get a picture of it due to bad lighting but the breech plug area show a great example of what the frame looks like on the inside. This is why i'm concerned about the inside of my nicer cap and ball revolver and the actions of the gun.

 

[BCRider]

My guns cleaned up nicely much like kwhi's.

Much of the fouling and stain on the rear face of your derringer is likely the cap flash residue. If water or water with a little soap along with a stiff brush doesn't remove it then try some various smokeless cleaning solvents. SOMETHING will work.

 

[Marlin 45 carbine]

a method I've developed from amny campouts when I toted my BP revolvers (a '58 Buffalo 12" bbl and a ROA 7.5" bbl presently) is to heat water in coffee pot. I have a small 1.5" stiff paint brush and brush the pistol as I pour the water over and into the cylinder chambers.
then I spray it down sopping wet with winsheild washer fluid I pack along in a spray bottle. really wet it down then let it set couple mins and brush again. then rinse with more warm water so it will dry faster. or you can use ambient temp water if you have a fire going so you can lay the piece down on warm rock to dry quickly.
then the WD40 or some such. this is what I do at home except I detail strip and grease the cylinder pin (a good idea to do in the field too as bullet lube does fine)
wipe off excess patch the cylinder chambers dry and reload.
some would say this is too much trouble but consider that I'll fire 60-70 shots per revolver and I don't have any rust at all the brush and w/w fluid removes primer flash from the nipple area also.

 

[royal barnes]

I,too, was skeptical when I was first told by an old time BP shooter that "cleaning the internals of my guns everytime I shot them was just wearing out the screws". He was right. I have never had a gun failure with my cleaning system but I do change springs once a year when I thoroughly clean them. I wouldn't judge the frequency of cleaning my guns based on reenactors. They can be lax on cleaning properly. To each his own but WD-40 will never be in the same room with any of my guns much less on and in them.

 

[fishblade2]

well I have a question for you Royal Barnes, If I keep the gun lubed near but not inside the actions, keep the outside of the gun oiled to prevent flash stains , and lube/lubed patches for the barrel and cylinders will this be enough to keep myself from having to take the action completely down to clean the inside of the frame and the action assembly that often? Because with my small derringer I didn't take the gun down to clean the inside of the frame until the second round of shooting and man did it not only fill but stained the inside of it horribly...

On a side not how easy is it to get supplies for the cap and ball guns (such as screws and springs)?

 

[royal barnes]

I can't speak about your derringer since I have no experience with them but any c&b revolver will run just fine with standard bp lubricants and internal cleaning will not be required frequently. If you have doubts about my cleaning methods do like I did and go a couple of months without cleaning the insides. If you don't find any rust then add a couple more months to the interval until you are up to about a year. When I clean a revolver shot with BP I clean everything you can see and then spray a little ballistol in the hand window and in the cylinder stop slot. I also lube the cylinder pin, inside the barrel and chambers with Ballistol. I then wipe the outside of the pistol with a ballistol cloth. I have been using this cleaning method on my BP firearms for several years and I have never found any rust in the internals.

VTI and Dixie Gun Works sell replacement parts for c&b revolvers.

 

[loose noose]

Fishblade, All you have to do to remove the stains on that derringer is get a piece of 0000 steel wool, and WD-40, spray a bit on the stains, then very lightly use the 0000 steel wool, it should remove all the stains with very little effort, but be sure to use the 0000 steel wool, in a circular motion. Had the same problem on my set of .31 Caliber derringers a few years ago used it and it worked like a charm.

 

[arcticap]

The MidwayU.S.A. website says that the Shooter's Choice Black Powder Cleaning Gel Bore Cleaner was discontinued, but the DNR Sports product page is still listing it as being available:

http://www.dnrsports.com/catalog/product/f68490f3a5eb30622423be506d2215de

And CVA BARREL BLASTER WONDER GEL SOLVENT is another product that really works to remove crusty, baked-on powder residue.

http://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/product/productId/2732

American Pioneer Powder residue really is water soluble enough to be easily swabbed away, even if some crusty APP residue builds up inside the bore of a C&B revolver. I only use the APP 3F because the 2F is so chunky, and it notably produces more velocity as its compaction is increased.

 

[kBob]

Just a quick recap on this and its sister post.....

Never use petroleum products, and WD-40 and Ballistol are the things to use...

Clean everything every time but it is OK to not clean internal workings for a year......


Clean between shots but don't bother......

Only boiling hot Special mixed super duper glop really works and plain tap water is great...

Seems to me what is being communicated is that different folks are.....well...different.

Try different means of cleaning and or preserving your guns until you find one you can live with.

Personally I thought the black stains left on "brass" parts from BP firing were called "character" and staining on steel parts was called "Patina"

Shoot safe!

-kBob

 

[royal barnes]

KBOB, My '66 Yellow Boy is regularly mistaken for an original because of the patina on the brass receiver.

 

[fishblade2]

first of all thank you all for your advice and help. I am responding now to this thread after my first day out with the black powder pistol. Because of using wonder lube over the chambers the cylinder and the barrel was a breeze to clean. The problem areas was first the cylinder on the back side where the nipples are. The area right around the nipples came clean but took some elbow grease. Is there any procedure I can do before hand that would help that area clean better but not cause any problems with fire getting through?

THe other majaor area that I did have a problem with was the brass frame. On the front of it where the indexing clawl was and at the top where the the hammer goes was really black and I couldn't get it all off. I lubed the gun pretty well with Ballistol, waited 15 minutes, and then barely wiped it off and my gun still got these stained areas. I don't understand. Do you guys lube your guns a lot to keep the fouling soft because right now that is the only way I see this working.

Last thing was I decided since it was my first time to take the gun completely apart. I wanted to check the trigger and actions in the gun. THey were nothing like what people have said they would be. Their was quite a bit of powder on all the actions and it wasn't in any "sluge" form that I could wipe off easily. IS there any thing I possible didn't do right to cause this to happen? I did spray some ballistol down in the action and main frame before shooting but nothing else. Should I be using more of it or in a different way to keep the fouling so soft that I could take my guns down after four shootings (or even longer) and clean the insides still readily easy?

Thanks for the help.

 

[mb3]

Warm soapy water, and WD40 is all you need to clean. I also leave my BP guns stored with a light coat of Bore Butter. If you dont have WD40 you can use a light oil but, WD40 is much better at disbursing moisture (it is not a good lubricant).

 

[Foto Joe]

If you're using Ballistol to clean then the internals will eventually build up a black sludge that will be harmless and lube the action well. It won't happen over nite though.

As far as the staining is concerned, the area you are concerned about may or may not have been adequately polished. This gives the crud something to hang on to.

Be forewarned, if you want your brass to be shiny the best method is not to shoot it. Personally, I let mine age naturally. I think it ads character.

 

[wleggart]

the old guys used "sweet oil" i.e. olive oil! Can't talk about 20,000 shots like ya'll can, but easy to clean with windex+ammonia, then olive oil.

 

[[email protected]]

Another one of mine about 15 years old shot thousands of times. Only has
seen water for cleaning and WD-40.

 

[fishblade2]

kwhi43 I am interested in your method of using water and WD-40. Particularly what is the WD-40 exactly used for? get the moisture out? What can this not be sprayed on the gun? Do you only wash the barrel with water? Lastly I know that WD-40 is a good lubricant so do you use a lubricant afterward the WD-40 or only before shooting the gun?

 

[loose noose]

Hey Kwhi43, what is that crud around the forcing cone on that revolver. Looks like it's peeling or something.