Is cleaning supposed to be this hard?

[greyhound]

So I shot my new Hawken rifle, used Bore Butter and swabbed it out after every three shots to help with fouling, and I still ended up running scalding hot water down the barrell for two hours and it STILL wasn't 100% clean.

Is it supposed to be like that, in that I mean not 100% clean?

Any tips more experienced folks might have?

I also learned the hard way that if you clean w/water make sure its 100% dry - I had a little rust down by the knipple I had to take care of!

 

[sundance44s]

sundance44s

It`s because its new ..once it gets a good seasoning ..and bore butter is probally the best way to season it , it`ll be much easyer to clean ..your fouling is clinging to the barrel really bad because its new . Time will heal this .

 

[MCgunner]

Dish soap and a 20 gauge bronze brush seems to do the trick for me, along with the hot water. My Hawkin has a chrome bore so even though I use bore butter on it, I guess it won't "cure". Then again, it probably doesn't need to either.

 

[whipper]

I use Birchwood Casey’s Black powder solvent, in my Hawken’s as a patch lube and the clean up was easy. It helped season my barrel after the third trip out. Now it only takes about 15 – 20 minutes to clean the barrel.

 

[Tight_Wad]

Greyhound

Is the patch coming out black or brown? Black is obviously fouling but brown could indicate fresh light rust caused by the boiling hot water heating and oxidising the barrel as it instantly evaporates.

I know many will recommend boiling water as they say it opens up the pores of the metal and releases the last vestige of fouling. Personally, I just find it rusts the barrel instantly. I tend to use warm water and mop out thoroughly afterwards before using a moisture displacing gun oil. Who knows the right answer?

Tight Wad

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Studies have been done by the folks at the NMLRA (National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association) that show that hot water does just what Tite Wad has already pointed out.., speeds up the rusting process.

I use tow, cold water, and a piece of string. I rinse the barrel a couple of times, then take the tow or other mildly abrasive substance, put it tight in a loop at the end of the string, and ram it down. I take up tension on the string, and pull it almost out of the barrel, then ram it down again. This scrubs the barrel. I remove the tow, and substitute a cloth patch or dry tow, and dry the barrel. Then I apply either olive oil (known as sweet-oil 200 years ago and used for this very same purpose) or I apply a grease made of 3 parts olive oil and one part beeswax. I have checked this with a modern muzzleloader bore illuminator made by CVA, and it works fine. No rust either.

You have to swab the bore once a day for the next two days with a little olive oil if you're not going to shoot it very soon, but after that my rifles store just fine, no rust.

LD