Howdy Again
You don't have to take the sideplates off and do a detailed cleaning every time you shoot it.
When I shoot Black Powder, I clean with something called Murphy's Mix. Murphy's Mix is 1/3 Murphy's Oil Soap, 1/3 drugstore rubbing alcohol, and 1/3 drugstore Hydrogen Peroxide. I buy 1/2 gallon of each and mix them in an empty opaque milk jug to keep sunlight away from the H2O2.
I know I will get a lot of grief for stating this, a lot of folks think the best way to clean a BP gun is with hot water. I used to clean with hot water back when I got my first C&B revolver in 1968. But there are a couple of new wrinkles that are especially useful with cartridge guns shot with Black Powder.
First off, we all know that BP fouling is hygroscopic and will attract moisture from the atmosphere, causing rust in the bore. But if the fouling can be infused with oil, it loses its ability to suck extra moisture out of the air. Think of it as a dry sponge. If you saturate a dry sponge with water, it cannot take on any more water. It is the same with BP fouling. If you can saturate it with oil, it loses its ability to absorb any water from the atmosphere. The fouling is already saturated with oil.
Here is how Murphy's Mix works when cleaning BP. First off, drugstore rubbing alcohol is usually about 20% water and drugstore Hydrogen Peroxide is only about 3% H2O2, the rest is water. It is this water content that actually does the dissolving of BP fouling when using Murphy's Mix. Yes, water is a terrific BP solvent. The alcohol in the Mix serves as a drying agent, to accelerate the drying of the solvent, and the Per Oxide provides a little bit of fizzing action to help lift off any stubborn fouling. When the alcohol, water, and Per Oxide evaporate, the Murphy's Oil Soap is left behind. The Oil Soap remains as an oily residue. It soaks into any remaining BP fouling, preventing it from absorbing any moisture from the air and rendering any remaining fouling harmless. Once soaked with oil, any BP fouling can remain down in the action for a long time and it will not cause any rust.
Here's what I do when I clean a lever gun that I have shot with Black Powder. First, I pop a spent cartridge into the chamber and close the action. Then I stand the gun up against something muzzle up. Using a regular cleaning rod, I place a cleaning patch in the slotted end of the cleaning rod. Don't use a jag, use the slotted end. After soaking the patch with Murphy's Mix I twirl it down the bore, then with draw it back out. On the first pass it will be filthy black and crusty with BP fouling. After three or four more passes with fresh wet patches, the patch will come out cleaner and cleaner. When it comes out dirty gray, with out any more crust, all the fouling has been wiped off of the bore and is being held in the empty case in the chamber. The bore is clean at this point. Then I turn the rifle upside down and eject the empty onto the ground. A spray of filthy black solvent will follow the case out, so don't get any on you, and don't do this on the wife's new white carpet. The bore is essentially clean now. Be sure to hold the rifle upside down with the bolt open, so the dirty solvent drips out of the action, and not back in.
The reason to not use a jag when doing this is a jag and patch can get jammed in the spent case in the chamber. A patch passed through the slotted end of the cleaning rod is thinner and will not get jammed in the empty case. If you get the rod jammed in the empty case you will be an unhappy camper.
I shoot 44-40 in all my lever guns, and 44-40 seals the chamber beautifully because the brass at the case mouth is so thin. You are shooting 45 Colt, and you will most likely experience more blowback because the 45 Colt cartridge does not seal the chamber as well as 44-40 does. So you will have a bit of fouling to wipe off the carrier, the bolt, and the mortice the carrier rides up and down in. Clean that off with a couple of patches soaked in Murphy's Mix.
Now here is the secret. Work some Murphy's Mix down inside the action of the gun. Use Q-Tips to work some in where the firing pin extension protrudes at the rear, turn the gun upside down and work some in where the trigger comes out, and work some in everywhere else you can get access to the action.
Now follow up with one patch soaked with Ballistol down the bore. Follow that patch with a dry patch to soak up any extra Ballistol, just leaving a light coating on the bore. Unlike a muzzle loader, with a cartridge gun there is no problem leaving oil in the bore. There will be no powder to contaminate. Leaving a light coating of Ballistol in the bore will protect the bore from any further rust, and coat any fouling you might not have gotten out of the bore. Same thing with the action. Run some Ballistol down into the action, to coat every thing inside. And rub some Ballistol on the exposed surfaces of the bolt, the carrier, and the mortice the carrier rides up and down in.
I know this all sounds heretical on this board. I am a new guy here, and I have seen that most shooters here are shooting Black Powder through muzzle loaders. And I see that most like to clean with just plain water, and I respect that. But I am here to tell you that this works. I have five lever guns that I shoot in Cowboy Action Shooting, and I shoot them all with Black Powder. I have an Uberti Henry, an Uberti 1873, an original Marlin Model 1894 made in 1895, and two Winchester Models 1892, made in 1894 and 1918. I clean them all this way. Once a year I will completely disassemble them and clean out all the black, oily guck that is down inside. Yes, there is plenty of it, and those who prefer a white glove inspection will not approve. But I have been doing this for close to ten years now and when I clean out all the oily guck inside there is never any rust. The beauty of this method is you don't have to take everything apart every time to get all the water and the fouling out. You just leave it in there. It probably takes me all of ten minutes to clean a lever gun with this method.
I also use the same method for cartridge revolvers shot with Black Powder.
I will say that when I am going to dedicate a firearm to Black Powder, rifle, shotgun, or revolver, I usually detail strip it and completely remove all the factory lubrication with a strong solvent like lacquer thinner. Then I relubricate the gun with Ballistol when I reassemble it.
Anyway, I am ducking now because I know a lot of members of this board will not consider my method a good practice, but I have been doing it for years and it does work.
Anyway, here she is with her new cowboy family
