fishblade2
Member
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2011
- Messages
- 202
Hello, I own two black powder rifles. One is a pocket derringer in 32 caliber and the other one is a modern in line muzzeloader (CVA brand with rifled barrel). First I just want to make sure that I have this right. With smoothbore I should use a patch and with rifled barrels I should use mini balls or bullets and sabots. Is this right? I am not sure about the bullets with sabots. Are those to only be used with modern muzzleloaders or can they be used for any old rifled barrel musket? Next I want to speak on loading them. First with my pocket derringer I can't seem to get the ball and patch down the barrel, even when it's clean. With my modern I don't use patches. So I don't know that much about when to use the patches. So again with smoothbore is it recommended to use patches to be more accurate? And again about reloading the muzzleloader I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or if loading them should be this hard. I have watched Hickok45 and his two army muskets load SOOO EASILY!!! He has said that bigger calibers, such as his 75 caliber, and with mini balls that loading is easy but with my modern muzzleloader after just 3 to 4 shots I have to clean the barrel to make loading easy again. Without this I have to put all my strength into pushing the bullet down... Is this a usual thing with rifled barrels or smaller calibers? About how I clean my muzzleloader in case this has anything to do with it. I Don't use solvents because I use bore butter by Thompson Center. This causes seasoning to build up on the barrel that solvent will destroy. So after 3 to 4 shots I take additional bore butter and apply it to a patch and I swab the barrel. This gets rid of quite a bit of crud and lubricates the barrels some but after that I find myself doing this more and more often. I have some Rem Oil (I know is not that great of stuff) but I'm afraid to use it because of it possibly ruining the seasoning of the bore butter. When I'm done shooting completely I use hot water to clean the barrel and breech plug. I dry them and then apply bore butter inside the barrel and ballistol on the outside of the barrel. Now my main question is if there is something I'm doing wrong or something to make loading easier. I have even though about using the ballistol to clean the barrel instead of water so that I load easier and use the water and bore butter method on muskets that are easier to clean that way. The last main thought I have had rests in the two different cleaning methods I just stated. Water cleans the barrel QUICKLY and I use maybe 2 patches and dry and get the last powder residue out but with patches and any cleaner I have used so far (besides ballistol, I haven't used it yet on black powder) it takes forever to clean the barrel (like 30 patches to become clean to a certain point) and it's such a PAIN! Does anyone know a better method because with older muskets, as far as i can tell, take some work to get the barrel separate to clean with water so I probably will stick with using a solvent on that such as ballistol but I want to make sure, that if possible, I can use ballistol in a certain manner that will make cleaner easier. I don't use my black powder rifles that often so when I use them I want them COMPLETELY clean so no rust happens between uses. Thanks for helping with all these questions.