Revolver care. How did they do it 150 years ago?

[BowerR64]

I finally found some at a gun show there was just a few tables selling it.

I then found a booth at a local black powder shop and he said people have told him he is the only one in town that has it.

Ive had the best luck with 2 cleaners, one comes in a kit from walmart its Tompson center Number 13 bore cleaner and the ballistol.

Then soap and water when im at home.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

The easiest way to find ballistol is to just call them up and ask where there is a local distributor. That's what I did, turned out a shop 45 minutes away carried it. I bought enough to last a few years.

Or just use the search box at the bottom of the web page.

http://www.ballistol.com/faqs/

You can buy it from Midway.

You can even find it at Amazon.

 

[Sagetown]

Double Your Pleasure ~ Double Your Fun..

 

[Sagetown]

I like regular Black Powder for my shooting. It's a Hoot !

 

[Big Al Mass]

Is that the mercury slosh? I still have a bottle of mercury use to use for lead fouling.

That's the one. "...then plug one end of the barrel, fill above the lead with mercury, plug the other end, let stand for a quarter hour and shake violently several times in the mean-time." Interesting grammar they used back then. I don't think I have ever seen the word violently used in instructions involving hazardous elements.

 

[shafter]

This is a very interesting thread!

Driftwood made a point I never thought of before, soldiers stripping down their revolvers and boiling the parts in a pot of water. I can envision that happening after a battle and to a lesser degree around a fire on a cattle drive. In hostile territory hopefully they wouldn't disassemble all the weapons at once.

I can also imagine a man carefully talking apart his revolver and cleaning and oiling it properly at his kitchen table. I can also see a man running a few patches through the bore and chambers and calling it a day.

 

[Steel Horse Rider]

150 years ago would make it 1863. The cattle drives and gunfighter era was just a little later when most were probably carrying cartridge guns, still black powder but not cap and ball. You had the explorers and trappers whose lives depended upon their weapons working and probably spent some time cleaning their daily use rifles but probably did not obsess on the rust factor as do those of today. As long as they worked when called upon all was fine. I am sure the military was as anal about keeping the equipment working and clean as they are now which would lend credence to the boiling pot of water and some type of grease or oil that was likely animal fat based. I am pretty sure there were very few specialty products in use, unless they could also cure a multitude of diseases, both in humanity and animals.....

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

OK. SO tell me about Ballistol. Is it available at Autozone, Walmart, or other widespread retailers? Can I then inject Ballistol into the lock work via the trigger slot and hammer slot after wiping the gun down well outside, wiping the bore and cylinders inside and not worry about a tear down except maybe yearly?

Howdy Again

Sorry, I did not see your post earlier. I have already mentioned where you can find Ballistol.

Yes, you can squirt it directly into the lockwork. My typical treatment of a revolver, after cleaning it real well with my favorite water based Black Powder solvent is to take a few q-tips and work Ballistol into the slot where the hand pokes through, and work some down inside the hammer slot. I will also leave a fine coating of Ballistol in the bore and the chambers. Leaving oil in the chambers of a C&B revolver is a bit problematic, but it is not a problem with a cartridge revolver. With a C&B you will want to fire a few caps on the nipples to burn out the residual oil in the chambers before charging them with powder.

 

[Crawdad1]

This is from Ned H. Roberts' book "The Muzzle-Loading Cap Lock Rifle", where he writes,

"As a boy I was taught the only right way to clean a rifle {or pistol} is as follows: place the hammer in the half cock notch, place a small funnel in the muzzle, hold the rifle in the vertical position by means of a towel or cloth around the barrel near the muzzle which is twisted so as to form a handle to prevent burning the hand in case the hot water is spilled. Then with a basin set on the floor to catch the water from the nipple, pour about two quarts of boiling water slowly through the barrel letting it run out of the nipple."

"Then stand the rifle in a corner with the muzzle down for about ten minutes so the barrel will cool somewhat, but do not let it stand long enough to get cold: then with a piece of outing flannel, or canton flannel, in the slotted end of the cleaning rod, swab out the bore using six or eight pieces of cloth until you have apparently wiped the bore dry."

"Then with a proper sized cleaning patch of material, wet with pure sperm oil, used on the notched end of the cleaning rod, swab out the bore with three or four oiled patches; wipe out with a dry patch to be sure that all powder residue has been removed, then with a smaller piece of cleaning material in the slotted end of the rod, well wet with sperm oil, wipe the bore slowly the whole length and leave this oil in the bore until the rifle is again used. Wipe off the nipple, hammer, lock plate, barrel and the muzzle with another piece of cloth wet with sperm oil; also wipe over the stock and forearm with this oiled cloth and with the muzzle pointed obliquely towards the floor, place several drops of sperm oil in the vent of the nipple."

"Even when hunting in the wilderness, one can easily get boiled water in camp and clean the rifle after the day's hunt, and oil it as described."

 

[Crawdad1]

I figure that sperm oil was plentiful in New England, where he was from apparently, but it may or may not have been in other areas of the country, but sperm oil could be was replaced with other types of oil that would have been more plentiful in that particular region of the country. I would reckon.

He also writes,

"On arriving at camp, no matter what time of day or night, whether you are wet or dry, warm or cold, the FIRST THING TO BE DONE is to feed and care for your horse, next clean, oil and, if necessary, load your rifle; then get your supper, or meal, wash your dishes, get wood for your next fire, if needed, and then you have time to rest yourself. If you absolutely must neglect any one of these things, go without victuals, but care for your horse and rifle first, else you may not need any more victuals."

 

[swathdiver]

Ballistol is plentiful at Track of the Wolf.

 

[pohill]

I strip my guns completely after every shooting and clean with an ammonia mixture, then hot, soapy water, then rinse with clean water and let it all dry. My repros I lube internally with Bore Butter, my originals, if I don't plan on shooting for awhile, I lube with RemOil. Why? Because I can. I don't think I would have done it sitting around a campfire, but as soon as I could have, I would have.
I buy mostly used repros and I can tell ya, I appreciate the former owners who cleaned their guns well, and curse those who didn't. Stuck screws, frozen nipples, chunks of gunk and spent caps in the internals, dirty, rusty bores...all needless neglect.
And I'll bet that the originals that I have, that I shoot, have been well cared for, otherwise they wouldn't be shootable after all these years. I'd hate to see what a neglected repro BP revolver looks like in a hundred years.
About the only thing I'm anal about is a colonoscopy and I avoid those for ten years or so. My BP guns, I clean often.

 

[Sagetown]

Howdy pohill : Out of ignorance I abused my 1st BP firearm, and by the time I did learn something about cleaning, it was almost to late. As you say, stuck screws, rust, and frozen nipples. I had it all. Lots of reading and unnecessary work, plus the purchase of new screws, but I got her back in good shape. It's so much easier to learn the tricks of the trade you might say, and the gun will work like a clock. Now all my BP's get tender loving care.

 

[Hellgate]

The closest thing we have today to sperm oil is Automatic Transmission Fluid which I understand sperm oil was the original ATF. Some claim jojoba oil is similar.

 

[Crawdad1]

According to the description by Ned Roberts, I figure 150 years ago a bunch of cowboys around an open fire with a big pot of hot water and holding their revolvers submerged in the hot water by the grips wrapped with a rag. Pulling them out and cleaning and drying with rags and the oiling them up with whatever grease or oil they had.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

I figure 150 years ago a bunch of cowboys around an open fire with a big pot of hot water and holding their revolvers submerged in the hot water by the grips wrapped with a rag. Pulling them out and cleaning and drying with rags and the oiling them up with whatever grease or oil they had.

Howdy Again

Do you really think cowboys fired their guns that often, that they would sit around the campfire and clean them? Most cowboys were very young men who made very little money. Many did not own a firearm, and some ranches forbade cowboys from carrying them. On the trail, a cowpoke would be busy from dawn to dusk herding cattle, he would not have time for many shooting activities. And even if he did, very few cowboys would go through a box of ammo in an entire year.

The situation of sitting around the campfire at night, cleaning guns, is very unlikely to have happened.

We do know that Wild Bill practiced with his pistols every day, and cleaned them after each use. But Wild Bill was not your average cowboy.

 

[Sagetown]

Quote: Driftwood Johnson "Most cowboys were very young men who made very little money. Many did not own a firearm, and some ranches forbade cowboys from carrying them. On the trail, a cowpoke would be busy from dawn to dusk herding cattle, he would not have time for many shooting activities. And even if he did, very few cowboys would go through a box of ammo in an entire year. "

I've read where most cowboys didn't even own a saddle, let alone a horse, or gun. Now the Cattle Rancher and his foreman were more likely to be outfitted to the hilt.

 

[Crawdad1]

That's true, DJ, I just used the term "Cowboy" in its very generic sense in that one I should have said, settler or rancher or some other term. I've also read in a newer book about the James Gang, that during the Civil War, Jesse while still "able to" live at home would "Take the gang's revolvers to the barn to clean them" Unfortunately no specifics as to how he did clean their revolvers was written. But as Ned Roberts writes, I can see he would probably have cleaned them using hot water and some kind of oil, possibly.

 

[BowerR64]

You dont think they had bore butter back then?

To me bore butter seems like alot of natural oils

Some kind of pine or mint oil mixed in with some kind of lard and or wax bees wax maybe.

It has a mint smell to it so im sure there is some kind of mint oil or something in it.

 

[Crawdad1]

Bower, I don't know. The problem with quoting Ned Roberts is I don't know how much or how well traveled he is. But according to his writing it seems he stayed pretty close to New England and the New York area and what he had available probably or more likely wasn't available as you move across the country.

Its a good book about all of things muzzleloading including the competition rifle shooting going on back then and you can't beat his play by play description of the first Creed's Moor shoot.

 

[Sagetown]

This ole Cowboy has been in gun magazines for many years.

 

[Gatofeo]

Black powder fouling is, and always has been, nearly 100 percent soluble in water. It is not soluble in oil or grease.
I trust the old timers knew this, and used primarily water to clean their black powder arms.

Sperm Whale Oil was readily available in the 19th century. It's a very good lubricant, so it was used to lubricate moving parts.

Bear grease wasn't readily available to everyone, but whale oil, water and lye soap were.
I live in the remote Utah desert. There isn't a bear within 100-200 miles of me.

In the 19th century and early 20th century, the distribution of goods wasn't as efficient as today. The last stagecoach robbery was in 1916 in Jarbidge, Nevada. Yep, they were still using stagecoaches in 1916, to carry mail, passengers, payroll and minor freight to remote areas. Jarbidge remains a very remote town, often inaccessible with modern vehicles because of snow or mud.

I doubt there's a bear within 100 miles of Jarbidge.

We'll probably never satisfactorily know what the old timers used to clean, lubricate and preserve their black powder firearms.

Water, or water with additives, is a given. But aside from that, people used what was available. Colt's suggested clean water in its vintage instructions, as I recall.
I've used hot, soapy water for more than 40 years, to clean black powder revolvers and rifles. After cleaning, I rinse their bores with hot water, and wipe them dry while the metal was still heated. When dry, and still warm, I coat with olive oil. Never had any rust appear.

Did they clean their firearms meticulously all the time? It's doubtful, and the condition of original black powder guns today reflects how poorly they were maintained.
It wasn't abuse, but lack of opportunity to give them a good cleaning. They were kept loaded -- and handy -- often for weeks or months.

I don't think anyone can proclaim that this or that was used. I suspect a lot of ad hoc cleaners and lubricants were used.
Incidentally, I've never seen a vintage cap and ball revolver with any trace amounts of lubricant. All I've seen have been drier than Hell's saloon. Whatever the old timers used, it sure didn't last long.

 

[AethelstanAegen]

I think part of the problem is that the question is far to open ended. You can search here on the forums for posts asking about how people clean their guns today and you're going to find that almost everyone has a different method. I think that would certainly be the case 100-150 years ago as well. I don't think we're going to find the "right" answer to the question and it's highly likely that most of the options listed in this thread were used by someone or another back in the day.

 

[Steel Horse Rider]

The other problem, along the lines of Gatofeo's remarks, is that history generally doesn't record the normal day to day activities because "everyone" is doing it. One of my hobbies is learning all I can about the day to day activities of folks at a lot of points along our history, such as the cooking sanitary habits of the crews of sailing vessels pre-1800, there are a few museums that have the hardware and utensils but I have yet to find much complete detail. I have learned that our ancestors were generally much more resourceful than we are and I am pretty sure they never whined as much.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy Again

Regarding Sperm Whale Oil, it was a highly prized lubricant. Used in the watch and clock industry for many years until outlawed and replaced by modern lubricants. A friend of mine who makes his living repairing antique clocks keeps a small bottle of 'pre-ban' Sperm Whale oil in his shop.

Do not forget that after the Civil War, railroads enjoyed a huge surge of growth in the US, that did not slow down until automobiles and trucks began supplanting them as the primary source of transportation around WWI. Sperm Whale Oil, and any other manufactured commodity, could be easily shipped anywhere in the US where there was a railroad depot. If a town did not have a railroad depot, arrangements were usually made for goods to be shipped from the nearest depot by wagon just about anywhere.