Cleaning Your Muzzle Loader?

[artcher1]

Pour boiling water down the barrel !
When the barrel is half full put thumb over the end and shake till the chunks come out
Then pour boiling water thru till its clean and to hot to hang on to, wipe her down and done unless you  are putting away for extended time then oil her up with bore cleaner
The lock and other parts may need some fancier work ,follow what JW said already

 If a gun has had triple seven or other counterfeits used in it I walk away from it shaking my head thinking what a waste ! Poor gun .
 There seems to be no way to get that stuff out of a barrel even the wire brush on a drill wont touch it
I strongly recommend black powder only !!!
Guy

Man, I don't know where you're getting your information about Triple Seven but I know it's not first hand. I've been shooting the powder exclusively for years now in three MLs and it's a dream to clean up. Wouldn't and won't use anything else. To each his own bud! Art

[mullet]

 Boiling hot water in a coffee can full of soapy water with the barrel resting touch hole down and a patch run up and down, pumping like JW. Then oil the crap out of everything that moves but just light oil inside of the barrel.

 Art;
 something I read just recently about synthetic BP. It degenerates rather quickly and should be replaced every year. I read this when they were doing penetration test of different powders after complaints about losing deer shooting the same powder, year to year.

 I was a triple 7 man in my pistols and custom turkey gun. I went back to Black powder, and stuck with  results I was used to.

[JW_Halverson]

I hear a lot of folks complain about WD-40 and most of it arises from people trying to use it for something it is not intended to do.  It's full name is Water Displacement Compound #40.

Designed for use in the nuclear warheads and their rockets. It was meant to be used to spray on circuits and other items that needed to be cleaned and kept dry.  It would run off and carry the water with it as well as any contaminants.  Almost no residue left behind. 

Gunsmiths sometimes hate it because it has such low viscosity that it doesn't appear to stay behind, but looks like it runs off.  Most of it also evaporates, leaving only a thin coat of mineral oil.  But that is what I like about it for the barrel of my muzzleloaders.  It picks up any water left in the barrel and runs out the muzzle when I let it rest pointed down on a cloth or paper towel. No residual water to rust, nothing to keep the swabbing of grease from coating the metal!

[nclonghunter]

JW, I have never heard that about WD 40 but it certainly sounds right to me. I am no expert nor have I studied the issue, so I am just giving my thoughts on WD 40 use in black powder. It does sound like WD 40 is thinner than water and will displace it as you say. Water will evaporate if the barrel is real hot and wiped with dry patches. WD 40, I suspect will not evaporate and will remain in cracks, threads and hard to reach places. That is what would seep into a load of powder. Water drying and gone, then a good lube made for black powder will not give that result. On a side note, I have been told by gunsmiths that WD40 can seep around a primer on a centerfield bullet and cause problems. Again I suspect because it so thin of an oil. I am just hesitant to use it on firearms, but I use it a lot on other things. Great stuff.

[JW_Halverson]

WD-40 is 51% Stoddard Formula (a dry cleaning agent), 15% mineral oil, the rest is CO2 propellent and inert chemicals. 

The dry cleaning solution is what causes it to creep into every possible crack and cranny.  It is also a water solvent.  It's highly evaporative, disappears very quickly.  The thin film left behind is the mineral oil. If your threads in your breech absorb anything more than the tiniest amount of WD-40 then the gun needs to be re-breached immediately.  Those threads are being eaten alive by the corrosion of the hot gases under pressure.  Your breech is going to become a projectile.  The breechplug is supposed to be sealed shoulder to shoulder with no exposed threading. 

I have also heard that blackpowder is only about 30-35% efficient.  The change in it's moisture content from season to season would have a greater effect on it's combustion than trace amounts of it contaminating the powder.  Besides, at the temperature of the combustion in the barrel, the powder is going to burn the mineral oil, too.

On the other hand, I know a bench reloader that ruined a couple hundred handloads when a can of WD-40 punctured and seeped between primer and pocket, probably between bullet and casing as well!  For water displacement, I love it.  For a lube, there are better compounds with higher viscosity and better results.

[artcher1]

Boiling hot water in a coffee can full of soapy water with the barrel resting touch hole down and a patch run up and down, pumping like JW. Then oil the crap out of everything that moves but just light oil inside of the barrel.

 Art;
 something I read just recently about synthetic BP. It degenerates rather quickly and should be replaced every year. I read this when they were doing penetration test of different powders after complaints about losing deer shooting the same powder, year to year.

 I was a triple 7 man in my pistols and custom turkey gun. I went back to Black powder, and stuck with  results I was used to.

That's interesting Eddie. I've not noticed any accuracy problems. But I did chronograph last year's charge this past spring that I didn't get the opportunity to shoot anything with. It did shoot 100fps slower than a fresh load. That load was from my quick loads. Same powder, different environment I suppose you could say.

If I thought BP would shoot any better than what I using I would be using it. I not one of those that thinks things are written in stone. I'm going to use what gives me the best results with the least amount of fuss. Besides, with powder's availability today, I don't have any type that hangs around long enough to go bad.

[Buckeye Guy]

Pour boiling water down the barrel !
When the barrel is half full put thumb over the end and shake till the chunks come out
Then pour boiling water thru till its clean and to hot to hang on to, wipe her down and done unless you  are putting away for extended time then oil her up with bore cleaner
The lock and other parts may need some fancier work ,follow what JW said already

 If a gun has had triple seven or other counterfeits used in it I walk away from it shaking my head thinking what a waste ! Poor gun .
 There seems to be no way to get that stuff out of a barrel even the wire brush on a drill wont touch it
I strongly recommend black powder only !!!
Guy

Man, I don't know where you're getting your information about Triple Seven but I know it's not first hand. I've been shooting the powder exclusively for years now in three MLs and it's a dream to clean up. Wouldn't and won't use anything else. To each his own bud! Art

Art
I don't want to argue , cause I respect you and have no scientific studies to quote , but I try hard to not perpetuate rumors and just speak of my own experience with things . For me the result of using and seeing use of Triple seven have been not good .
If it works for you go for it, you must be doing something different than me and the folks around here .
What do you use to get it out of the barrel ?
Maybe I can pass the info on
I just remembered they still use it in the for effect canon at the fall festival ,not sure if it gets cleaned or not.
This is why we have forums so we can learn from one another !
Take care
Guy

[stickbender]

     I do pretty much the same as listed here.  I just remove the barrel,and and nipple, and get a metal bucket and fill it with hot soapy water, and do the pumping action, and then run a wire brush down the barrel a few times, and when a clean cloth comes out clean, I fill another bucket with hot clean water, and do the pumping action again, then pour hot water down the barrel, and then let it steam dry, and run a dry patch down the barrel, and then a patch with Rem oil, and wipe the barrel, and other parts lightly with Rem oil.  As for WD 40, I don't use it for rust prevention, but maybe they changed the formula, as I have read in their ads long ago, that some of the multiple uses were rubbing it on arthritis areas, and such.  It said there was nothing harmful in WD 40, as it was mostly fish oil.  Now the cans carry a warning label that sates not to get it on the skin.

                                                            Wayne

[artcher1]

Easy clean-up is the no.1 selling point with this type of powder for me Guy. Not to mention the better accuracy. I can't ever remember having to use a brush with the Thompson or Pennsylvania. Only a time or two with the CVA. Perhaps it's the quality of the barrels. I keep my barrels in pristine condition so that may help also. Clean-up is pretty straight forward also. One thing I do that I haven't seen others mentioned is I dry everything with compressed air. Then lube well. Again, I use air to disperse the lube into every nook and cranny.

I'm not trying to sell anyone on Triple Seven. Being a cartridge reloader I know the key to best accuracy is finding the right powder/bullet combination.  No different with Muzzleloaders. Once you have that, then it's all about being consistent with everything you do from there on out....Art

[artcher1]

Here's a little more reading if you're interested.

http://www.chuckhawks.com/triple_seven.htm

[Buckeye Guy]

Art
The post about the possibility of wd40 being changed makes me wonder if the Triple Seven may have changed , when I tried it was a brand new product and I may not have given them time to work the kinks out ! At the time pyrodex was not working out for folks and there was a scare about not being able to get hodgen black anymore ,there may have been a lot of changes since those days.

I may have misinformed folks ,sorry for that ,but I only knew how it went for me back then .
It has been a few days since then and I should just keep my mouth shut , you all carry on !
Guy

I see you posted while I was typing so I need to go see what you linked us to

[artcher1]

Hey, no problem Guy.

To show you how some guns are different, my son's CVA .50 cal. is an absolute tack driver using Pyrodex. He's lucky to keep his shot on the paper with the Triple Seven powder. Now his matched .54 cal extra barrel will almost one hole with the Triple Seven but despises the Pyrodex powder. But it took a lot of time and shooting to get our MLs shooting where we wanted them. Finding the right dia. patch, best powder and charge means burning a lot of powder sometimes. But that can be the fun part too............Art

[Buckeye Guy]

Yes I agree with the fun part !
I did find this part of your link interesting 
 " Triple Seven is harder to ignite than blackpowder or Pyrodex"
 and then
" Only one rifle has even given me a "Triple Seven Crud Ring," of any note, and that is the .45 caliber G2 Contender. When spit-patching that rifle, it really does have a hard sugary "crunch" when nearing the breechplug, and I don't know why. It just takes a second spit-patch between shots"

Take care and keep having fun !
Guy

[artcher1]

If you read that again Guy you'll see that he's referring to the Triple Seven pellets being harder to ignite, not the powder. I don't remember if it's this article or another I read, but he tested something like fifty guns. So one crud ring isn't bad.............Art

[JW_Halverson]

What I want to know is how he was able to get the Austin and Halleck flintlock riflr to go off using a charge of loose Triple Seven?

Triple Seven has an even higher ignition temp from Pyrodex from what I have been told, and Pyrodex virtually will not ignite from a flash in the pan of a flintlock.  Did he use a duplex load of a little black powder down the barrel with a load of Triple Seven over top?