Drying A '58

[rodwha]

So my stainless ROA goes from a warm bath with a little dish soap to a rinse followed by the dry cycle in my dishwasher. It often has a tiny rust spot on the cylinder. I also dry my blued Lyman's barrel this way and don't get much rust, if any.

My new Pietta '58 took a LOT of dish soap to remove the packing grease. I rinsed and tossed in the dishwasher to find plenty of rust spots. I took a wire brush to what I could reach and used a pipe cleaner to get the insides of screw holes.

How do you guys dry your '58 to keep the rust from forming?

 

[Doak]

Any of the "browning", translate "rusting", processes used to brown steel, that I've ever seen, all say to finish the process in boiling water to stop further rusting.

Hot steel dries faster too. Rapid evaporation.

Dishwashers may be not so good, 'cuz they don't get hot enuff. And, water facilitates rust.

Recommend degreasing w/paint thinner (stoddard solvent).

No water, no rust.:-D

Kindest Regards,
Doak

 

[Rom828]

Hot, soapy water with a touch of dish soap to clean, rinse with hot water and then on a aluminum foil wrapped cookie sheet in the oven at 180 degrees for about twenty minutes to dry. Out of the oven still hot and I melt bore butter on all the steel. No rust...ever.

 

[rodwha]

This begs the question how it was done 150 years ago before people had systems to heat.

I figured maybe Ballistol on a towel, patch, and Q-tip before the dry cycle. I quit using WD-40 on my guns.

 

[IROCZ]

Rodwha, you put your guns in the dishwasher? Really????

 

[rodwha]

Yep. But I want to try using the Ballistol/water trick. Seems much easier and something that can be done in a hunting camp w/o running water or a good heat source. Plus it ought to be oiled when it dries.

 

[[email protected]]

I always clean my revolver at the range when done shooting like the other guys
I shoot with. Takes about 10 min. Been doing it this way for 50 years. Never
any rust. We use cool water, never heated. Wipe off the revolver with a wet
rag, run wet patches thru it, brush around the nipples using a old tooth brush.
Pipe cleaners and Q-Tips for the small stuff. Wipe dry with paper towels , dry
patches thru the barrel and chambers. Spray with WD-40 and your done. I have
revolvers I been doing this way that are 50 years old. Never any rust of any kind
Now this is using Black Powder, not any subs. Around here everybody uses
Black Powder in our Black Powder guns. Here is a 50 year revolver of mine.

 

[BowerR64]

I like to clean mine while i watch football.

 

[swathdiver]

Told you months ago Rodwha to use near boiling water at the end to let it dry itself.

 

[Noz]

I really like the idea of cleaning my guns by putting them in the dishwasher and then using a wire brush to take the rust off.

Brilliant!

 

[4v50 Gary]

Sans the grips, I'd toss it in the oven if I was that concerned. Right next to the cupcakes or brownies. Ten minutes should be enough.

More seriously, a heat gun or the pilot light in a gas oven will dry it out.

 

[VA27]

Years ago a local pawn shop had a fire. I contracted with the owner to clean all the guns. Pulled the grips off the handguns and racked 'em up in the dish washer and ran the pots and pans cycle, then hosed 'em down with WD40. I cleaned the long guns with 'scrubbing bubbles' bathroom cleaner and WD40. No rust, no problems.

Nowadays I'd go with 'moose milk' (Ballistol & water) rather than WD40. Too much WD40 left on will leave a varnish-like residue that, over time, can gum things up. With Ballistol all that's left behind is oil.

 

[rdstrain49]

Noz, I prefer to use an air grinder followed by a wire brush in an electric drill. To each their own.

 

[tpelle]

This begs the question how it was done 150 years ago before people had systems to heat.

I figured maybe Ballistol on a towel, patch, and Q-tip before the dry cycle. I quit using WD-40 on my guns.

First off, Ballistol wasn't invented until 1904, so the "back-in-the-day" users of percussion revolvers weren't using it. However, there were mineral oils and whale oil available, so that's what they used.

I clean my percussion revolvers in plain ol' water, as hot as it comes out of the tap. I don't worry about boiling water - seems like a darned good way to get scalded!

My normal practice is to (on my colt clones, anyway) push out the wedge and remove the barrel and cylinder. I remove the nipples from the cylinder, then drop the barrel, cylinder, and nipples in a pan of hot water.

While the barrel and cylinder soak, I clean the nipples with a patch, then blow through them to dry them off.

Using a patch on a cleaning rod, with a jag that makes the patch fit tightly in the bore, I stand the barrel up so that the muzzle is still immersed in the water. I then pump the patch and rod up and down through the bore - the tight fitting patch works like the leather in an old fashioned piston pump - which flushes the water forcefully in and out. I treat the cylinder the same way.

At this point I dry everything off with a rag, then use a patch soaked in Ballistol to lube the barrel and cylinder bores. I wipe off the frame and the outside of the barrel with a Ballistol-soaked patch, wipe off the excess with a rag, then put everything back together.

I seldom find the action parts inside the frame have gotten dirty enough to require cleaning - I just wipe everything off and oil it.

Substitute generic mineral oil or whale oil for Ballistol, and I bet that's pretty close to how it was done back in the day. No dishwasher or detergent required - water is known, by the way, as the "universal solvent".

Have you ever seen "Lonesome Dove"? One of the early scenes shows one of the characters taking his lever action rifle down to the banks of the Rio Grande and using river water to clean it.

 

[rodwha]

I have seen it. Loooong ago! I don't recall too much, but grandpa still has it on VHS!

By the olden days of drying I was wondering as I've read the thought is that they weren't broken down that often. That being the case how would they dry all of the nooks and crannies without compressed air or an oven? I'd guess the cleaning was with creek/pond water.

 

[tpelle]

I think that, if you dried the gun off thoroughly with a rag, then oiled it with some sort of non-petroleum based oil, like mineral oil or Ballistol - heck, I bet you could use olive oil from the pantry - the oil would emulsify with the water and rust wouldn't be a problem.

I tried the "Moose Milk" thing a few years ago. I mixed some Ballistol and water 50/50 in an old Windex bottle. I decided it didn't really do anything, and it made more of a mess than it was worth. So the Windex bottle of Moose Milk is still sitting down in the man cave, and it's still mixed - hasn't separated.

I keep thinking about the cost of Ballistol - I just ordered two 16oz bottles and with shipping it came to $51.00 - and have been thinking about going to the pharmacy department of WalMart to see if they sell medicinal mineral oil. I wonder about the paint department of Home Depot?

 

[BowerR64]

you didnt like ballistol?

I find it a great way to clean when you dont have any water on hand. It leaves a nice film of oil behind once you dry everything off. (moose milk mix)

I had good luck with hot water and liquid dish soap. Scrub with a .45 brass brush till most of the fouling stops comming out of everything then i wrap a patch around a .44 brass brush then i push the brass brush/patch threw.

Once im happy with the scrubbing i spray the direct undeluted ballistol about 3-4 sprays in the same tub and run everything threw again with the ballistol mix.

I wish bore butter had a mix like ballistol that would mix with water i prefer the smell of it over ballistol. Ballistol stinks

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

The character in Lonesome Dove who was cleaning his Henry rifle by the river was Woodrow F Call, played by Tommy Lee Jones. Don't believe everything you see in the movies. Cleaning his rifle down by the river was just a dramatic device showing that he wanted to be alone, away from everybody at the ranch, in particular blabby old Gus. Call had problems being friendly with anyone, so Larry McMurtry, the author, used the device of him cleaning his guns as a metaphor to show his inability to relate to anyone. It had nothing to do with how firearms may or may not have actually been cleaned.

Yes, I have seen Lonesome Dove a billion times, have a copy of it, have all the dialog memorized, and have read the book too.

While I am on the subject, a cartridge repeating rifle is much easier to clean after being fired with Black Powder than a revolver is. The rifle is basically a pipe. With a round that seals the chamber well, like 44-40, all the fouling stays in the barrel. It takes me about 5 minutes to clean my Henry after a day of CAS. Plug the chamber with an empty piece of brass, close the lever, and run three or four patches down the bore soaked with my favorite water based BP cleaning solvent. Wipe a little bit of non-period correct Ballistol into the bore and into the action. Done. Easy Peasy. Revolvers are not a closed system, they spray fouling everywhere, and take longer to clean.

 

[BowerR64]

Off topic but this is how i dry my nipples.

I normally pull the nipples out of the cylinder first thing and put them in a little asprin bottle. I put about 3-4 sprays of moose milk into the bottle and cap it. While im cleaning the rest of the gun the nipples are soaking.

Once i get the rest of the gun clean and dry i dump the nipples out on a towel and wipe off all the moosemilk. Then just before i put em back in i put them on my dustoff rig. I put a small tube on the end of the red straw that comes with the can and i blast a few shots of air threw the nipple then anything that drips out i just wipe off.

This seems to work good for me, it lets me know they arnt clogged and free of fouling. Its all sealed up to the nipple so if air blasts out the end of the nipple its open.

 

[tpelle]

you didnt like ballistol?

I find it a great way to clean when you dont have any water on hand. It leaves a nice film of oil behind once you dry everything off. (moose milk mix)

I had good luck with hot water and liquid dish soap. Scrub with a .45 brass brush till most of the fouling stops comming out of everything then i wrap a patch around a .44 brass brush then i push the brass brush/patch threw.

Once im happy with the scrubbing i spray the direct undeluted ballistol about 3-4 sprays in the same tub and run everything threw again with the ballistol mix.

I wish bore butter had a mix like ballistol that would mix with water i prefer the smell of it over ballistol. Ballistol stinks

It's not that I don't like Ballistol. It's just that I can't find anyone who carries it locally, so I have to order it from an Internet merchant and pay shipping, which runs the cost up. I was just thinking it would be nice to have an alternate in case it isn't available.

For example, starting this fall I noticed that my supply was getting a little low, so I checked my sources - Brownells, Midway, plus a couple of others that don't immediately spring to mind - and they were all out of stock on the 16oz liquid. (They had spray bottles and aerosol and wipes, but I prefer to buy the 16oz bottles.) This situation existed until just today I checked and it was back in stock. In the meantime I was looking fondly at the bottle of Wesson oil in the kitchen cabinet.

I learned years ago that petroleum-based lubes don't play nice with black powder. Does anyone have any experience using any other "household" lubricant?

 

[BowerR64]

I looked for it for a while myself then found some at a gun show. Then just after i bought it i found out the local mercantile place has is.

I mix it with water so one can is going to last me a while.

 

[MEHavey]

...hosed 'em down with wd40...

*That* (+1)

 

[tpelle]

Just for the heck of it, I looked on Walgreen's web site, and you can buy their brand of mineral oil two for $10, or one for $5.79, and those are 16oz bottles. Might be worth $6 to experiment.

P.S:

Just to make it clear, I'm talkin' about experimentin' on my revolvers. They do advertise this stuff as an "intestinal lubricant", after all.

But if you really like slippery intestines and all......well, have at it.

 

[BCRider]

I'm a little late to this party but I'll toss in a finding of my own.

When I first started shooting my C&B Uberti New Armys I would put the barrel in a bucket of soapy water so the whole barrel was submerged to just past the forcing cone. I'd let that soak while I cleaned the cylinder.

What I found was that this longer exposure in the wash water soaking led to some flash rust forming in the nooks and bore.

So now I only dunk a few times then begin brushing away the fouling with plastic bristle bore brushes and an old toothbrush for the outsides. As soon as it's clean I run it under hot tap water and wipe it down and patch the bore holes in which ever part it is. That and the heat from the hot water rinse aids in drying the little nooks and crannys. The shorter exposure time to the water has paid off by eliminating any signs of flash rusting.

With this method I haven't found the need to hose it down with WD40 to displace any water. But if I were stuck with no hot water rinse then a cold water rinse to remove any soap residue followed by a hosing down with some WD40 would be a good option to remove the water.

Once dry I oil with Ballistol for longer term storage or Canola oil if I'm at a two day shoot or know I'll be using the gun again within two weeks at most.

 

[[email protected]]

About 30 yrs ago I bought a gallon of water souable oil for 10 bucks. I mix it
2 oz oil to a quart of water. I still have 1/2 of it left. Sure last a long time.