How to get rust out of the barrel of a muzzleloader?

[hometheaterman]

So I have a Remington Genesis muzzleloader with the blued barrel. I cleaned it about a week and a half ago. I went to shoot it the next day and wiped the excess oil out of the barrel and loaded it with pyrodex pellets and a powerbelt bullet. Anyway, I let it sit loaded until muzzle loader season ended which was yesterday. So about a week and a half. Anyway, I unloaded it today and swabbed the barrel to make sure it was clean. The patches are coming out brown. All I can figure is rust.

I'm using patches with rubbing alcohol on them to clean it and I've done a few swipes with a brush too.

Is there anything else I should do or keep running patches until they get clean? Any I going to have ruined this muzzleloader or is it fine? Seems odd it would rust in a week and a half.

 

[Jim K]

With that rifle, the best way to clean it is to pull the breech plug, and clean the whole barrel. And after firing, run boiling hot water through the barrel using a tube or funnel. Then run clean patches through it to dry it and lightly oil it before putting the breech plug back in.

I have no idea why you would use alcohol on your patches; it is not a very good solvent for black powder and it will remove any oil in the barrel and leave it vulnerable to rust.

I strongly suggest not leaving the gun loaded for any extended length of time (over 24 hours). If you can't conveniently fire off the charge, pull the breech plug and use the ramrod to unload the barrel or use a worm to pull the bullet.

Jim

 

[arcticap]

I agree that alcohol is not a good black powder or Pyrodex solvent. But once the gun is properly cleaned then leaving it loaded shouldn't be a problem.
There's another way to clean without water by using good & effective BP solvents, extra tight patches and added elbow grease like how the bore was brushed.

Tight fitting patches need to be used with a jag or dowel. I try to make mine fit tight enough that I sometimes need to use a mallet to push the tight patches through the bore.
And the patches need to be saturated with an effective solvent.
And then there's a series of alternating between dry and solvent patches, brushing and then swabbing with more BP solvent again until there's no traces of residue left.
It doesn't only take 5 minutes either, but sometimes 1/2 to 1 hour to get all of the residue out of the rifling grooves.
Every gun is designed differently so using water isn't the only cleaning method.
Alcohol is only good for removing the top layer of soot but not the bottom layer of compacted black fouling and stubborn deposits near the ignition source.
One way to tell if your muzzle loader is clean and whether your barrel is damaged by rust is to remove your breech plug and to look into the bore with some light shining in to see if it's mirror shiny or not.
And test it by running tight patches through it to see if it's smooth or rough inside.
Some brown on patches doesn't mean that it's ruined. It might just be surface rust isolated to where the worst deposits were in the breech. Did you pull out your breech plug and clean it, and afterward did you coat the threads with some grease or lube?

 

[SHIPCHIEF]

I never remove the breach plug in my side lock muzzle loaders. I don't know...isn't it likely to damage the gun with tool marks at the least?

 

[Curator]

Pyrodex is known for "after-rust syndrome". The advise on using water or water based solvents is good. I always check any muzzle loader having used Pyrodex, a week later and re-clean and oil the barrel. I almost always find some light rust. Swab the barrel with light gun oil and you should be fine. If you encounter any roughness, wrap some bronze wool around a nylon bore brush and scour the bore with it using a small amount of oil until the bore is smooth.

Both Balistol and home-brew cleaners like "Ed's Red" will prevent after-rust if used after a water-based cleaner. I still check a week or two just to be sure.

 

[arcticap]

I never remove the breach plug in my side lock muzzle loaders. I don't know...isn't it likely to damage the gun with tool marks at the least?

Only remove the breech plug to clean inlines or the few side locks designed for it to be removed for cleaning.

 

[GENTLEMAN OF THE CHARCOAL]

I agree with Articap I reckon. Well, let's see here. My .31 has been loaded for over a week. My '58 has been loaded for about 3 weeks. My '47 has been loaded for over a month. My .45 Remington inline has been loaded getting on close to a couple of weeks now I guess. My Cattleman's Carbine has been loaded for about 5 weeks I guess. I change caps indoors here about every 2 weeks although I know it isn't really needed. It's not like I spilled a cup of coffee on any of them. I usually (out of habit) check them over a little every day. All of them look good with no rust (inside the barrels or otherwise) or anything of that nature. I know I can pick any one of them up right now and it will shoot just as good as if I loaded it 10 minutes ago. Guns are not hard to take care of. People don't really need all of this experimenting and to be alway's searching for that elusive exotic wonder cleaner that will solve their problems forever more. (such a fluid dosen't exist anyway) Just clean your guns. Use a good solvent and when you get through use a good gun oil. (all gun oil is good oil) For well over 40 years I'vd dragged my guns through Wyoming, Montana, the Canadian Yukon, and way off into Alaska in just about any weather that can be named. I shot them; I cleaned them even when I didn't feel like cleaning them. But I was NOT searching and looking and hoping for some majic elixir that was going to do the work for me....PS, I'vd got a few different oils but I know for a fact that regular 3-in-One machine oil is some of the best lubricant that can be had for firearms and fishing equipment. (rod and reels) Just don't use it for lubricating purposes in sub-zero temperatures. Get yourself some good 'LubriPlate' for that type of weather....

 

[twice barrel]

Every "solvent" I ever tried seemed to remove some sort of fouling that the others didn't. A blackpowder range I frequented in the 90's had local shooters that commonly used the green scented alcohol to clean their rifles.

These were almost always "round ball" barrels, very long with slow twists, 50-58 caliber. Also, we strictly used vegetable based lube on our patches. I liked vegetable shortening on mine.

Some of the guys were real accuracy nuts and would swab with soapy water followed by clean water followed by alcohol followed by dry patches..until the bore was clean and dry. Fire a couple of caps in the clean bore, reload, and then follow with a tight fitting alcohol patch before the next shot. Some patched so tightly they used a small mallet to start the patched ball in the bore.

While I wasn't quite as diligent I did experiment around with it and found I liked to use a pot of boiling hot soapy water for my initial cleaning. Since my rifles had hooked breeches I would submerge the nipple in the pot and run a tightly patched jag up and down which would pull a full barrel of soapy water up into the bore and shove it back out with considerable force.

Scrub with a bore brush and repeat. Then follow with rinse in boiling hot watere only. Let dry.

Run soppy firm fitting 91% Rubbing Alcohol or Denatured Alcohol patches changing out patches until clean. Let dry.

Run WD-40 soaked patches repeatedly changing until clean. (this seemed to remove sulphur deposits the other methods hadn't phased.) Follow with dry patches until no residue evident.

Occassionally followed with Hoppes #9. (This removed other trace deposits the other methods didn't) Followed again with dry patches.

Finally followed with 3-n-1 oil firm fitting patch run in & out a few times before putting it away.

Before going shooting I'd clean with Coleman fuel to cut the oil and then with Alcohol to clean the petroleum out.

I wouldn't do all of this everytime, just when I was putting it away for a while.

Some guys never used any petroleum based products and did their final lube before storage with corn oil. I couldn't quite bring myself to do that but clearly more than one thing works.

Take it for whatever you wish but I suggest you try some things to find out for yourself.

Kindest regards,

TB

 

[dispatch55126]

For your sidelock and in this case, use some WD-40 and a .45cal brush (assuming you have a 50cal bore) in the barrel. This will remove any surface rust. Once complete, patch it clean then run an oiled patch down the barrel.

Since its a sidelock (speaking from personal experience), don't use a brush that is the same diameter as the bore. The brush will flare slightly when changing direction and can get stuck. I had to get a new barrel when the brush got lodged in my Hawkens. Fortunately, its was a Cabelas Hawkens and I was using a Cabelas cleaning kit so they swapped barrels for free.

 

[BCRider]

Alchohal loves to suck in any water it can and then it politely evaporates with far less residual moisture. That's the key reason I can see for using alchohal soaked swabs following a hot water washing. It'll aid in removing any water in a closed end barrel where it's pretty much impossible to air dry.

Which brings up a new point. What about a drinking straw sized tubing barrel probe that you can use to blow air down to the very breech end of a closed breech barrel to aid in drying after a cleaning? The air blown in will come back up the bore and dry out any residual moisture. A hot air gun or hair dryer on high blowing into a box which feeds the tube should provide enough air to dry a barrel pretty quick.

 

[alemonkey]

A blackpowder range I frequented in the 90's had local shooters that commonly used the green scented alcohol to clean their rifles.

You mean gin?

 

[Thecrazedorganist]

Or absinthe!

 

[Wildfire]

They are right.

Hey there:
Soap and water will kill the corrosive effects of any BP. No Booze.
That will absorb water and attract it too.
arcticap and the Gent are right.. This is not a 5 minute job.. Scrub till it comes clean....

Then use some bore butter on a patch and you will see it return to a rust color. It is not clean yet. I would advise against any petro lubes at all. The BP will not get along with the petro Period. Rust will happen.

The best way is too check it every now and then and run a lubed patch down that bore several times during non use periods.

That < would only take 5 minutes.

The SO CALLED clean burning powders are only {cleaner} burning. You still need to clean the gun.
I will use some petro oils on triggers and such , but never on the bore or any part that gets BP residue on it.

 

[Wildfire]

Another Point.

The Gentleman has a very good point here too.

Clean that gun even when You may not want to. Do it often.. So often that the type of lube or oil at that point will not matter..

He makes a good issue with any or all oils being good . IF they get used often..
If you clean your BP gun with WD-40 or another Petro based lube and then put it away till next years season comes around. OH well.....
You will likely no like what you find. Non petro lubes for long term storage and even then they will rust. Clean OFTEN...