Oddball fouling buildup in rifle

[BCRider]

So I shot BP cartridges yesterday at a Cowboy Action fun match. First time in a while. .357Mag brass, 130gn bullets and as I recall this works out to around 23gns of powder. Six stages so a total of 60 rounds.

The odd thing is that I've done this before with no major issues at all. But THIS time starting on stage 4 things started to go funny and I got a few misses. Not normal for me. Stage 5 was worse. So on stage 6 (last one) I really slowed down and took my time. Bullets were all over the place despite a nice clean center hold on the targets.

Get home and start cleaning the guns. Looked down the bore of the rifle with a bore light before I started and noticed that it's clumpy and packed in there. Rinsing first pushed out some black and some flecks of black. Not a large amount though. But then I pushed a rod with brush through and about a heaping teaspoon of black sludge came out! ! ! ! Mushing it around with my finger turned up a few light flakes of leading. But by far the most of it seemed to be hard black buildup. With the water mixed with it the flakes of sludge seemed to break up easily enough and turn to mud with a slurry of firmer grains in it that didn't break up in the water. But clearly it was firm enough when dry to pack into the rifling instead of being swept away by each bullet.

Anyone had this occur to them before? I didn't clean the bore from the smokeless beforehand. But I've done it just like this before and never had any issue. It's been a while since I loaded these cartridges but I'm pretty sure it would have been Goex powder.

 

[J-Bar]

What lube on your bullets? Which bullet are you using (Big Lube or other)? What is the rifle barrel length?

I had the same problem with an older Uberti 66 with a long barrel and Lee 125 grain bullets. The bullets simply ran out of lube before they got out of the barrel, and there was no telling where they would wind up!

Now I’m using home cast Big Lube 125s and a Uberti 73 short rifle and getting a good lube “star” on the muzzle. Lubing mine with 50/50 beeswax/Crisco, just like I use in my cap guns.

 

[BCRider]

They are commercially cast bullets done by a local maker (Bullet Barn). The folks that run the outfit used to shoot Frontier Cartridge and are a major supplier for the large cowboy shooting community we have. So I don't know what the lube is but he's always used a lube that is "black powder friendly"...... or at least he's tried to do so.

I've used these same bullets for a lot of years now without problems up to this last load. But then I did use to use Pyrodex RS. This might well be the first true BP loads I've done. I'd forgotten about this possibly important fact until typing out THIS reply. Perhaps I just need to switch back to the Pyrodex for my rifle loads.

Oh yeah.... 20" barrel. The bullets appear to be fairly normal in design with two lube small'ish lube grooves.

 

[J-Bar]

I bought a case of Goex a few years ago at a good price, I thought...turned out to be the dirtiest powder I have ever used. I used it up in shotshells, could not stand the fouling in revolvers or cartridges. I'm sticking to Schuetzen or Graf's (supposedly the same thing) in the cap guns.

For all of it's supposed flaws, I get good results with Pyrodex in cartridges. I agree that it burns cleaner. It will be interesting to hear your results when you go back to Pyrodex.

 

[BCRider]

Thanks muchly for the information. I had not run into the same issue when I shot it at first but we only did 5 stages each day for that first time through and then I cleaned it that evening.

I also wonder about how dirty the barrel was with the smokeless fouling and if the BP fouling and the smokeless messed me up. The rifle is nice and clean now and the barrel was final patched then dry patched using Ballistol. I've only got 28 rounds left. I'm off to the range in a short while for the Jr .22 evening and I think I'll let the kid's shoot off the rest of these and check it when I get back. If it's caked up again then it's back to Pyrodex for me and my rifle shooting.

Either that or figure out how to make full wadcutters run in my '92 so the flat front face can scrape the crud out with each shot....

 

[BCRider]

Update....

Shot the last 28 rounds through it last night. This time over a Ballistol oiled barrel. The fouling caked up again. Not as thickly and not enough to totally obscure the rifling but it was well on the way.

So I'll be going back to Pyrodex RS for my rifle loads and monitor the situation closely. If I get the same issue I guess that it means it's due to the lube. In which case I guess I'll be looking at either powder coating or opting for a Big Lube Groove mold and have to cast my own for my black powder shooting.

 

[sharps59]

So I shot BP cartridges yesterday at a Cowboy Action fun match. First time in a while. .357Mag brass, 130gn bullets and as I recall this works out to around 23gns of powder. Six stages so a total of 60 rounds.

The odd thing is that I've done this before with no major issues at all. But THIS time starting on stage 4 things started to go funny and I got a few misses. Not normal for me. Stage 5 was worse. So on stage 6 (last one) I really slowed down and took my time. Bullets were all over the place despite a nice clean center hold on the targets.

Get home and start cleaning the guns. Looked down the bore of the rifle with a bore light before I started and noticed that it's clumpy and packed in there. Rinsing first pushed out some black and some flecks of black. Not a large amount though. But then I pushed a rod with brush through and about a heaping teaspoon of black sludge came out! ! ! ! Mushing it around with my finger turned up a few light flakes of leading. But by far the most of it seemed to be hard black buildup. With the water mixed with it the flakes of sludge seemed to break up easily enough and turn to mud with a slurry of firmer grains in it that didn't break up in the water. But clearly it was firm enough when dry to pack into the rifling instead of being swept away by each bullet.

Anyone had this occur to them before? I didn't clean the bore from the smokeless beforehand. But I've done it just like this before and never had any issue. It's been a while since I loaded these cartridges but I'm pretty sure it would have been Goex powder.

HOW OLD ARE THEY SOUNDS LIKE THE LUBE WENT BAD TO ME.

 

[BCRider]

Not that old. I loaded up the batch just over a year ago from bullets that were on hand but no more than a year in my possession at the time. So nothing like the dried and crusty wax I've seen in older bullets I've gotten from an estate sale situation where the bullets were 20+ years old and the wax lube was brittle and falling out of the grooves.

As noted it may well be the lube though. He may have done a batch with lube that isn't black powder friendly. Is this sort of caking up what happens if smokeless lube is used with BP? As in there were actual flakes of black coming out that were sort of like "plastic" and which only broke up in the water when I rubbed them between my fingertips. And there was a lot of unburnt powder judging by the granules that did not dissolve.

Thanks for the ideas so far. There's no real answer to the build up so far but it's helping.

 

[loose noose]

When I shot CAS back prior to 2004 in the Frontiersmen Class, I used nothing but Goex BP, however besides casting my own bullets and lubing them with SPG a BP lube, I also managed to place a Wonder Wad just over the powder charge. BTW I used 45LC and an 1873 Winchester copy in .45LC also, my shotgun was a SXS with exposed hammers. Usually when I missed or had a bad day it was generally my fault, clean up was quite simple just using equal parts of Murphy's Soap Oil, Hydrogen Peroxide, and rubbing alcohol. After I got done I ran some Thompson's Bore Butter down the bores and charge holes.

 

[drobs]

Driftwood Johnson has a good thread on loading BP cartridges.
I believe one of the tests to see if you have good / enough lube on your bullets is to look for the lube star on the muzzle. My guess is the lube you were using was not sufficient for BP.

This thread seems identical to yours on a similar issue.
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...1873-sporting-rifle-with-black-powder.801111/

 

[Noz]

I had the same problem when I started shooting black. Bullet is not carrying enough lube. Either buy a bullet that does or add a grease cookie under the bullet. I tried grease wads and they would sometimes stick to the base of the bullet giving spectacularly inaccurate shots.

 

[BCRider]

There was certainly no lube traces at the muzzle.

I'll keep the grease cookie idea in mind. I got a yellow boy a short time back chambered in .44-40. And the plan is to use that for my black powder shooting. I don't want to cast the volume of bullets I'd need so the idea of a grease cookie made from a light card wad with a pill of BP friendly lube against the base of the bullet appeals to me.

 

[loose noose]

I should have mentioned that I use plain cardboard wad between the powder and the grease cookie.