spacecoast
New member
I learned the hard way the necessity of cleaning my black powder pistol SOON (and thoroughly) after shooting.
A couple of weeks ago my son and I were up north shooting my Pietta New Model Army (1858 Remington) replica, purchased through a contact here at TFL. For some stupid reason I put it back in the case after one cylinder's worth of shooting and didn't look at it for four days. BIG MISTAKE. When I took it out, I found numerous rust spots everywhere around the cylinder, in the frame near the hammer, etc. The bore was a mess.
I was in a hurry to get ready to travel back home after an extended vacation, so I disassembled the gun 100% and gave it a "cleaning", not using much if any soapy water, treating it pretty much like your normal smokeless cartridge handgun. The bore cleaned up pretty well with #9 and I rubbed all the rust from the parts and oiled before reassembly, thinking that was going to do the job. BIG MISTAKE - AGAIN.
Two days later, after returning home I opened the soft case and to my horror discovered rust everywhere once again. The bore wasn't too bad, but everywhere else was almost as bad as before. Obviously solvents and lubricants alone do not neutralize the corrosive nature of black powder and percussion caps. This time the gun (after grip removal of course) went into a bath of hot soapy water and once again every part was disassembled, scrubbed and thoroughly dried. The rust spots were treated with steel wool and gun oil. Hopefully the only permanent damage is to the bluing (and my pride). After three days things are still looking OK.
A couple of weeks ago my son and I were up north shooting my Pietta New Model Army (1858 Remington) replica, purchased through a contact here at TFL. For some stupid reason I put it back in the case after one cylinder's worth of shooting and didn't look at it for four days. BIG MISTAKE. When I took it out, I found numerous rust spots everywhere around the cylinder, in the frame near the hammer, etc. The bore was a mess.
I was in a hurry to get ready to travel back home after an extended vacation, so I disassembled the gun 100% and gave it a "cleaning", not using much if any soapy water, treating it pretty much like your normal smokeless cartridge handgun. The bore cleaned up pretty well with #9 and I rubbed all the rust from the parts and oiled before reassembly, thinking that was going to do the job. BIG MISTAKE - AGAIN.
Two days later, after returning home I opened the soft case and to my horror discovered rust everywhere once again. The bore wasn't too bad, but everywhere else was almost as bad as before. Obviously solvents and lubricants alone do not neutralize the corrosive nature of black powder and percussion caps. This time the gun (after grip removal of course) went into a bath of hot soapy water and once again every part was disassembled, scrubbed and thoroughly dried. The rust spots were treated with steel wool and gun oil. Hopefully the only permanent damage is to the bluing (and my pride). After three days things are still looking OK.