end of shooting day quick clean question

R

Road_Clam

New member
Hey guys,
I recently picked up a Pietta 1858 target and today was my first range trip (first time ever shooting BP ) , had a blast ! The smell and smoke is why I see the attraction ! I shot BP for about an hour, then packed the pistol away and went and shot at my 600 yd range. My question is in regards to an effective post shooting quick clean up until I can get home for a thorough cleaning. Today I spray soaked the pistol with my Murphy's Mix (Alcohol, Hyd Per, and Murph's oil soap) , wiped it down and cased it up. About 7 hours later gave it your normal cleaning. Is it ok to use the Murph's Mix as a temporary quick clean to prohibit the BP corrosion ? Thanks !
 
Should be okay, for now !!!

Is it ok to use the Murph's Mix as a temporary quick clean to prohibit the BP corrosion ? Thanks !
Click to expand...
Under the conditions and time-table, you listed, it should be fine. As an alternative and by my measure a more effective solvent, I employ a 50/50 mix of Ballistol and mineral spirits. Let it soak in and actually give it time to penetrate the powder residue/fouling ....... :)

Be safe !!!
 
I have been doing bp solvent for years. I run 2 patches down the barrel, swab out the cylinder with a patch on a hemostat, and wipe off any other powder smoked areas before I leave the range. This leaves the smell behind. Most of the time I can clean same day but with every thing "sloshed" cleaning at home is mostly getting the black goop out of the cracks, finish the barrel, drying the cylinder and nipples followed with a good oilin.
My bp guns get taken out and oiled on a regular rotation, they get a shot of Balistol in the works occasionally.
 
Howdy

Good grief, you don't have to clean the pistol twice! It is not going to rust away into a pile of iron ore until you get it home and can clean it!

I have been shooting Black Powder a LONG time. I keep hearing guys who think they need to spritz the gun with something before they leave the range, until they can get home and give it a good cleaning. Half the problem with corrosion in Black Powder firearms was caused by the corrosive primers that were used many years ago. Corrosive primers coupled with BP fouling could cause rust. Nobody makes corrosive primers any more, and percussion caps are not corrosive any more either. Black Powder fouling by itself is just not as corrosive as most shooters think.

Just case the gun and clean it when you get home.

When I get home from a CAS match I seldom clean my guns the same day. After driving home a couple of hours, unloading the car, and dragging everything down to the basement, I am too tired to sit down and clean two revolvers, a rifle and a shotgun. I try to clean them within a week of shooting them. Nothing terrible happens.*

Yes, Murphy's Mix is fine for all your BP cleaning needs, I have been using it for years now. After my guns are clean, I like to squirt a little bit of pure Ballistol, not watered down, down inside the mechanism as a further rust preventative. I will also swab the chambers and bore with a thin coat of Ballistol as a rust preventative. With a cartridge gun I don't wipe the bore and chambers dry before shooting, but with a C&B gun you will probably want to wipe the chambers dry and fire a few caps to dry out the oil.



*I ain't gonna tell you how long I have sometimes gone before cleaning my guns.
 
I shoot flintlocks myself so I must ues real black powder but my cleaning is fast and very easy. I can clean my flintlock super clean in 4 minutes, and I can do it in the dark. The guns would rust pretty fast if I didn't clean them, but it's not a problem to take the few minutes and just clean and oil them.

Cappers on the other hand are not so fast if you do a good job.

You have to clean out the flash channel and nipple if you don't want rust later, but as Hawg said, Pyrodex (and a few other "replica black-powders") will go a long way to ease the problem in a cap lock. But flintlocks won't light it unless you use Black Powder as a booster at which point you still have the black-powder fouling to deal with.

Revolvers? ............they are the very slowest of all. I don't know of any fast way to do a good job. You just take the time it takes.
 
Takes me about 1/2 hour to clean and lube two Colts.

My Henry takes about 15 minutes, my shotgun takes longer.

As I said, I am usually too tired to clean them all at the end of a match, I try to get around to it sometime during the following week.
 
I use the Murphy's + + and I do run a patch down the bore squirt and wipe the cylinder and wipe the gun. Not for fear of rust but to leave the worst of the smell and mess in the range trash and not smear powder in my carrying case.
The most important part is that we get a chance to make the mess in the first place!
 
I use the Murphy's + + and I do run a patch down the bore squirt and wipe the cylinder and wipe the gun. Not for fear of rust but to leave the worst of the smell and mess in the range trash and not smear powder in my carrying case.
Click to expand...

I don't do all that. When I want to shoot I just go outside. When I'm done I bring the guns inside and stick'em somewhere til I feel like cleaning them.
 
Model12Win said:
Road Clam, what is the meaning of your name? I quite like it.
Click to expand...

I've been into wrenching and restoring motorcycles for the past 30 years and several years ago I bought my first Harley , it was old, had a lot of miles and broke down on me severall times. The Model was a Road King. My smart azz biker buddy nicknamed me "Road Clam" because of my Harley always breaking down, it made me laugh and the name kinda' stuck with me. I hang out on all the gun forums with the same name so it's not too hard to follow me around.. LOL
 
Like Driftwood says, BP corrosion isn't going to happen in minutes or in 7 hours. Any more than shooting corrosively primed cartridges does. And it's the salts in BP and the primers combined with moisture that does it.
 
I've been into wrenching and restoring motorcycles for the past 30 years and several years ago I bought my first Harley , it was old, had a lot of miles and broke down on me severall times. The Model was a Road King. My smart azz biker buddy nicknamed me "Road Clam" because of my Harley always breaking down, it made me laugh and the name kinda' stuck with me. I hang out on all the gun forums with the same name so it's not too hard to follow me around.. LOL
Click to expand...

Nice! I was just wondering. I had visions of Mel Gibson as the "road warrior" but instead it was a clam driving around... I know, I'm weird lol! :D
 
After purchasing my second percussion revolver and taking both pistols and a rifle I spent a long time at the range, much longer than I anticipated and being well past dinner time I cleaned just the pistols and left the rifle over night as a couple of CASS shooters claimed they'd gone a long time without cleaning. I had used Pyrodex through the rifle and swabbed with a water patch and then an alcohol patch to just get a good bit out, and my rifle was a rusty mess that took hours to clean up. Though I live in Texas where it's quite humid it was left indoors.

Pyrodex is MUCH MORE corrosive than BP for sure, and there's a fellow who tested these two against Triple 7 to show it.

Later I ran across a fellow's post talking about using Ballistol, that it's absorbed by the fouling leaving no room for moisture, which made sense. So I tried it on both revolvers leaving them in my garage during the summer. They cleaned up easily and with no rust.

I actually find my pistols easier and quicker (and more enjoyable) to clean vs my Lyman rifle.
 
I too have read about the effectiveness of Ballistol. A few days ago doing some "BF" LGS shopping I found 16 oz cans of Ballistol. I read many BP experts mix Ballistol and water for cleaning and corrosion preventitive. So I will be trying this method as well.
 
Howdy Again

I was probably the guy who posted about how Ballistol will be soaked up by fouling and prevent the fouling from absorbing any water from the atmosphere. I have been talking about that for quite a while on a lot of gun boards.

You do not absolutely have to use Ballistol for that, any oil will do the same thing. In fact, if you are already using Murphy's Mix, it will do the same thing too. When the water in the Hydrogen Peroxide and the alcohol evaporates, the oil soap will be left behind, leaving an oily residue on all the parts it has touched. This oily residue will also serve to protect the steel from air borne water vapor.

You can get the same results with Ballistol, most guys cut it about 10/1 with water for cleaning BP residue. Straight Ballistol will dissolve BP fouling, but it is not as effective as a mixture with more water in it, hence cutting it with water. Personally, I like to clean with Murphy's Mix, it dissolves the BP fouling and washes it away, leaving behind the oily residue. I follow up with a squirt of straight, uncut Ballistol down inside the works just as extra, added insurance. I also run a patch soaked with Ballistol down the bore and chambers, followed by a dry patch to mop up the excess Ballistol, leaving behind a thin film of oil. As I mentioned earlier, I do not bother to swab out the Ballistol from the bore and chambers of a cartridge revolver before firing it, but with a C&B revolver you will want to dry out the oil in the chambers before loading Black Powder in or you may have problems with ignition.
 
Pyrodex is MUCH MORE corrosive than BP for sure
Click to expand...

I use a lot of Pyrodex and I can assure you it's not any more corrosive than black. I leave guns uncleaned for several days at a time and never had any rust or corrosion with Pyrodex or black.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top