Gary

I started shooting Black Powder in 1968 with my first C&B revolver, so I am certainly not 'wet behind the ears'. In those days I would clean with hot soapy water, just like everybody else. I would tear the gun completely apart, clean off everything with hot soapy water, real hot so the metal would dry because it was so hot. Sometimes I would put the parts in an oven to make them dry faster. Sorry, I don't remember what temperature, it was a long time ago. Not very much hotter than the temperature water boils at, probably. I was always annoyed because the hot metal would always promote 'flash rust', the powdery orange dust on the surface.

Flash forward to about the year 2000 when I got into CAS. I avoided shooting Black Powder because of my memories of the pain that cleaning up afterwards was. That's when I discovered Murphy's Mix and Ballistol, and have been using that regimen ever since. Another advantage is you don't have to heat MMix, room temperature works fine. I usually clean my rifle at my car before I go home, because I don't have to heat the MMix. When I get home I clean the revolvers and the shotgun.

Another thing I have learned over the years is that since we no longer use corrosive primers, BP fouling is not as corrosive as most believe. I seldom clean my Colts the same day I shoot them, I am tired after being on the range all day and then driving home. I have found that waiting a few days does not hurt one bit, and once clean there is never any corrosion.

One thing about cleaning up cartridge revolvers is it is easier than cleaning a C&B revolver. There are no nicks and crannies in the chambers to harbor fouling or crud. No nipples or nipple threads that need to be cleaned. A couple of swipes with a conventional bore brush and whatever your favorite BP solvent is, cleans the chambers in one fell swoop.

I haven't fired a flintlock rifle in many years, probably cleaned it the same way you do. A cartridge rifle is simpler, the bore is open at both ends, so a bore brush can be run completely down. My technique with a rifle is to chamber a spent round and close the breech, to block up the chamber. Then I twirl a bunch of patches soaked with MMix down the bore, retracting each one. I use the slotted end of a cleaning rod for this, not a jag. A jag can jam the patch into the empty in the chamber, which can be a pain. Each patch comes out successively cleaner. When one comes out gray, with no crud on it, I have washed all the fouling down into the empty brass in the chamber and the bore is essentially clean. Then I flip the rifle over and eject the empty. A spray of dirty solvent comes out with it onto the ground. You have to be careful not to get it on you. I swab out the action with MMix, then run a dry bore snake down the bore to soak up all the MMix. I follow this with a patch soaked in Ballistol down the bore, and then a dry one to mop up the excess. This leaves a fine coating of Ballistol in the bore, which prevents rust. A little swabbing of the action with Ballistol, and a few drops down into the action keeps any fouling that got down there oily and also prevents rust.

When I first started shooting BP in CAS I bought a slightly used Uberti '73, chambered for 44-40 with a shiny bore. I had read that scrubbing all the fouling out of thousands of tiny pits in an old bore would take a huge amount of elbow grease to remove all the fouling. Then I thought about it and realized it did not matter if I removed every molecule of fouling from the pitted bore. I had removed the majority of fouling, and running a patch soaked with Ballistol down the bore meant I was soaking what was left with oil. As I stated earlier, BP fouling that has been infused with oil will not cause corrosion. Removing the majority of the fouling with MMix, then soaking what little bit was left freed me up to start shooting antiques with pitted bores. Now I shoot lots of old revolvers and rifles with with pitted bores and don't worry about cleaning every last bit of fouling out of the bores. The Ballistol coating prevents any further rust. Of course the bores on my new NM#3 as well as my nickel plated one, are practically spotless and I will clean them promptly to keep them shiny.

Unlike a revolver, a cartridge rifle is basically a pipe. Depending on how well the brass expands to seal the bore when the cartridge fires, almost all the fouling goes out the bore or stays in the bore. With the old WCF cartridges the brass is very thin at the case mouth, and the brass expands very well at the relatively low pressures generated by BP cartridges, and very little fouling blows back past the cartilage and into the mechanism. Not so with cartridges such as 45 Colt which have thicker brass and do not obturate as well as 44-40 or 38-40. Guys shooting BP in their 45 Colt rifles often have more fouling to clean out, and sometimes the elevator will get sticky on a 45 Colt Henry, '66, or '73. Not so with 44-40 or 38-40, they keep shooting all day with no binding.