I’ve been shooting various forms of BP for quite awhile now. From way back in my youth of punting with a Hawkins style .50 cal to several years of CAS shooting BP Cartridge class to more recently shooting older gun and more modern repros with BP. Through those many years I’ve gone through many different ways of cleaning. Much of it involved lots of hot water (original reason I used to use my brothers coffee pot), windex, crazy mixes of Murphys oil soap and hydrogen peroxide etc.
I used Balistol years ago and even made up moose milk but never got really into it. For some reason, I have gone back to using Moose Milk (50/50 mix of Ballistol and water) in a spray bottle to clean various BP fire arms.
My most common recent guns have been an 1851 Navy repro, a couple of trapdoors on .45/70 and one 2nd Model Allin in .50/70, a .45/70 Sharps and more recently a Springfield Rolling Block in .50/45 carbine.
As an example of what I currently am
Using, today I fired my .50/45 rolling block for only the second time. I put ten live rounds through it and then ten ‘blanks’ through it to fire form some new cases to see if they’ll work. I would imagine the blanks left more residue behind due to not having a bullet to push it out.
When I returned homes I opened the action and put the carbine muzzle down on a rag and gave the bore and action several squirts of moose milk. I then ran three patches down the bore. The first was dry and the next two were sprayed with moose milk. After the third patch, I was satisfied and ran a patch saturated with straight ballistol down the bore then wiped the whole carbine down with that wonderful German magic juice.
Pictured below (hopefully; I’m a dumb plumber, not a tech guy) are pics of the pile of oooze, the first patch, second and third, clean patch.
I’m not saying this is the best way, but it seems to work well for me!
And one last pic trying to show the bore of a black powder cartridge rifle made in 1867 to show that you can still get lucky and find a good, old one!
I used Balistol years ago and even made up moose milk but never got really into it. For some reason, I have gone back to using Moose Milk (50/50 mix of Ballistol and water) in a spray bottle to clean various BP fire arms.
My most common recent guns have been an 1851 Navy repro, a couple of trapdoors on .45/70 and one 2nd Model Allin in .50/70, a .45/70 Sharps and more recently a Springfield Rolling Block in .50/45 carbine.
As an example of what I currently am
Using, today I fired my .50/45 rolling block for only the second time. I put ten live rounds through it and then ten ‘blanks’ through it to fire form some new cases to see if they’ll work. I would imagine the blanks left more residue behind due to not having a bullet to push it out.
When I returned homes I opened the action and put the carbine muzzle down on a rag and gave the bore and action several squirts of moose milk. I then ran three patches down the bore. The first was dry and the next two were sprayed with moose milk. After the third patch, I was satisfied and ran a patch saturated with straight ballistol down the bore then wiped the whole carbine down with that wonderful German magic juice.
Pictured below (hopefully; I’m a dumb plumber, not a tech guy) are pics of the pile of oooze, the first patch, second and third, clean patch.
I’m not saying this is the best way, but it seems to work well for me!
And one last pic trying to show the bore of a black powder cartridge rifle made in 1867 to show that you can still get lucky and find a good, old one!
