Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders SEASON THE BARREL, OR OLD WIVES TALE?

I use to clean my m/l at the end of the season and protect it from rust with wonder lube. Usually would get it out time or two in summer but not always. The times I didn't shoot it in summer I got some rust when I wiped the barrel out before fall sight in time. I read here or somewhere that seasoning the barrel was BS. I decided to protect the barrel with oil and have no more rust even after setting in my gun rack till next fall. What say ya'll, oil or no?

I've had my T/C Hawken for 15 years. Never used anything but Bore Butter as patch lube and preservative. No rust whatsover inside or out.

Wonder Lube or Bore Butter will both work as a patch lube and preservative. I some times in the summer when it's blazing hot will coat my T/C hawken barrel removed from the wood with either bore butter or wonder lube inside and out then set it in the sun on my deck and let the sun season the metal. I have no issues with rust anywhere.

Wonder Lube or Bore Butter is a poor rust inhibitor. Oil it up,but remove before shooting black powder in it

total BS. Its nothing more than mineral oil and paraffin wax. I hear folks say, its olive oil and beeswax!! Yeah right, ever look at the prices of those 2 ingredients and especially the shelf life of olive oil? Not happening.

I personally won't use it. If you currently use it and have good luck with it, keep at it. I have one rusted bore from that stuff because it was a poor anti rust lube.

There are lots of way better cleaning and preservatives out there. Ballistol is one of them that would be suitable for this

Hoppe's gun oil is mineral oil. Mineral oil and various waxes have been used as rust inhibitors for a couple centuries.

Yeah, it only works here in New York. Since it's soooo much more humid in Colorado it probably won't work out there..

Take some Bore Butter and lube a maxi ball with it then let it set a year like you would rifle fro m season to season. You will see it is dried out and flake off.

Seasoning , at least to me, is like when you season a cast iron skillet. You fill up the porous holes of the cast iron and build up a layer of burned on oil. Your muzzle loader is cleaned up to bare metal.

This is why the instructions say not to use oil as a lubricant with black powder. It will turn the oil into carbon coating that is hard to get off. Which is why you use std gun solvents when using BH209. Bore Butter is fine for short term,but I sure don't use it for long term

My Hawken only gets used just before and during muzzleloader season each December. The rest of the year it hangs above the picture window in my living room. It never gets touched in between. Each year I take it out just before MZ season to shoot a few balls for zero check. When I pick it up you can easily see and feel the tacky wax film on the barrel from the Bore Butter that was applied at the end of last season. I have a few of those old dried out Maxi Balls. It took many years for them to get that way.

Has anyone tried Frog Lube as a rust preventative on the outside and bore of a muzzleloader?

Its pretty much the same thing as bore butter, same consistency, same texture, and it to sucked as a patch lube.

I would not imagine it would be worth andything as a patch lube. It is based off Coconut oil and might be too slippery and runny for that purpose. As a rust preventative though it is very hard to surpass

Most soaps like dawn have salts in them, it is a thickener. So that salt can react with the steel. So I use simple green and water. Then it is clean and hopefully the carbon and sulfur is removed. I usually use RemOil or Barricade as a preservative. Before I shoot it, I clean out the oil with an alcohol wipe.
Lots of people hate bore butter, I am in that camp.

Clean with soap and water, then a couple patches of Hoppe's, followed with some mineral oil and another couple dry patches. Run a patch down and back before loading up to shoot.

Some old timers around here insist on organic substances like bear grease, sheep tallow, etc. My response is that mineral oil is organic.

only ever used bore butter, really cake it in the barrel at the end of the season. No rust ever

Bore butter users.... You trust that stuff enough to do this... For a week?

I use Birchwood Casey Barricade. Tried bore butter but no joy. There may be others but Barricade works for me. Heard that seasoning was b.s. and not so couldn't say.

What fool would leave his muzzleloader in the snow for a week in the first place?

Hatchet Jack for one.

The point being.... Would bore butter users trust it to protector their firearm in conditions that extreme? Seeing how none spoke up... That would be a big no lol.

Hatchet Jack was dead. Nobody alive who isn't a fuggin moron would leave their rifle out in the snow for a week.

not with bore butter anyway

If you clean and dry your rifle thoroughly you probably wouldn't have problems with bore butter so long as you store it in the house instead of out in the snowbank. I know I don't.

I don't believe you can condition or season a bore much as a cast iron skillet. What kind of stuff is going to resist the temperature and friction of a shot or more being fired. A lubed bore will affect the poi, however. In my years of match shooting, I always degreased the bore and then fired one blank load, damp wiped, dry wiped and then fired for record, wiping after each subsequent shot. Now that I only hunt with mls, I sight in using two targets, one for the first shot, the second for a dirty loaded second. Clean and repeat. I clean after each session or hunt and coat the bore with RIG. Our old mantra was clean every day for a week, every week for a month and every month for a year. A little obsessive but you don't get rust. When you paid a C note for a barrel in 1965, you took care of it.

Frontier muzzleloading makes anti rust and patch lube. Best stuff ever. You won’t be disappointed. It’s great for cleaning, protecting barrel and lubing patches.

Almost as good as Bore Butter, eh? Even if I used his stuff I wouldn't be stupid enough to leave any rifle in a snow bank for a week. That and I'd like to see the historical provenance for Hatchet Jack other than a Hollyweird movie.

The snow bank was just to show extreme testing levels is all. I used to use bore butter myself but after having my rifles rust up during a hunt, I had enough.

When you can leave your gun outside from December to April and have 2 or 3 tiny ( pin head size ) rust spots on the barrel flat, that's a pretty good feeling. I dont worry about my rifles rusting up anymore.

Me either.
Mines stainless steel.

stainless will rust, just not as easily. Actually the SS lock up section on a cva break action, that sob will rust up so badly you would think its made of regular bare steel.