Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Rusty Bore?

The interior of my wife's MZ rusts like crazy and nothing I do stops it. Rifle is a TC Impact with the nickel/stainless finish. I remove the breech plug and clean, cover with a good oil, and put in safe. 6 months later the inside of the barrel has a coating of rust on it. No other gun in the same safe rusts. And it sits right beside my CVA. Starting to think TC might of had a bad batch of steel.
Bought a quart of the Evaporust to try.

You're not cleaning it right. After you think you're done run a quart of boiling water thru it. After it dries, plug the bbl, fill the barrel with Kroil, dump it out. store it muzzle down on an old rag. It will never rust again.

I use bore butter… well used, I haven’t shot mine in a long time

If that was the case then my CVA would be rusty as well.

cleaning with moose milk formula and finalizing and storage with a good layer of Ballistiol is your friend

Take $75 shipped for the TC?

No, if I decide to get rid of next year will find some deserving youngster and give it to them for free.

Moose milk cuts the salt, and straight balistrol cuts the sulphur.
I use simple green and water for a soap because it does not have salt like most detergents.

I let laundry soap and water sit in a barrel for an hour, it was alsmost ruined from salt. It was some Oxy brand. Anyway the cleaner could also be an issue.

plus the Ballistol is water-based and mixes with water. if you have any type of conventional water-based black powder cleaners left in your barrel and you soak it down with bliss doll it'll mix with the water when the water evaporates you will still have an oily cover. if you use something like the borebutter and you haven't got your barrel completely dry it can trap the water against the metal and therefore it can still rust.
what I call most milk anyway is 3/4 water 1/4 Ballistol plain water cuts black powder fountain quick as anything but the but mixing it with the Ballistol means it still gets oily coated when the water is evaporated.

Poor kid will have a rusty barrel!!

Looks like good progress. I'd fill it up with evaporust again. It will actually get every scrap of rust out but if when the rust is on there as thick as it was you sometimes have to dump old fluid out, scrub the part, and re-soak in evaporust. I've used it for pretty much everything.

Finding an old Knight slotted breech plug removal tool isn’t easy or cheap. Harbor Freight to the rescue. The nipple was stuck so I ground a spare chisel and worked the breech plug loose. Having soaked it for a few days in Kroil helped I’m sure.


I finally got a clear look down the barrel. It’s still not pretty after a brass brush (that’s chunks of rust stuck to the interior) so it’s back soaking in Evaporust.

I’ll keep after it and see what transpires.

I plan to order a new style breech plug and musket nipple to match my other Bighorn and for the added benefit of easier removal. Pulling that rusty breech plug was a relief!

Bore guide, rod with brush, maybe wrap with 0000 steel wool or a big patch and possibly use some JB Bore Paste and Kroil.

May be a 2 man job but chuck end of rod in drill, one person hold bore guide in place while the other runs the drill guiding the rod back and forth in bore. It may take a few cycles of this and flush with Kroil or other oil to get rid of deposits. Could do by hand but I think a drill would speed the process.

I bet it will polish up, maybe have a few pits or those may lap out, dunno.

Glad to run across this. New to muzzleloaders and bought an Impact.

Snowwolfe, I know nothing of these modern muzzle loaders, the black powder substitutes you guys use...but the key to long term storage on the old guns is swearing off of anything to do with petroleum based products. What I would do, degrease the bore with something very strong, brake cleaner, acetone, alcohol...one of those. Then wash the bore with hot soapy water. Dry it thoroughly by wiping and warming it well. While the barrel is quite warm, swab it thoroughly with a soft patch saturated in animal fat...only animal fat, not vegetable base, no mixtures, just plain animal fat/lard. Obviously avoid fats that may have salt...bacon, ham etc. If you don't have some...The easiest is just buy a pint of rendered mutton fat from Dixie Gun Works. And never again use any petroleum based product either in your bullets or cleaning regimen. There are guns today being used, almost 200 years old, well maintained with animal fats. Oil wells being scarce as the west was settled. I suppose your gun has a plastic stock, but if it had a wood stock, the animal fat is good for it. Petroleum oil softens wood. Won't cost you much to try it.

Might try Evorust and Kroil oil, then use JB bore paste to polish.

More evaporust, some foaming bore cleaner, cleaning patches, and some brass brushes and I’m satisfied with the project enough to see how it shoots. It is fairly clean just ugly.

Thanks for all the information everyone!

The Evaporust was new to me and quite a game changer. I picked up some of the Big 45 Frontier metal cleaner for the exterior rust and I am impressed again.

An oldtime smokepole mechanic would "freshen up" the bore, using a single tool steel cutter that follows the grooves one at a time- - - -deepening the groove a thoudsandth or so at a time by putting shim stock under the cutting tool. It's been done that way for a couple of centuries.

Time for a polish with a slurry of Kroil and JB Bore compound.