Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Black powder and petroleum oils

There seems to be a controversy surrounding use of petroleum products and black powder. What is the issue? What is wrong with final season cleaning with something like Kroil or WD40 for rust removal prevention and leaving it till next season like any other firearm?<BR>Like some facts here please - stv<P>

In a nutshell here is the controversy as I remember it...(sorry no facts all hearsay and conjecture)<P>If you use petrol products in your BP, when shooting bullets, be it patch, or maxi, or when you clean, the petrol products cause quicker fouling build up than non petrol products.(heck I may have it backwards, oh well)<P><BR>Me personally (have had one BP rifle for about 10 yrs now and just bought another)and always cleaned it with either, hot soapy water, glass cleaner, hoppes powder solvent, or breakfree. I have not used any of them with any degree of regularity, just whatever I have handy to clean with after a shooting session. I have always given it a final oiling up with either, breakfree, gun oil (outters), Maxi Lube 1000, gunslick, or crisco to prevent rust. (as you can see I am very consistent and brand loyal....NOT) I have not noticed any difference in the fouling, either harder or softer, more or less, during the next shooting session. I personally think the people who say that about the petrol products are the benchrest shooters of the blackpowder community, ie they are very set in what they believe and very fickle, they belive what they believe and that is what everyone should believe! I personally think that this is a non issue, but I am sure you can get someone fired up about it, just as surely as you can "a ford is better than chevy" argument.<P>I would suggest you look into a good (thicker) oil/preventive lubricant for you BP rifle, only because I have found that with the light oils used on modern firearms they do not tend to give as adequate protection as you need for a BP rifle/pistol. Mostly due to the "extra corrosion" associated with BP shooting. I have found that with the lighter oils rust can come back quite quickly if not cleaned extra well the first time. I always check my rifles the next day or two after cleaning just to make sure.

Blammer, Thanks, I will head your warning. What you say makes sense, stv

The petroleum thing isn't really controversial it's a well known fact that most petroleum based oils and some vegetable based ones as well will turn into a nasty asphault type varnish from the heat and BP salt residues while shooting
you simply need to chase out the protective oil with a solvent saturated patch or 2 before you load your first shot next time you shoot, some of the petroleum based oils are unprecidented as far as protecting barrel steel
I think the best is LPS II for normal protection LPS III for long term storage
I use Brak-Kleen to cut the oil prior to shooting. Don't put WD-40 in your barrel it's not a lubricant and it's certainly not a rust preventative and it'll most certainly create varnich problems. Use a wter or water based solvent for cleaning then use an alcohol saturated patch to remove any residual moisture prior to oiling the barrel. fredj

blammer- I think many of the BP benchrest shooters have several decades
of BP shooting experience behind them and have major investments in thier rifles and likely know more about what works and what doesn't and why than the vast majority of gun writers or industry folks. They know cold water works better than hot for cleaning and it doesn't promote after rust like hot does, they'd also know that Crisco contains salt and would be an extremely poor choice for preventing rust. Most people assume BP residue is acidic
it is in fact quite alkaline. The BR folks know for a fact that petroleum derived
oils and many vegetable based oils create nasty tar or asphault type varnishes in a barrel, it's not magic, it's not conjecture, if you never do an adequate job cleaning your bore you might not realize it's there, but serious BP competitors
particularly the BR shooters would realize the detrimental effects in short order, as they spend a great deal of time and money working up loads involving all kinds of subtle details just to be in the running at those shoots. That doesn't mean they don't use effective petro based oils as a preservative, just means they chase it out with solvent before they shoot.
I used to teach hunters safety and all kinds of ying yangs (the kids Dad's)would tell me that
they didn'y need to really clean thier bores because they were "seasoned"
wth bore butter or Wonder lube 1000, and or that Pyrodex was non corrosive
at one point I had several of them bring thier rifles in and examined thier bores with a rifle maker friends bore scope, after that some of them kept
pretty quiet as thier bores looked like Afghanistan when magnified by the bore scope, they were so pit corroded
stainless inline barrels will get every bit as trashed as chrome moly alloys
when not cared for properly and by the time even a moron starts to realize
his rifle is starting to foul badly or there's a little bit more resistance seating the slugs, his barrel is totally cooked, beyond repair, and often a replacement barrel might cost as much as $400. So when some of the Greybeards give advice on some of these issues they're trying to save younger shooters from some of the costly mistakes they've made, not trying to engage in a battle of ego's. There are some excellent BP shooting books based on decades of experience, one of the best is Ned Roberts " The single shot muzzle loading cap lock rifle" even though Ned Has been dead for several decades it's full of
important and hard earned info. fredj

Well, I have been cleaning my muzzleloaders with hot, soapy water ever since I started shooting. After drying I run a patch with WD40 down the barrel, dry patch again, and then a patch saturated with Hoppe's gun oil. I have never had any rust problems so far. Before shooting again, I always run an alcohol patch or two down the barrel, then snap 3 caps. Load and shoot. After reading some of the posts about the petroleum based lubricants, should I change my regimen? Are my barrels in danger from this treatment?

Your technique sounds fine, there is really no universally correct proceedure
but I'd recommend using alcohol instead of WD-40 to displace the moisture
and if your going to put the gun away for the season I'd think you'd be better off with something heavier duty than the Hoppe's gun oil, Rig, Sheath, LPS II or III. I used hot soapy water followed by a boiling water flush for years
but from advice from others and subsequent experience I just use non ammoniated glass cleaner on patches until they come out clean then dry patch then alcohol the LPS II or III till I shoot again chase out the LPS with
Brak-Kleen, occaisonally I'll pump some cold water through the bore in addition to the rest of the proceedures, I'm going to try cider vinegar and
windex with vinegar when it warms up enough to shoot again.
fredj

Fredj, your cleaning procedure sounds alot faster and easier than mine! I'll have to try the glass cleaner the next time I shoot. We're in our last week of late season here, so hopefully I'll get to try it out after filling one last tag. I'm gonna get something besides Hoppes for the after season storage, and will use alcohol instead of WD-40 from now on. Thanks for the advice!

What does "LPS" stand for and where can you get it. I looked it up on Google but LPS is a type of Leupold scope and all I hit on was a bunch of expensive scopes.

buckfvr-You might also want to try the cider vinegar my friend Bill Knight
(The Mad Monk) uses he knows more about BP chemistry and behavior than anyone else. But the glass cleaner has worked well for me, I may also try
the Windex that contains vinegar, I spent years doing the soapy hot water in a bucket thing, then I got the nipples with tubing that works great, thats what I still use (with cold water) a couple of times a season, or before putting my rifles away for the season after then glass cleaner and patches treatment.
I really didn't shoot my flinters much back when I was still doing the full blown soapy water in the bucket thing because it was such a hassle tearing them down to get the barrel out, now I enjoy my flinters considerably more
and when I do the barrel flush I use one of those clamps with the tubing.
Regards fredj

Thanks Fredj! I'll have to try the cidar vinegar, too. I have never cleaned with anything else except soapy water, but after being on Shooters and then here, there's much easier ways. I use the tubing that hooks to the nipple that you spoke of. I know what you mean about not shooting that much. With all the hassle of cleaning, it just takes the fun out of shooting. I'll be shooting alot more now that I have some new cleaning techniques up my sleeve. I just always thought THE way to clean was the bucket and water. Thanks again! I learn something new every day on here! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />