Just read the manual for my 54 caliber lyman rifle I bought this week.
Says the powder channel in the barrel is 38 caliber and I can see that it's narrower than the bore with a flashlight.
Never realized that about the older style rifles. Any tips on how to get that clean and dry after firing?
I use super hot soapy water and it gets it squeaky clean. The metal dries quickly due to the heat then jut oil it up and you are good
Flint or percussion? On percussion rifles, I use a drilled-out nipple and a length of rubber hose, and pump hot soapy water in and out of the barrel with a tight-fitting patch, followed by a boiling water rinse and a swab with a patch moistened with Ballistol. It's good to go until the next hunt or target shoot. My flinters have a clamp-on purge hose that fits the flash hole and they get the same procedure.
Percussion. Not new to this but it occurred to me I might have been doing this the wrong or the hard way all this time
If you can find your way home......it's not rocket science!
Dribble a few grains of RL-7 or 15 under the nipple, reinstall, cap and fire, it will safely blow/burn that crap out of there [port too] down to the clean bare steel.
I just always seemed to find some brown on my patch the next time I get a muzzleloader out. I hate to think I left some moisture or powder in there. I want it to last many years.
Denatured alcohol. #1 product I run down my bore & breech before following up with my regular oil.
Went out to a family member's place and sighted it in and had a blast. Pun intended lol
Cleaned with hot soapy water and oiled it all up. Am I getting the channel between the nipple and the powder charge clean and dry enough? Any tips on that?
Thought maybe canned air?
Most soaps have salt as an ingredient. So that is bad. Simple green does not have salt, so it is a wise choice.
Balistrol cleaner was invented for cleaning blackpowder when militarizes still used blaclpowder. It can be used as a cleaner mixed with water, and a preservative oil straight out of the bottle. It has a basic PH by design, so it neutralized the acid in the black powder.
So salt and sulfur are big corroding agents, so try solutions to minimize their activity in your barrel.
i use a mixture of Murphys Oil soap, Ballistol & isopropyl alcohol. equal 1/3 parts and it works great bores always look great. i also use it as a patch lube when shooting matches and never have to swab the barrel can shoot all day. i always lube the barrel inside and out with straight ballistol after cleaning.
Acetone . I haven’t lubed a muzzleloader barrel in 20 yrs
I just always seemed to find some brown on my patch the next time I get a muzzleloader out. I hate to think I left some moisture or powder in there. I want it to last many years.
It's all about using the hottest soapy water you can tolerate working with. The key is to get the barrel as hot as you can handle. Run a couple dry patches through the barrel to suck out excessive moisture, then a lightly oiled patch, and then one storke with a dry patch. Set the now hot the the touch barrel aside and let the heat do it's work on any remaining moisture.