I'm tired of people getting mad when I tell them their gun is junk. To all black powder beginners out there YOU HAVE TO CLEAN YOUR GUN AFTER EVERY TIME YOU SHOOT! If you bring me a used cva with a rusted out barrel I will offer you $50 max for the stock if I'm in a good mood. Rant over
You are absolutely right, you can't skip cleaning your black powder firearms. Black powder is corrosive!
i see a lot of ruined blackpowder guns. Most of the guns i see in pawnshops have ruined bores. Whether the shooter uses blackpowder or a substitute; the gun must be promptly cleaned soon after shooting. A friend ruined his expensive Knight disc rifle when he left it uncleaned for nearly a year. Pyrodex is as corrosive as black powder, perhaps more so. If left uncleaned a gun fired with Blackhorn 209 can rust.
I shot my flintlock twice 30+ years ago using real gun powder and did not clean it until this spring. The hole from the flash pan through the barrel was closed with crud. I poured hydrogen peroxide down the barrel and it was open before I could get the barrel full. Ran a brass brush down the barrel and some old black powder cleaner I had, also 30+ years old for a few strokes and the bore looks as good as ever. Even got a LED and made a light to put down to the bottom of the bore and it looks great. I 'm not saying this is good practice but for some reason I got lucky.
janeitzel you are lucky! My boy took out my Hawken last year and then hung it back on the wall without cleaning it because he was going to shoot it the next day (I did not know this). Well that didn't happen and when I took it off the wall before deer hunting last year to practice I found I now own a very expensive piece of junk.
Yeah extremely lucky not because the gun didn't rust to uselessness but because it didn't go kaboom. You do not use smokeless powder in a black powder rifle ever.
Is it possible to use the electronic gadget that removes the fouling and rust? I have a homemade one that works well on modern rifles. Why not with BP?
Since I got into blackpowder in a real big way I always have guys offering to sell me the ones they bought and never really liked to use. I bet 8 out of 10 are rust buckets. I hate to tell them they have a really big rusty paperweight that I wont give them anything for. Its sad to see some really nice rifles and pistols just ruined by lack of care!!
