How Often Do You Clean?

[Justin Crossley]

I haven't hunted with a muzzleloader in years. Will be deer hunting with a .45 cal this year. Planning to shoot the Hornady bullets with Triple Se7en powder.

How often do you clean your barrels and what is your process?

 

[BBob]

If I’m just shooting for practice or for testing I’ll swab with windex patches as needed. With patched round ball I don’t need to swab very often. For a full clean when the season is over or if I’m not planning on shooting it for awhile the barrel comes off and it gets swabbed in a bucket of hot water with dawn. I used to oil the bore after but I’m trying out Hornady One Shot as a bore anti corrosion. Yeah that’s actually a thing I just learned here not long ago @ElDiablito

I hunt with a fouled bore. Down here in the desert I’m not hampered with much moisture so I don’t worry about corrosion during the hunt. I want to retest sometime for accuracy with a clean bore coated with the one shot to see how it does.

 

[LCguy]

I clean breechplug, barrel and frame after every session. This includes removing the barrel from the frame. I clean the barrel using the plunger method, basically plunging hot, soapy water through the barrel. Gets it very, very clean. I leave the barrel and breech plug to dry for several hours to overnight. I then wipe everything down with gun oil and reassemble the gun. Muzzle-loaders.com has these pipe cleaner's that have nylon stud embedded and those do a great job cleaning the plug.

With my CVA I would also remove the firing pin and clean that and the spring after every session. My T/C doesn't get nearly as dirty so I won't be doing that until the end of my last hunt.

At the Range, I keep a zip lock bag with patches that are saturated in windex and I run one of those plus two dry patches after each shot. Before shooting, I run two dry patches and then pop 4 primers to foul the barrel.

 

[Wrench]

In my videos where I am shooting the clay pigeons with my hawken, I run a spit patch and a dry patch between shots.

I do the hot water pump and dump when I get home. Water is your friend!

T7 has a habit of forming a crud ring that gets pretty tough in some guns. I ran it in 3 and 2 of them built crud.

I could get about 6-7 shots in my knight on t7 and about the same with swiss in my hawken.

 

[SteveAndTheCrigBoys]

With 777 and similar bullets I clean every 5 shots.

Process is usually brush, wet patch, brush, wet patch, and a couple dry patches. Nothing between shots.

Sounding like I don't do enough! I usually only shoot it a couple times a year before muzzy elk season. I probably should clean it better after that hunt...

And since I'm on a video posting kick today, always liked this one.

 

[.270]

I’m running BH209 in my muzzleloader, and after about seven shots it starts getting pretty hard to load. Once the fouling builds up, the bullet/sabot just doesn’t want to seat smoothly anymore. If I’m in the field and it gets to that point I pull the breech plug and run a few patches with Butch’s Bore Shine until they come out clean. I don’t think the exact solvent matters much with BH209; that’s just what I’ve always used and it’s worked fine.

After the hunt or a range session, I break the whole muzzleloader down, clean everything, and re‑lube all the metal before it goes back in the safe. I usually only have one muzzleloader hunt a year, so it ends up sitting for a while afterward.

I also make sure to foul the barrel before the hunt. My rifle throws the clean‑bore shot several inches away from a fouled‑bore shot, so I always sight in and hunt with a fouled barrel. Hunting in AZ/NM, with short seasons and dry weather, I’ve never had any issues leaving a fouled barrel for five days or so during the hunt.

 

[tracker12]

I pull the BP and clean the gun after each shooting. I shoot T7 or Pyrodex. On the range I usually just shoot till I am done butI am shooting a White ML using lead conical and wool wads. Never need to swab between shots.