Any Traditional Muzzleloader Shooters?

[Maverick79]

I use soap and water in my rifle and my pistols. I pull the nipples and clean the cylinder and barrel with water from the tap.Then run dry patches down making sure everything is dry completely. then i grease the barrel reinstal the nipples and put it away. never had a rust problem with any of my guns and i live in humid as hell missouri.

also don't shoot full loads with that brass frame. If you do the brass tends to stretch over time. Use light target loads and you'll be fine

 

[littlebill31]

I use boiling water down the barrel and in the cylinders. The water neutralizes the corrosive powder and loosens oils. Then patch the hell out of it, then use a nylon, not metal, but nylon brush through the barrel with Hoppes black powder or No. 9 solivent. Repeat with the patches and run a final patch lathered with "Bore Butter" to protect and season the metal.
Never use a metal bristled brush, especially in a muzzleloader barrel. It will not come back out.

I also only use Pyrodex powder. I use to use GOEX black powder, but I found it way too corrosive. You cannot let a gun wait to be cleaned when using GOEX. And I find it fouls up a lot easier when shooting a bunch of rounds.

When I am shooting targets I usually shoot 20-30 rounds in a short time. I have a little spray bottle of rubbing alcohol that I use on a patch and swab the barrel between shots. It gets some fouling out and evaporates quickly.

 

[hamamatsu]

Thanks for the info on cleaning black powder guns, it sounds like a lot of work, but if you wanna play, you gotta pay. At the moment, I am reading the Journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition, it is a day to day journal of their journey. So far it has been an interesting book, but it is hard to read, they didn't have spell check back in those days. They spelled words the way they rolled off the tougue, so you have to pay attention. They had a dozen different ways to spell Sioux Indians.

One of the hardest parts of their journey was keeping their weapons repaired and keeping their powder dry. They took enough blacksmith tools along to make any repairs needed on the guns and their boats. They took sheets of lead and made their own ball as needed. They must have been one hell of a rugged bunch of men, they pretty much made the journey based their own strengths. One of the interesting items they took along was an air rifle which was capable of killing bear, deer, and buffalo. I looked the air rifle up on the web, it was an amazing piece of work for that time period...1804-1805.

If you want an accurate account of what it was like back on the frontier using primitive black powder weapons, circa 1804-1805, you should read this book. I'm about half way thru it.

 

[littlebill31]

Another one is called, "Undaunted Courage". It is about Lewis and Clark, Jefferson and the US at this time. Good read. Lots of interesting accounts.
I have all of their journals on my Kindle and periodically read a few.
I also have a bachelors in early American history and read obsessively of the subject. Absolutely fascinates me.

 

[twowheelinjim]

Good evening gents. This past Christmas was a good one for my son. He got a surprise cap and ball pistol. I found a little gun shop about a half hour from home. Earlier this year I stopped by with my son and he noticed in one of the display cabinets two BP pistols, each in their separate display boxes with compartments. Each pistol had a powder flask, a bullet mold, a tin with caps and a compartment with lead balls. He was very intrigued until he saw the prices. In the months since he had talked about those pistols with great desire only to be ignored.
Right before Christmas I stopped by the gun shop to do a little haggling and only one pistol was left. Luckily it was the one he wanted, an 1858 Remington Navy model in .36 caliber. I ended up buying a pound of Pyrodex and a box of Hornady balls. They didn't have patches for this pistol caliber in stock plus it was too late in the year to attempt ordering some. After some Internet searching I found out that the proper size patches are 7/8'' in diameter. I ended up turning a remnant piece of 1'' stainless rod into a patch punch by drilling it about 1'' deep and tapering the outside 15 degrees. My only hope is that he keeps that old pistol for many years to come.

 

[xjwmx]

At the moment, I am reading the Journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition, it is a day to day journal of their journey.
...
If you want an accurate account of what it was like back on the frontier using primitive black powder weapons, circa 1804-1805, you should read this book. I'm about half way thru it.

I read that too, a version that's free via Google books, in pdf. They spend a lot of time in wanton killing of game for sport and they seem to kill every single snake they see. It got funny after a while, like time out for snake killing again. I also read John Smith's journals of Jamestown and bio information about Smith, who was an amazing warrior in his earlier life, right on the tail end of the Medieval period. That includes the Pocahontas story/legend, and reveals the Indians on the VA coast practiced human sacrifice for religious purposes. Another good read is LaSalle's two trips to America, which were also journalized. The first trip, down the Mississippi in canoes, and the second trip attempting to find its mouth via the gulf. The expedition was doomed and desperate after a certain point. That is one reason I went to Matagorda Bay a couple of weeks ago. I really got a sense in my imagination of those guys situation and how they must have been thinking man we are fucked good. All of these are free via Google books, in pdf. The first LaSalle story is so intriguing because of the information concerning interaction with the Indians. There are good accounts of the Spanish explorers available from the same source.

Back to guns, there is a brass cannon from LaSalle's ship Belle on display in Austin. I caught myself absent-mindedly circling my finger around the bore at the muzzle. After I got back it dawned on me that anyone who was around the cannon for any time would have done the same thing naturally, including members of LaSalle's crew and maybe LaSalle himself.

 

[xjwmx]

Regarding Pocahontas, picture the young princess doing naked cartwheels. You won't find that bit of reality in any movie!

 

[littlebill31]

There is, supposedly, some new studies and evidence on Lewis's death.

 

[littlebill31]

If anyone is looking for a nice, plain powderhorn, Track of the Wolf has these for $12.95.
http://www.trackofthewolf.com/Categories/partDetail.aspx?catId=1&subId=12&styleId=40&partNum=HORN-D

I bought one and got it the other day. It's made from horn, but is a good, inexpensive horn that you don't have to worry about messing up if you want to drag it thru the wilderness. Looks good and nice size.

EDIT: It is made of horn, not composite. I just burned some, (little test) and it's real horn.

 

[xjwmx]

^I bought one that looked exactly the same a couple of years ago, just to have around. But I think it was actual horn. Maybe Chinese ox It wasn't moisture tight. I planned on making it functional by sealing the large end with epoxy glue, but never got around to it. Those brass tacks you see will just pull right out, letting you get in there.

Here is a cool powder horn used by a black Revolutionary War soldier. Somewhere I read some history of it, and it was made at Fort Glastonbury. Powder horn makers were a fixture at forts and for a little extra they would carve your name in or pictures, etc. An interesting thing to me was the African motif on the big end. Same kind of design we associate with African today.

http://negroartist.com/REVOLUTIONAY%20WAR/pages/PRINCE%20SIMBO%20%20Rare%20Powder%20Horn%20used%20by%20a%20Black%20Soldier_jpg.htm

 

[hamamatsu]

A friend of mine machined a black powder cannon out of a solid stainless steel billet, he bored a hole the size of a golf ball from one end of the billet to the other end, then he pressed and pinned a plug in one end. He also drilled a hole which he uses to insert a fuse. He uses a golf ball as the projectile because they are cheap to buy and the dimples on the golf ball makes it fly straight.

We used a light load of powder to shoot a golf ball at a piece of 5/4 solid oak, at 50 yards it blew a perfect hole in the oak the exact size of the golf ball. The golf ball vaporized. The power of a cap full of black power is amazing. We hauled the cannon up on a hill top in southern Ohio so we could shoot it safely... I nearly had a heart spasm before we got it to the top of that hill.

 

[littlebill31]

That's a nice horn. I've always liked the script on them. I have a few nice horns. A couple I made too. You can buy all the traditional supplies from "Powderhorns and More" or "Track of the Wolf" if you wanted to make your own.
The cheap one I have works pretty well. It's tight and I've had no problems with moist powder. I have a very nice horn that was quite pricey and I had to do a lot of work to get it to seal and the funnel end was way too small to get powder out. In Muzzlelaoder or Muzzle Blast magaines they usually have a few in each edition that are original with their stories. Really interesting.
There are things called "salt" horns too. That were to keep your salt in, lol.

Hamahatsu, you ever shoot a golf ball with a shotgun? Like throw it in the air and shoot it? See ya later, those things fly. They don't break either, lol.

 

[hamamatsu]

Littlebill, what makes you think I could hit a golf ball in mid air with a shotgun ?

I have shot them off of a log with a little 10/22 that I use for target practice, the little .22 just puts a ding in them.