cleaning between shots

[RobD]

i rarely do fouling control between shots with my flintlock rifles and smoothbores.  i can only relate how i approach loading and what works for me, and YMMV.  lots depends on the bore, the fit of ball and patch, the patch lube.  i do not load tight patched balls that require a hammer or even a "short starter".  pure lead balls are .010 to .020 smaller in diameter than the barrel's land diameter.  cotton patch strips are pre-lubed with a homemade soft solid lube and heat gunned into the cloth weave.  the size of the ball and thickness of the patch are predetermined to easily load past the muzzle.

before the first load, the barrel and lock are cleaned of any residual oils and dried off.  patched balls are thumb seated, or at best nudged below the muzzle with the handle of a knife, excess patching is cut off.  the ride down the barrel to the chamber is easy and smooth for that first patched ball.

the load is fired.  blowing down the barrel keeps the bp residue soft.  this practice is falsely (in my opinion - "the libertarian thing") forbidden at most ranges.  if so, i use a blow tube to get moist breath down the barrel.  then load as soon as possible. 

subsequent loads will not go down with one smooth push, and will require getting "bumped" down with the ramrod.  when the patched ball appears to have reached the powder and bottomed out, it usually hasn't and can be verified by looking at the "seated ball" mark on the ramrod's end (you do have proper load and no-load marks on yer ramrod, eh?).  this is when the ramrod gets thrust and thrown down on the ball and bounced.  when the ball is fully seated, and the powder is properly compressed, the ramrod will readily bounce ("trampoline") up.  that's it.  fire and do it over. 

   

[Ohio Joe]

Good info Rob, I enjoy revisiting this topic as it seems even after all these decades of shooting muzzle loading firearms, we sometime stumble across something we least expect to find.

For years now I seldom have swabbed between shots. In fact, I was surprised at this years Rendezvous that I didn't have to swab once in the progression of our 15 shots we had to take for our Men's shoot. Normally in the past I'd find myself swabbing after each 5 shot set, but not at this year's doings. Perhaps it was the humidity and a better grade of spit (thanks to the spirits Rondo and I was partaking of in the evenings,  ) that helped out? Anyway, I shoot a tight patch and ball load which I do use a short starter.

Now with my pistol I use a small enough ball with a .017 ticking patch that I can thumb press. I like this way of loading.

My grandson shot pretty accurately (he's 7-3/4 years old) at the kids shoot this year and I backed his ball off from using a .440 to a .433 with a .017 spit patch along with 40 grains of powder. I thumb pressed his patch and ball into the bore with ease before ramming it home (which I allowed him to do - then I'd check it), and he ended up finishing 2nd on a tie-breaking 100 yard gong shot (which appeared to hit in the middle of the gong), so I've been slowly changing my thinking/approach to going with the thumb pressed patch and ball.

Perhaps I will do some testing with my main shoulder rifle - going with thumb pressed balls when loading and see what results I get. I'm all for eliminating a short starter step in the loading process, and the potential of swabbing even once in a fifteen shot set.

As far as my Buffalo X-Stick Rifles and Chunk Gun goes,,, I'll probably always swab between shots with these rifles, but we're talking a more controlled shooting/tight patch and ball environment -vs- line shooting with a bunch of friends just out enjoying the outdoors with some friendly shooting matches. 

[Maven]

You've opened quite a can of worms, Rob!   However, let's see if we can puzzle some of this out, i.e., whether or not a gun needs to be swabbed between shots.  One factor is the bbl. itself:  some need frequent swabbing.  A second is ambient/relative humidity:  Blowing down the bbl. after each shot (I do it!) or shooting when the relative humidity is high seems to reduce the need for swabbing.  Then there's the tightness of the patch/RB:  Tighter often means less swabbing or so it seems (can't say I use a loose combination in any of my long guns though).  Fourth, is the lube you use:  My wet lube is 1 Ballistol : 6 H20 and I don't need to swab for as many as 20 (or more) shots.  Nevertheless, I do so when I feel a "crud ring" developing or when I change targets during a postal match.  OTOH, my grease lube, Stumpy's Moose Snot, works almost as well, but I swab after ~10 shots (or when I change targets) even though it's not really necessary.*  Lastly, BP granulation, charge weight, and burning properties surely must bear on the need/desire to swab frequently or not.  Btw, wouldn't itbe simple to set up a field experiment to get a better handle on this question/technique...if only for one's own guns?


*Used Stumpy's MS yesterday, which was quite humid locally, and dry swabbed just to see how the fouling was "progressing."  The patch slid in and out of the bbl. with ease as the fouling was soft and moist.

[RobD]

yes, lots of factors to consider, as one should expect with something as subjective as loading and shooting muzzleloaders. 

i like to do my muzzleloading on the easy side, and at least partially from an 18th century perspective.  that pretty much sez that ultimate consistent accuracy is not as important as the overall loading and shooting experience.  i do a fair amount of patch/ball combination testing with each of my guns.  the only lube i use is home brewed "gato feo" solid soft wax (mutton tallow, beeswax, candle wax) that's been rubbed onto the patch strip weave and then heat gunned deep into the fibers.  i don't get any patch blow-thru, but sometimes, rarely, i'll find one that'll smolder.

the .36 uses a .350 ball and .010 patching, whereas for both the .50 and .490 ball, and .62 smoothie and .595 or .600 ball, they get .015 patching.  if i was doing something like a "seneca run" shoot with the .62 i'd use .010 patching, for super fast loading because this is a timed event.

the above is not the easiest route to go for consistent accuracy, which instead would require a tighter patch/ball combo and a patch lube like a dry moose milk, i'd think.  that'd also at least require a ball starter, if not also a hammer.   

[Hanshi]

All my rifle loads are rather tight but do not become progressively harder to seat as I continue to load and fire.  Currently I use a ball .010" below bore size.  Patches are home cut and are either .020"-.022" mattress ticking or .025" denim.  I use only two lubes, Hoppes and mink oil.  The 30th load seats just as easily as the second.

These loads, while not super tight, are tight enough to wipe the bore with each prb seating; so there is never more than one shots fouling inside the barrel.  With the exception of the smoothbore, all loads require a short starter, but are readily seated with the wood ramrod.  I have no use for any load that can not be seated with the underbarrel, wood rod.  And I never wipe while shooting unless something (rarely happens) hampers seating.  Accuracy is very good; that is considering that Ray Charles could shoot smaller groups than I do.

[Winter Hawk]

I had gotten into the habit of wiping between shots.  Since we had this same conversation a while ago I decided to try shooting the Mike Fink target without wiping.  I first shot a five shot target to make sure of my POI, then set ol' Mike up on the backstop and fired the five record shots.  Then I moved over to the 100 yard range and shot another half dozen shots, all without wiping after the initial removal of oil from the bore.  Pillow ticking patch on a .440 ball, generously lubed with SnoSeal boot dressing.  I had no problems with loading using my knife to start the ball into the muzzle.

And wonder above wonders, I didn't dry ball once!   

~WH~