Maintaining a Military Musket
Cleanliness is next to reliability. Failure to keep a firelock clean - particularly directly
after an event or range shooting - will degrade reliability.
Here?s an easy to understand quick synopsis of all the verbose verbiage that follows
in this document ? always keep your musket?s barrel and lock clean.
Prior to shooting, I know my musket is clean and barring any component failure
should therefore be reliable. The hammer steel (frizzen) face and pan cover, pan, flint
edge, and touch hole are brightly clean. The entire lock and bore are clean and have
a very light and sparse hint of oil, as a preservative. In the bbl (barrel) is left a jagged
rod along with an oily patch. It is ready for duty service - ignition, detonation, firing -
once the bbl oil preservative is swabbed out.
At an event, I may prime, load, and fire my Bess in succession as many as a dozen
times. Not all firelocks can do this, and some can do far more good firings with
naught a pan flash or lack of spark.
Know your firelock. The only way to understand its limits is through practical blank
firing practice, as well as proper maintenance. This is NOT about firing live ball loads.
Practice blank loads of 10 to 20 grains will get the job done, no need to waste good
powder.
After a number of firings (whatever any firelock can offer reliably, be it a few or
many), clean the hammer face and pan cover, pan, flint edge, and touch hole. Some
firelocks will require this cleaning after only a few firings, some can go for a dozen or
more firings without any cleaning. Some bbls, with event blank firing, will also
require cleaning.
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IMPORTANT FOR REENACTORS!
The more blanks fired at an event, the more black powder residue will accumulate
within the bbl. These firings can happen sporadically and over a good period of time
that could be well over an hour to many hours. This happens because only powder
goes into the bbl - no paper cartridge, patch, or ball is loaded with a ramrod which
will have some manner of cleaning effect.
If there is a break in the firing activities where access to a proper cleaning rod with
jag and cleaning patches, or musket rod with worm and tow or cotton balls, plus oil
or cleaning solvent (or at least just water or spit!), that's always a good thing.
Within a matter of minutes the powder residue can cake and harden. Thrusting a wet
patch down the tube may find it hard to navigate the entire bbl length or even make
it difficult to remove the patched jag rod. It?s best to first plug the touch hole with a
round toothpick, stand the firelock on its butt and fill the bbl with either plain tepid
water or a mixture of water soluble oil (Ballistol) and water in a ratio of between 1:6
to 1:10 of oil:water. Let it stand for 5 minutes or so, pull the toothpick to relieve the
liquid, begin running wet patches down the bore to clean. If firing will further
commence, run dry patches down the bore. If the event is over and after doing the
aforementioned cleaning, run a final oil soaked patch down the bore and leave it
there while on the ride back home whence final proper cleaning can be done.
Barrel removal is not required for routine cleaning, but for guns used at least a few
times per month it is good to pull the bbl off once a year or so for cleaning the side
that sits within the stock as well as the stock bbl channel itself.
NOTE #1: Any and all wooden rods with threaded end ferrules for screwing in a jag
must have the ferrules pin staked to the rod, else if the patched jag gets stuck down
the tube due to excessive powder residue the rod may separate from the jag. Ask me
how I know this can and will happen!
NOTE #2: Should anything get lodged in the bbl that absolutely can't be removed,
there are 2 methods of blockage extraction. (1) Use compressed air sent into the
touch hole to blast out the obstruction, or (2) with proper tools, remove the bbl, then
remove the breech plug to get access to the entire length of the bbl.
Along with addressing bbl cleanliness, so should cleaning the lock pan, hammer
steel, flint edge, and touch hole also be addressed. Cleanliness makes for reliability!
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When the event or range practice firing has ended, as immediately as possible after
the last shot is taken, it's time to begin "early maintenance". All that entails is wiping
down the entire lock with an oily cloth, remove much of the black powder fouling
residue, then run one oily patch down and out the bore, then run another oily patch
down the bore and leave it in the barrel. That's it. This will make full cleaning go
quickly and easily whence you are back at your homestead. This is particularly
important for soldiers who will have a long trek back home, where during the trip
firelock fouling residue begins to congeal and harden, be difficult to remove, and if
left too long will begin to corrode metal.
Cleanliness is next to reliability, but also ease of maintenance.
A full and complete cleaning can be accomplished in as little as 15 minutes.
Cleaning Tools and Equipment That I Employ
Ballistol oil. I prefer this oil (a mineral oil blend that's non-toxic) because it's not only
great for metal, it's good for wood and leather - it's water soluble and will mix with
any residual water to prevent rusting. It's an early 20th century German military
lubricant. I use both an aerosol spray and pump spritzer.
"Moose Milk" - This is a 1:6 mix of Ballistol:water. I keep it in a small flip top bottle
and use it with a patched jag for barrel bore cleaning and fouling control.
100% cotton patch material - typically a 2" square or round of cut up clothing is fine
as long as it's 100% cotton and not any synthetic blend. Cotton balls on a patch
worm jag also works well.
A gunsmith quality screwdriver for removing stock lock screws. This is a hollow
ground screwdriver that with a thin blade to fit 18th century type screws. A rather
wide one will be required to remove the lock and the cock jaws (some cock jaws also
include a hole where a large nail can be used to open and close the jaws without the
need to use a screwdriver.
A stout wooden (hickory is good) ramrod with a brass jag that is commensurate in
diameter for cleaning out the bore diameter of your musket. As a reenactor, all that
matters is the loading and firing of blank cartridge powder, so the metal rod is only
needed to proof an unloaded bbl. If out on a skirmish and your firelock's bbl requires
fouling control, it will take time to remove the rod, screw in the cleaning patch worm,
apply tow or cotton balls, and work out the fouling (this is where saliva spit on the
patch or tow or cotton balls helps to break up the residue).
Round toothpicks for plugging touch holes.
Paper toweling and/or cotton rags for wiping down and cleaning.
A pail, pot, or bowl for lock cleaning.
A stiff bristle nylon toothbrush.
Access to plain tap water access. NO other "cleaning fluids" required.
NO hot water ... ever.
My Cleaning Process
Remove the patched jag that was left in the barrel.
Remove the lock and remove its padded flint. Place the entire lock in
Plug the barrel touch hole with a round toothpick, stand the musket on its butt, pour
tepid tap water down the barrel (NO soap or other "cleaning" liquids). The bbl can be
fully filled, but 2/3rds to 3/4ths is fine so that bbl water overflow won't be dripped
onto stock wood.
The lock is scrubbed with a stiff nylon toothbrush. Scrub and flush with clean tepid
tap water (hot water isn't necessary or wanted). When the lock is clean, shake off
excess water and then pat dry with a cloth or paper towel. Spray or wipe oil all over
the lock. Use a cloth or paper towel to remove all excess oil - only a hint of oil
remains. I?ll also apply a scant drop of very fine oil to all moving parts pivot points.
Dump out the barrel water. With a proper size brass jag on a ramrod, a patch well
soaked in Moose Milk is run down the bore ?til it touches the breech plug face. Twist
the rod around a few times to clean the plug?s face. Remove the patch. Employ a
new oiled patch and do it again. Repeat for a total of 3 to 6 patches. Patches will
NEVER come out perfectly clean. This is due to fouling getting into the molecules of
the bbl metal. In comparison to the heavy dark black fouling of the first patch, the
last patch will just appear as a light grayish color. The bore is clean ? waste no more
cleaning efforts.
Replace the lock and its padded flint.
Run down and out 2 to 3 dry patches. Run down and leave the rod with jagged oily
patch down the bbl.
Done.
Firelocks In General
Use the correct size knapped English black or French amber flint in the lock?s cock
jaws, commensurate in size with your musket?s lock size.
Square up the flint's cutting edge to the hammer steel face.Keep flint edges SHARP -
know how to properly knap a flint edge.
Try sparking a flint as bevel up and bevel down and see which position hits the
hammer steel face and sparks the best.
Keep the lock innards clean and lightly lubed.
In my many decades of working on offshore built muskets (and rifles) with flat faced
breech plugs, 99% of the time I've found the breech plug face has been partially
drilled into when the touch hole had been drilled. This leaves a narrow trough in the
breech face that will quickly and readily accumulate black powder residue that can
block the heat of a pan flash from getting to the chamber powder upon firing. This
can necessitate constant touch hole picking to clean it out, wasting time. The fix is to
pull the bbl out of the stock, pull the breech plug and expand that narrow plug face
channel 3 or 4 times wider than it is, using a Dremel tool with a coned stone bit.
100% of all offshore (and some onshore) built flintlock long guns will have breech
plugs installed either dry or with some manner of oil. ANYTHING screwed into a bbl
will quickly find its threads compromised by black powder residue that will harden
and make removal almost impossible. The fix for this is to remove anything screwed
into the bbl, coat its threads with anti-seize grease - oil alone will not protect threads
- and reassemble. Fouling compromised threaded objects such as breech plugs can
be removed by sending steam down the bbl to soften the black powder residue.
A good flint that makes a good strike on the hammer steel but produces little or no
sparks typically means the hammer steel face needs re-hardening, which requires
special knowledge, components, and tooling - take it to a gunsmith.
A good lock that is clean and properly set up will not only be reliable but will work
well with coarse black powder as large grained as 1-1/2F, or even coarser, in both its
pan and tube.
There is more, but the above is a good start for firelock maintenance and reliable
firing.
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