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Oil for smoke poles?

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Mesophilic:
Guy told me at the range not to use gun oil on a muzzle loader. He said that the petro chemical based oils react with black powder to form some nasty gunk.

Is there any truth to this?

What oils would you guys recommend for rust prevention?

Hawkdancer:
Ox-yoke, uncle Ben's, whale oil, if you can find it, bear grease, I think Ballistol is non petrol based, clean a lot!  (lol) >:D Extra hot water and plain old dish detergent to clean,  (lol) >:D never use hot water and dish soap, any soap and water will clean it, just make sure you dry up well.  I use the uncle ben's stuff to seal.  They are up in Colorado, the contact info is where I ain't right now, will post it later.  If you are shooting and cleaning everyday I don't think it is a problem!  There are almost as many opinions as there are black powder shooter! :-M. Once you get it clean, you should not have too many problems sealing down there in NM,
Hawkdancer

Eric Krewson:
It depends on what you shoot, black powder or a sub, the subs are more corrosive and may need more cleaning power.

You don't need hot water and soap for black powder, hot water will cause flash rusting in a barrel, no big deal because you are going to get it out with an oily patch but why cause it in the first place. Room temperature water dissolves black powder instantly without soap.

I think what you read was not to use petroleum based patch lubes as they may gunk up.

Nothing wrong with storing a gun with plain old oil swabbed in the bore, we always swab the bore out before we load a gun that has been stored. One of the long term gun storage lubes is called Rig which is plain old axle grease. One friend who had been a top completive B/P shooter for the last 40 years puts his guns up after running a patch soaked with 10W-40 motor oil down the bore.

Everyone has their own cleaning routine, I use water then dry out the bore, I give the bore a squirt of WD-40 to absorb any moisture I might have missed, then swab the bore dry again and run a patch soaked with Barricade down the bore. Barricade dries and leaves a film over the metal to prevent any air or moisture from making contact and causing rust. I run another Barricade patch down the bore a week or so after I clean just to make sure there is no red on the patch, so far since I switched to Barricade I have had "0" rust.

If you shot a sub like Pydrodex by all means use soap and water, this stuff is nasty in a bore.

Here is Pydrodex shooters bore after he failed to clean his rifle properly and put it up. This barrel was toast, I sent it off and had it rebored and rifled to a .54 from a .50.

 

Mesophilic:
Thanks for the tips, guys.

Didn't know the BP subs were worse, but I've been shooting real BP since I hear pyrodex is hard to ignite in flintlocks.

The old Marine in my wants to put CLP on everything.

JW_Halverson:
I stupidly loaned out my Pedersoli double barrel 10 gauge to someone who used it with a black powder substitute and it came back with pitting.

I used to use hot water and dish soap, which I guarantee will take out EVERY possible bit of black powder residue ever created, but began using cold water when I became convinced that the thin film of rust was caused by the higher temp. After all, almost every chemical reaction is speeded up by higher temps. Now I am content with cold water and a drop of Dawn dish soap.

As for oils, I like to use deer tallow. Inside and out. For the bearing surfaces on my locks, I use beeswax. Also, when I fully disassemble my locks for cleaning, they are wiped dry and left in a warm oven until they are almost too hot to handle. Then they get wiped down and polished with a soft cotton cloth with beeswax melted into it.

There is no need to buy expensive or complicated compounds.

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