I admit, I do not use soap and water when I clean the inline rifles. I used to. But once I mounted scopes on them it got to be too much of a chore. I used to put a funnel into the breech end of the rifle, go into the bathroom and pour hot soapy water through the funnel to wash out all of the major fowling while holding the rifle by the scope or with a glove. My home has one of those water faucets that has water so hot, you could make instant coffee or tea out of it...

Now, I take the barrel off and dismantle the entire rifle into parts. All the small parts go intoa soaking solution of water and dish soap. I used to use M.A.P. for soaking in, but got concerned about leaving parts sit in that for long periods of time. So when it got filthy, I threw it out and just made soap and water.

I always clean from the breech to the muzzle in the beginning. That way any fowling in the rifle is pushed away from the trigger assembly area. On my Thompson Center Black Diamond XR the trigger does not come off like my Knight and CVA.

Once all the major fowling is out of the barrel, I bore brush the barrel with solvent. Not many strokes mind you. Just enough to remove any build up that might have accumulated while shooting. Then I wrap a large patch around the bore brush and push that into the breech. I turn that brush with the solvent patch on it to clean all the breechthreads in the rifle free of any dirt, grease, what ever.

After I am sure the rifle is basically clean, I like to run a solvent patch or two from the muzzle to the breech just to scrub the lands and grooves in the other direction in case I might have missed anything at all. After all of that I like to put two dry patches on my cleaning rod, and force (and I do me force) that through the barrel, from the breech to the muzzle. And then another set of dry patches from the muzzle to the breech. There are times when I actually have to pound that dry patches through the barrel on the ramrod. When they come out the other end, you can actually see the rifling marks in the cloth. So I know they made it into all the little places. If you look through the barrel at this point, it looks like a mirror.

Now I oil the barrel with a quality gun oil. After that is is a matter of cleaning all the small parts, then oil them up if they need oil. Grease and replace the breech plug. Put the rest of the rifle together. Then before I wipe the rifle down I run a dry patch down through the bore to remove any excess oil still in the barrel and to make sure the inside is nice and coated. I use that patch to wipe the outside of the rifle off and put it back in the rack.

I agree with Bigcountry.. sidelocks are so much faster to clean. I can use the hot water and soap on them, a little bit of brush work, a few solvent patches, a dry patch or two, and then oil itall up and put it away. I'd clean one of them much faster then my inlines... Maybe because we can see through an inline, we take more time to make sure every little spot is clean. With a sidelock you take it for granted, the patch is clean, so is the rifles......

Goodpoint Bigcountry...