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If the question orinally posted remains.
Has there been anyone to use BH 209 long enough to know the best bore cleaner?
I really do not think you want to use any water when cleaning BH-209. It is a smokeless progressive burning powder is not a normal black Powder sub -
CLEANING
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Triple Seven fouling has been relatively easy to get out of the bore, using nothing more than water. In fact, on one management doe hunt, I cleaned my rifle every evening with just saliva-dampened patches. And on that hunt, I took 11 does in 5 days. However, like quite a few shooters, I have never been all that crazy about cleaning the bore of a tack-driving rifle with water or water-based soapy solutions.
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Truth is, you do not want to use water or water-based soapy solution to clean out what little Blackhorn 209 fouling that's left in the bore. It tends to turn the fouling to a sticky surface in the bore. Instead, to clean away this fouling, it takes just one or two patches dampened with a modern bore solvent, such as good ol' Hoppe's No. 9. (Western Powders has also developed one of its "Montana Extreme" cleaning solvents expressly for Blackhorn 209.) With Triple Seven powder, some shooters (including your's truly) have experienced difficulties getting stuck breech plugs out of rifles. Thanks to the non-building tendencies of Blackhorn 209 fouling, with just a light coat of grease type lubricant on the threads of a breech plug, that problem could be a thing of the past.
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Both powders are non-corrosive. However, Hodgdon Powder Company warns that Triple Seven fouling does tend to draw moisture if left in the bore or on other metal surfaces for any length of time. During my testing last fall, I hunted several months with the same rifle and Blackhorn 209, not cleaning the rifle once - even though the muzzleloader was fired a hundred or more times during that period. When I did tear it down for cleaning, the breech plug came right out...and the bore was wiped spotless with two modern solvent dampened patches. In short, the rifle cleaned up in basically the same time it takes to clean the same rifle after a single afternoon at the range.
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