RE: Black Powder or modern substitute?
i shoot a T/C .50 cal hawkins.....with black powder, fff for the barrel, ffff for the pan......i' m pretty lucky i guess i have a small sporting good store 4 miles from me that carries black powder......as to clean up, i have a plastic pail that holds about 2 1/2 gal. i take a gallon of hot water from the sink, just let it run untill it' s too hot to keep your hand under it......i fill the an old spring water jug up and put it in the plastic pail......with the touch hole under the hot water i then run a cleaning patch on the jag up and down untill i feel the barrel get warm at the muzzle end of the barrel......as you do this you will see the powder come out of the barrel as a black stream of water in the pail......when you don' t see the black coming out of the touch hole the black powder is gone......i then take the barrel out of the water dry the water off the outside and put it down for a little bit to let the barrel dry from the hot water which will dry because of it being hot....with the barrel muzzle end down i spray WD-40 in the touch hole untill a little bit comes out of the muzzle.....then hang the barrel muzzle end down over night, then check next day with a flashlight to see if any rust shows up which it doesn' t.....then run a dry patch through it once and i' m done.....grease my touch hole plug and reassemble the gun and it will stay that way untill the next time you shoot it.......bob