mauser06

Respectfully a question - why is it necessary to swab with pure IPA or ISO-HEET between shots? Before shooting to remove oils is one thing but between shots I am not making the connections??? I wonder how the traditionalist would handle this one?

Those of you that use this practice doesn't bother me either as long as I am not shooting with you,as I still hesitate putting the muzzle in my mouth and blowing back down the barrel after a shot. I know it is done and I don't think there is a recorded event talking about the negatives of that adventure - It is just something I would not want my son to do so I don't think I will either. I am also not sure that I would want him to stick a flammable swab down a hot barrel either - so I think I will continue to do what I do.

But then again I do things that are different than you do so does that make things right or wrong?

I've swabbed my traditional barrel with straight 91% alcohol for a long time now. I started doing this because when I was using a mix swab solution I had more hangfires, and misfires. In all the years I have been doing it, I have yet to have a flash fire from the alcohol patch coming into contact with any embers. Granted it could happen. I personally will continue to do it as it has worked do good for me in the past. This does not mean I recommend you do it, if you feel uncomfortable doing it then for all intent, don't do it. Remember the advise given on these forums is based on practical expereince and opinion and should be taken with a grain of salt. Just as loads that work in one rifle might now work for you. They are starting points. Some are pretty good ideas though. And a lot of the information is very useful.

On my inline rifles I use a mix of the alcohol and windshield fluid since they have a straight line ignition and more fire coming into it. I've nver had a problem with them having a hangfire.

As for blowing down the barrels, years ago, we used to do it all the time until a range officer warned us at a shoot that anyone caught doing it would be disqualified and sent from the range. I now have a handy little tool. Looks like a funnel with a plastic hose off it. You put the funnel in the muzzle and then from about two feet away, you blow into the hose and that blows clean the barrel smoke. The whole purpose as explained to me about blowing down the barrel was to blow embers out that might still be glowing down there....

I make it a point though of not putting any part of my body over the muzzle of a loaded rifle. I don't lean on the muzzle like Fess Parker in Daniel Boone used to do (remember those scenes) also I never leave a loaded rifle on the firing line in a gun vice and then walk in front of it. I actually saw a person do that.

cayugad

Blowing down the barrel...

Which makessense because the air coming out of your body is mostly carbon dioxide - which would/should put an ember out - BUT what if there were more than one ember or maybe even some unburned powder and you grabbed a bunch of fresh air in your mouth and then blew down -you actually supplied those embers with a goodly supply of oxygen rather carbon dioxide. Same senario only this time with a warm barrel and burning embers only this time you push down an alcohol patch. The warm barrel accelerates evaporation, squeezing the patch in the barrel actually rings some alcohol from the patch and it runs down the barrel to the breech, both of these createfumes - fumes contact ember and any possible un-burnt powder. Why take a chance? And again would you offer this to you son or a beginner that were instructing. I am thinking if the range officer thought about that pure alcohol down a warm barrel they would probably not allow that either. liabilty - liabilty

Now i know the possibility of this happening are extremly remote 1/1000 or even greater, but as a school teacher you are trained in todays world don't even take chances that you know might cause an accident. To many parents and lawyers out there waiting for that one.

Just a few thoughts from a brain washed teacher and an ex-government employee.

I have shown young people and older shooters alikehow to swab with an alcohol patch in their traditional rifles. So far they have not had any problems, like myself. Like I said, when I used to use other liquids I noticed a lot more hang fires and an occasional misfire. I knew it was from the liquid on the swab that I was patching the barrel with. That's when I started using the mix of washer fluid and alcohol. It worked the best of any swab compound I could find. Then when I got an occasional hang fire in the traditional rifles,I went to the straight alcohol. The hang fires stopped.

I can understand your position on this and for that reason I would not be surprised that you do not use straight alcohol or recommend it. As I said, the things I do are not something set in stone that all should do. All people have to understand that we voice opinion on the forums and you can take them or leave them.

sabotloader...i see your point...very valid and could easily happen...but ive been doing it for 4 years...cayugads been doing it alot longer im sure...no problems.....i dont rush straight to the cleaning patch after the shot....i usually walk downrange and check the target...tinker around...then clean...then load....dont see any harm...but you do have a good point......i think its a heck of alot more dangerou to dump a charge down a hot barrel....i hate to do it....but once in a while ill admit BOOM...dump straight down the smoking barrel.....alcohol cleansreally well....drys almost imediatly...and leaves no residue or anything...quick and easy......maybe ill contact Myth Busters and let them test it for us...that would be neat.....

good info.my worry was more of a person with a bottle of this on range table and get heat near it or spills it near gunpowder.alcohol does burn good, i was surprised at how a match caught the cleaning patch on fire. as for someone like you, you are careful and would most likely not swab the barrel full of the alcohol.so,i bet you would never have problem.most probably would not but those few would, you could bet on that. being you used it and no problems, i am going to use it to clean barrel every few shots,if i need to. i use bore butter but in cold bore butter is a disaster here in pa. i had roundballs and maxi-balls get stuck in thecold using bore butter.i still like bore butter and use it. if you use alcohol to swab in cold, balls go in much better. i also was interested inthat 1% rust preventive that is in it.they said it was a secret thing that they could not tell me what it was,only it was put in to help protect metal from rusting in car engines from water.

mauser06

THAT is a completely different situation - no-one has suggested that they walk away from the gun for awhile then IPA patch - for me that changes the math in the equation completely...

It sort is like the old shooter that instructedme to blow down the barrel - he said "swallow the air in your mouth then exhale into the barrel" - never really knew why he specified that order except he said to do it that way. I wish I could say that i always did it in that order. In their day when they were loading real BP one shot after the next that might have been a real important thing to do before sticking the powder horn down the muzzle. Since I have found, in my case, i really do not have to do it at all.

And as cayugad suggested I have never used straight IPA as a swab between shots - I am still stuck on regular spit or pre-dampened old fashion windex patches and again in cayugad's words "so far" I have not not had a problem with hang fires or mis-fires, and I am knocking on wood at this point... The sound of the air escaping out the nipple lets me know if things are clear and/or damp and I can not describe the sound but I know it when I hear it - both bad and good.

I agree with all those points - but for me windex/ammonia does the same thing - 2 wipes with a windex patch and a coupleof wipes with a dry patch is the norm... the dry wipes dry the barrel and force an accelerated amount of air through the breech and nipple causing accelerated evaporation of the ammonia which carries water vapor with it. Now you guys probably do not even have to dry wipe - so that is certainly an advantage I might need to consider. One thing I should mention all of this is sugar based powders - I can't say what works best with real BP.

That would be cool, I watch that all the time - they are really characters, but their information is great. Then if they could so some research on "in the old days how many powder horns were ignited or did it happen?"

I watch those re-enactors during the war for independence, shoot their Besses, reach in the side pouch pull out a paper charge, tear the charge in their teeth, drop it in the barrel, stuff the paper down with the ram rod, and fire again - round after round - how many of them have gone off as they are pouring powder down a really hot barrel. Of course none of this concerned me before i started shooting ML's.

but is is great and I love it.

i went out in yard to play with this ISO-HEET.i took a piece of 14 inch metal. i heated it with propane torch as hot as i could get it. i then poured and set a patch with ISO-HEET on it. i waited. the patch dryed right out but did not catch fire. this was way hotter than a muzz barrel would ever get shooting.99% alcohol did not ignite. not to say it would not but it did not in this test. i then took a match and threw on plate, and the patch slowly caught fire.

that's funny, after sabotloader's concern, the other day when shooting I put a isopropyl patch in the barrel and shoot the barrel to make it fume. I then put a cap behind it and fired the cap off... the patch had burn marks from the cap, but that was all I could see happen to it. I could not make it ignite or do anything special.

Actually,normal exhaled breath only contains about 4.5% carbon dioxide and about 21% oxygen, which is enought to fan an ember into flame. Anyone who has ever breathed on a fire to help it get going has seen first hand that there is plenty of oxygen in exhaled breath. This is why is is not advisable to blow down a barrel after firing. The smoke in the barrel has created an oxygen depleted environment that will not support a fire from a glowing ember but blowing down it could cause it to flare up. I think the chance of this happening is pretty small with todays blackpowder but why take the chance.

I have always been told that the reason for blowing down the bore was to soften any fouling from blackpowder. Exhaled breath has a relative humidity of 100% so the moisture from it would loosen fouling, making a subsequent reloading easier to do, without swabbing. This might have been pretty beneficial to frontiersmen, whose lives might have depended on a quick second shot, but isn't too important today. Modern lubes can keep blackpowder fouling soft and make reloading consecutive shots, with a patched ball,fairly easy to do without swabbing between shots.