HeyCayugad - My interests have turned backed to blackpowder now that turkey season has wound down here in Tennessee.

I read the post about rusty boresand it got me thinking about my rifle (Omega Z5 bought new last fall) and if it is protected. Based on your glowing praise I started using Sheath to protect my blackpowder rifle, exterior and bore. In fact I use it on everything as a protectant and have become hopelessly addicted to the aroma - its worse than crack or crystal meth! I expecially like it on the exterior of my turkey gun because it "dries" and doesn't leave a shiny finish.

Do you store your blackpowder rifles using Birchwood-Casey Sheath as thebore protectant? After a thorough cleaning with Birchwood-Casey bore scrubber and dry patches my final step is running a couple of Sheath patches through there as a rust protectant. Is that good enough? I stored my centerfires and shotgunsusing Sheath also.

I am looking forward to getting this rifle out and working up a couple of loads this summer. Sabotloader suggested a different sabot whichsolved my problems loading this tight-bored Omegaand put me on the Speer gold dots. I will be switching to loose 777 this year after cutting my baby teeth on the pellets last season. I learned most of what little I know about blackpowder here on this board, and I appreciate very much all the advice.

Thanks in advance

Mouthcaller

Yes I do store all my black powder, centerfires, shotguns, and handguns protected by Sheath. So far it has worked perfect. Also someone suggested there is no need to swab the barrel clean of sheath before loading. Simply pop a couple caps to insure the ignition system is open and clean and load as normal. I have shot my black powders a couple times like this and suffered no ill effects from leaving Sheath in the bore when loading.

If I were going hunting though, I would swab the bore clean of anything before loading... Sheath is some good stuff, and you're right the smell is rather nice.

Sheath is a very good choice. Even though it's not necessary, I still remove the Sheath with alcohol before shooting three primers - then loading my first powder/bullet load.

Sheath is my choice for gun oil as well and no problems to report. I store my ML with the breech plugand nipple removed and set on a clean rag muzzle down, so no worry about oil in the breech area. I do run dry patches to remove any excess oil prior to intial firing but only to prevent against a possible pressure spike - safety!

In ML's that breech removal wasn't an option I would pop a few primers before loading, just in case(plus beingI had to push muzzle to breech).