What all needs to be done to a new ML before taking it to the range for the first time? I am talking cleaning wise. What do I want to run down the barrel, and wipe down the outside with? Do you need to do anything with the breech plug.

some solvent soaked patches down the bore. De-grease all of the factory grease and apply your own trusted oil/grease on all moving parts. Inspect welding, fore arm, stock for hair line cracks. Any external ( easy to reach) screws should be double checked for tightness.

Remove that breech plug, clean it and put either teflon tape or BP grease on the threads.

Before you shoot a new muzzleloader, be sure you have cleaned and inspected the rifle thoroughly. Also I suggest read the manual and understand it.

There are many ways to clean an inline rifle. Some swab the bore with different solutions to remove fouling. BUT in the case of a new rifle, be sure to swab the bore with solvent. If you have no solvent, you can use such things as brake cleaner or carburetor cleaner. Also you can make a homemade cleaner called MAP. Try not to get any solvents on the stock as they can damage it in some cases.

Clean the bore of the free of any factor greases. Also pay attention to the area of the rifle, such as the hammer striker in some cases, others the trigger, the locking mechanism, all of then need to be clean and oiled.




LET’S SHOOT A RIFLE

Inline...

Make sure the rifle is clean and empty. Also, be sure that you have taped up or greased the breech plug. If you do not take and grease the breech plug you might have trouble getting it back out at the end of the day. Now we will start to load and shoot.

The breech plug can be treated with simple Teflon plumbers tape. Wrap the threads of the breech plug. Or apply an anti seize breech plug grease to the threads, or both.

You have already decided on the powder and projectile already. So take a patch, lightly apply some isopropyl alcohol and swab the bore of the rifle. When you swab, put the patch over the end of the barrel and push the ramrod with the cleaning/loading jag into the patch. As you work the patch down the bore, work the patch in short strokes. Work from the muzzle to the breech. This is done in the beginning to remove any gun oils in the barrel. Later, you do this between shots to remove the fouling from the bore. After the damp patch, then work two dry patches through the bore. This will remove additional fouling and also dry the bore.

At this point I like to push a dry patch to the bottom of the breech on the ramrod jag. Then put a 209 primer into the breech plug. Now fire just that primer off. This blows any oil, etc that might have accumulated in the breech plug onto the cloth. Also it will indicate when you pull the patch and see the burn marks on it, that your fire channel is clean. When you see the burn marks, that’s what you want. You’re ready to load and shoot.

Measure out the amount of powder you wish to shoot in your rifle. Most modern inline rifles handle 100 grains of 2f grade powder and a modern projectile real well. Your powder might be in pellet form. So in this case, drop two pellets down the bore. With loose powder, set your measure and then fill to the top. Level the load and then dump that volume measure of powder down the bore. Some people will tap the butt of their rifle on their toe to level the powder charge. It is not really needed with the modern inline rifles but does not harm.

Now select your sabot and bullet. Put the bullet into the sabot. Put the sabot/bullet combination onto the muzzle or into the false muzzle of the rifle. Now with your short starter, push then sabot/bullet into the barrel as far as you can. Now with the ramrod, seat the bullet down the barrel onto the powder charge firmly.

You then put a primer into the back of the breech plug, and you are ready to shoot. Have fun. After you have shot, you need to swab the bore again like described earlier. Then load as described. And shoot again. Just repeat this procedure.

Thanks guys, I am pretty much doing it just like you described, I just wanted to make sure I was not missing anything.