How thoroughly do you clean muzzy?
 

I wondered how long it takes you to clean your inline or other bp's?

I just took an hour to thoroughly clean my omega. It just seemed the more I ran swabs the more gunk I would find. I even put q-tips in tiny crevasses of trigger group and ram rod links finding crud.

Today I shot 40 straight shots of BH 209 without swabbing or drill bit. The 40th sobot was as easy as the first to load. And the breech plug kept from clogging so that I could fire. I wonder how many more shots I could have taken before blow-back?

Anyways, I payed for it when I got back home. Gun was real dirty and I could barley hand turn the 1/8th bit in the omega plug.

How long does it take you to clean your gun after a day of shooting?

D

My Triumph is about 45 mins and thats throughly cleaning it. That is by far my easiest bp to clean. Takes me an hour and half if I remove the barrel and get it to bare bones. But I only do that after hunting season, so once a year. As for sidelocks they take me longer just cause I don't use water.

So really an hour isn't bad for ya. Especially if you shot over 40 shots. I know sometimes I actually have to take my drill to clean out the breech plug. But I have the drill bit marked so I don't over drill the flash hole.

:s2::s2: About twenty minutes for my sidelocks with GOEX. (Squeaky clean too.)

Abot 40 - 45 for my Triumph and longer for the wolverine with the plunger. i am in no hurry when i clean the rifles either... Ray

Never really timed it. I know most of the time is just letting the solvent sit in the bore and do its job.

@ 50calty

Could you you make the flash hole larger by hand turning 1/8 bit? I never thought it was enough speed or pressure. But now you got me wondering?

As regards the rest of you...it looks like I am not to out of the ballpark on cleaning.

@ mountaindevil54.

How do you let your solvent soak? Could you tell me how you clean? I know you use BH 209 to.

D

I highly doubt you could make it bigger by hand turning. But I know BH209 gave me the idea about marking the drill bit. I wouldn't hurt. Also lets you know if you cleaned it all out too. So for solvent soaking. All you do is get a patch wet run it down the barrel and then wait 10 - 30 mins. I use the TC17 foam. I spray it in there and let it work. Then work on the breech plug get it all cleared out and then let it soak in the TC17 solvent. Then go back to the barrel and receiver. Finish cleaning them up and then back to the breech plug. Works for me and everything comes out cleaner then ever. Patches come out pure white. Actually my Triumph is the cleanest rifle. My centerfires are clean I just always seem to get alittle gray on the final dry patch.

Sidelocks I can clean to perfection in under a half hour. And that's with Goex as the filthy beast powder. They will be as clean as when they came to me.

Inlines vary between inlines. Some I can clean faster then others. My Genesis I can clean spotless in a half hour. My Black Diamond XR can take an hour.

The flash hole in the Omega breech plug i just measured is 0.11" long. Just shy of 1/8" long. If you were to drill through this steel with your 1/8" drill, you would destroy the flash hole, and what was the flash hole would become part of the flash channel. Turning your drill by hand is work just to cut the carbon deposit; drilling steel isn't so very likely.

Being the lazy person i am, i get bored quickly spinning a 1/8" drill by hand, when removing the carbon from a breech plug, used in a long shooting session. This laziness forces me to install the drill in a drill motor, and spin the drill with the drill motor. Once i ended up with a flash hole about 1/32" long, which made me sad, but didn't change my ways. Marking the drill as was suggested, to stop at the proper depth is good. Using a dull drill, makes it harder to drill the steel, and is what i have been doing lately.

Removing the carbon in stages isn't a bad thing i.e. use a 1/16" drill first, or a 3/32" drill, and then a 7/64" drill................

Another thing some have done, is use a 5/32" drill to increase the diameter of the flash channel. This allows more shooting before cleaning is necessary. One needs take care not to drill too deep when doing this.

If you were able to shoot 40 times without cleaning, perhaps you have no need to change anything.

This will vary depending on what you are cleaning what you are shooting and what you have done in the way of mods.
Since I go to shoot and clean because it is necessary [some people say they enjoy cleaning] I have guns that do not blow back so I have nothing in the action to clean with my traditional and soap and water it takes a half hour with Blackhorn and the Triumph or the Endeavor Encore it takes 5 to 10 minutes depending on where I do it at the range with every thing all laid out it does not take long. Also I mix my own cleaner or use Montana X Blackhorn cleaner, this does make a difference.
With the breach plug the way I mod them I can shoot all day and have only a small amount of carbon to clean out. If you are interested the way I mod them is by running a #21 drill through then drilling in just far enough to set the Lehigh vent liner so the vent is in the same place that TC originally designed it, they have far and away the best design according to my tests.

When i go to clean BH209 fouling from my bore i run normally 3 DRY and tight fitting patches. I push them down the bore and the dry patch grabs all the loose fouling and pushes it out of the way.

After thats been done i take a patch, spray it down with birchwood casey bore scrubber and swab the bore with that, paying attention a great deal to the breech area as well as the muzzle. Let it sit for 10 minutes to loosen up carbon/copper/fouling and then hit the bore with about a dozen strokes with my nylon bore brush. Wet another patch and push that down the bore, flip it over and push it down the bore again, making sure i clean out the QLA area.

After that i basically just run a few dry patches and i am finished.

No oiling afterward as bore scrubber has an anti rust additive in it.

Two things. 1, It takes me about 20-30 mins to clean my sidelocks and that is with letting the bp solution set in the bore for 10 mins. My Knight inline takes a bit longer due to the longer disassembly time.
2. Why not use a 3/32" drill bit to clean out your falsh hole? It is slightly smaller and you can wiggle it a bit to scrape the sides.

Some very good advice. I love this site.

I have been using Hopps 9 solvent. I will look into Montana's xtreme and some of the other products suggested.

The drill bit ideas are great to.

Thanks again for the suggestions and your experience.


D

Blackhorn 209 seems to leave a lot of loose soot in the barrel. In the past I've use a Hoppes solvent patch as the first patch to clean the barrel and this seems to spread the soot out all over the barrel and rifling. Then is takes a lot of patches to remove all of it. I now use a dry patch first to remove the majority of the soot and then use the Hoppes solvent patches until clean, then dry patch, and then an oil patch.

Met me just say, it can never be too clean. The Bp pellets and gunk in the barrel and all over the gun really take a toll on the gun if not removed. The more the better. Shot mine only once today, cleaned for like 45-50 minutes getting some junk out.

The more the better. Whatever is not cleaned out will really magnify in a while. Shot mine once today and cleaned little stuff for like an hour.

Sorry for the double(now triple) response, didn't think the first went through