cleaning barrel before shooting

[HUNT]

Question for you all. I have a friend that is having trouble with his Muzzy. He is having a very hard time pushing in his third shot. It goes down to about 4 inches from the powder and gets stuck. I asked him what is system was. He said that when done shooting he stores gun with bore butter in the barrel. When he is going to use it again he does NOT run a patch or clean out the butter before he shoots. He would just dump in the loose powder and then a powerbelt seat it and shoot the next round is tough to seat and the third gets stuck 4 inches from powder charge. Question is by not cleaning out the butter prier to the first shot cause this problem. I can usually shoot several powerbelts without any problems and I clean butter out before shooting with no need to brush or clean after each shot. Thanks

[upnorth]

chances are that's the problem. aside from poor accuracy, it's very dangerous. If he doesn't seat the bullet on the powder, the air gap between them can cause the barrel to blow up. m/l always shoot best from a slightly fouled barrel, but not a very dirty one. he also might want to make witness marks on his ramrod to ensure that his charge is fully seated. use a dab of whiteout where the rod meets the barrel. this way he always knows his charge is seated properly. I see this alot at my range recently. regular rifle shooters who take up blackpowder, but think they can shoot all day without cleaning it!

[Trail Bum]

I would Imagine, that a Good Portion of his Powder Charge, is Sticking to the Bore Buttered Rifling, and a Little is Actually on the Breech Plug. Sort of Like Placing Sprinkles on a Iced Cake.

[Jim n Iowa]

I have ss in line, and I am convinced bore butter does very little for "seasoning the bore", if anything at all. The type of powder makes a big diff in when you will stick a bullet in the barrel. I shot clean shot and made 5 shots before I had a bullet stick. My plan is to shoot out of a clean bore, shoot again for accuracy, run a patch soaked in windex/vineger, shoot again and another till on. Then clean again , foul a shot and good to go. Sounds like a lot of trouble, but in my area for deer hunting we are looking at -75yds. Want to be on at the first shot.
Jim

[sabotloader]

I think I am convinced that a lot of people applying "bore butter" are doing it incorrectly.  I use BB I have used for 6/7 years now but the way I apply it seems to be different than most.  I have know idea whether BB "seasons" a bore or not - I do know that it reduces fouling especially plastic fouling dramatically and realy makes slean up significantly quicker and easier.

This a a post that I wrote early in the week but it is applicable here:

Addressing your question about BB, and I can't believe that RB & I agree on something, his post to you IMO is right on line with my feelings.

I really do not know if "seasoning" occurs, but was does occur is less fouling mainly from plastic for me. I shoot my guns a lot and in Idaho sabots are legal so I go through a lot of them in the year. It significantly reduces plastic fouling and powder residue. I use BB in combination with another natural product Wonderlube to maintain my barrels and guns.

Another thing unrelated to ML's, I would relate to you. The one thing that made me more of a believer. I am now using BB on my screw-in shot gun chokes and on my ported trap barrels. The build-up of plastic that I use to recieve on my chokes was terrible and really not fun to clean. Every once in awhile I would shoot a round and it would be followed by a big blob of plastic residue releasing from the choke - well not any more. Bore Butter if applied right will reduce fouling..

When I apply BB the barrel is hot, from the hot water flush. If I am treating a "traditional" gun I dry swab the barrel a couple of times and then use a can of air to blow through the breech plug to push any residuel water down the barrel. Then dry swab again, of course with an in-line no air needed with the removal of the breech plug. It is my feeling to make sure the barrel is dry and hot before applying BB. Instead of using patches to apply the butter I put it on a bore swab, and as RB says rather heavily, then run the swab down the barrel, here is the amazing part, the barrel literally sucks the butter from the swab. When you pull it back out it will be near dry and fluffy again. I will do this same routing 2-3 times making sure to get all the barrel. A dry patch worked up and down and down a couple times and let here cool. The lasthing you want in the barrel is a glob of this stuff sitting there exposed.

Now when I go to the "range" (a rock pit) I will shoot 30/40 rounds typically. I do wet patch between shots. I take a zip lock bag of water damp patches as my spit patch. When I get home I use 3/4 patches wet with windex, that is all it takes for me to come up with a really clean barrel. I usually do not use a bronze brush because i do not have any lead fouling and the plastic isn't sticking. I will reapt this BB routine maybe 6-7 times a year with a particular gun depending on how much it has been shot or how hot the barrel got from shooting. Most often it is just patch clean and Wonder Lube til the next time it comes out to go shooting.