Well. yesterday I went out and had a short range session myself, with my squirrel rifle. Did a cursory clean-up at the range with moose milk. Got home 5 minutes later, and decided to try the cider vinegar clean-up method described on this site. For the first time ever I experienced rust brown patches coming out of the bore of any of my rifles? :cry: Now if peroxide will seep into the breech plug and do damage over a period of time, I'd hate to think what cider vinegar could do, in even less time. Finished my clean-up with moose milk, getting all the rust out, and greased er down good, with Bore Butter. Needless to say I think I'll leave the cider vinegar to the experts, as for me I'll go rustless, and take my chances. RR 
RR- I don't come up with the stuff I post on my own because I'm so damn brilliant :shock: I've had the priveledge for a number of years of
shooting with a group of guys who have up to 40 years BP competition shooting that have all kinds of national and state championships under their belts, and being the obsessive person that I am I've picked their brains about why they use the stuff they use. This has been at times a humbling experience. When I first started shooting with these guys I was
a big believer in Pyrodex as well as Friendship speed juice, and a couple of them told me right off (when they saw me using it) that it was a dangerous practice as the peroxide is such a
powerful oxidizer, and I've subsequently confirmed this by finding the breech plug threads on one of my barrels heavily corroded and in my readings,; at one time this stuff was used by the majority of serious competitors.
The cider vinegar as a solvent comes from Bill Knight (The Mad Monk)
who is generally recognised as one of the most knowledgeable BP experts
in the world, his consulting work is what turned Elephant from a very slow
Musket grade BP into the great stuff it became with the 12/99 lot, he's
also tweaked the new version of WANO, called Schuetzen and changed it from a musket grade into a fast rifle grade primarily by having them not over cook the common Alder sourced charcoal to reduce the fixed carbon content. Bill shoots a great deal in his work enough to have shot out barrels, he's also an expert witness in BP related lawsuits. He's been doing BP research for several decades knows the chemistry and history of BP use and production inside out. His research is relentless he
cross sections barrels and looks at them microscopically etc, etc
I've had the pleasure of corresponding with him for many years and he's
explained every seeming BP behaviour inconsistency that I've ever
questioned him on and my subsequent readings and shooting has borne out everything he's ever taught me. At any rate Bills work has gained him the eternal enmity of several of the manufacturers as he's so thoroghly debunked their scam products and ironically any number of shooters because of the dreaded "Not invented here" ego deal. A couple of well known manufacturers have threatened Bill with lawsuit's, he doesn't scare easily, and they'd lose because he's really done his homework, (you can say whatever you want if it's true) so a few have resorted to threatening various publications that publish his articlesto withdraw their advertising money if they ever publish his stuff is where The Mad Monk moniker is derived from.
I'm thinking that if the Cider vinegar brought out some rust there must have been some lurking in the pores and it put some of it solution, if you think I'm a BS artist I'd suggest you subscribe to the BP_L which is a
very old and established E-list thats populated with long term expert rifle cranks barrel makers and gunsmiths and post questions about bore butter
Pyrodex, Speed juice or anything else and check out the responses.
Regards fredj
