Black Powder dirt!!!& clean up!

[Willyp]

This is my first season with black powder shooting. One of my deepist thoughts,for not doing it before,was how dirty the guns got from shooting? Caking in the barrel,salts rusting the rifeling out,running hot water down the barrel and a bunch of other cleanning problems!!! Use this solvent or use something else,because thats no good,etc.
Well,I'm here to say,that it is just not as bad as so many have said? IMHO.My guns,i have a Lyman flint lock and a couple of inlines,all are loaded with and shooting Goex FFG.Maybe I'm doing something wrong,but they seem to clean up easy.
I truley didn't want the hassel,but,for me ,it isn't there!!!! I pictured the gun barrel looking like a chimney from an old wood burning stove!  All black and sooty with big chunks of  caked on black powder,that you my have to chip off with a chisel ??All of this from reading the descriptions of cleaning the guns,on the internet????My darn smokless powder rifles are far harder to clean,than these.
Am I just dumb or lucky ?

[Double 30]

Neither really. You observations are typical.So long as care is taken and you're willing to perform the maintenence necessary, your b.p. guns will outlast you and possibly another generation or 2. A typical centerfire barrel shooting factory or equivelet loads will usually last abot 5-7000 rounds.I've never heard or seen a muzzleloader barrel shot out. The 1863 Confederate Ordnance  Manual states that through a rifle-musket " 25,000 shot have been fired with no noticeable enlargement of the bore" Muzzleloaders ,of all varieties, are definately more than they appear.  Happy shooting!

[captchee]

 I have found through the years that just what you are seeing in your rifles  is most often the case .
 The problem lays in folks that for what ever reason don’t clean their rifles  and let them set for months , then cant seem to understand what happened
As said  by another here . Take care of it  and you will never have a problem . don’t take care of it and  it will not be but a short time before you start  having some issues .
 Your about to find that there are a whole lot of myths propagated about traditional muzzleloaders  for one reason or another . Most are so as to get un knowing folks to spend money

[FallingCrows]

I don't have any problems cleaning up my Lyman Deerstalker cap lock with Goex FFg BP.  I clean it with Butches, then run several patches of Breakfree down the barrel before putting it away.

[Will Bison]

Never have I thought clean up of BP to be difficult or time consuming. My SKS takes a lot longer to clean than my Plains rifle.

[Buckskins & Black Powder]

A hot bucket of soapy water, a bore mop, pump it a dozen or 2 times, use a bore brush, a dozen strokes, another dozen or 2 strokes with the bore mop again, Pull nipple, Use q-tip to clean drum out, cleaning jag with a 6-7 dry patches, clean nipple in bucket of hot water, dry and reinstall. Wipe lock down with a damp rag, dry and i am done.

Its not hard work.

[kevthebassman]

In my opinion, it's much harder to clean an inline muzzleloader than it is to clean a caplock or a flinter.  The inline breechplug MUST be pulled for cleaning, and cleaning the threads is a nightmare from hell.  That's probably the reason the inline crowd is now making abominations that shoot smokeless powders.  The whole inline craze is a solution looking for a problem, if you ask me.