gun cleaning

[sachel.45]

I went out and shot my remington army target and when i got back i took it apart cleaned with hoy soapy water and then put it in the oven (at 170 degrees) for about 20 minutes when it cooled off i noticed that there was rust on the gun (it was just surface rust and came off easily) but i thought putting it in the oven was supposed to stop the rust? did i do something wrong? also i need to pick up some lube how does bore butter work? thanks

[hawkeye2]

        did i do something wrong?

        Yes, you put it in the oven!  When you finish cleaning dry the revolver as best you can with rags and patches then spray down with WD-40 to remove any remaining moisture.  Follow up by lubing the mechanism and oiling the outside.  I clean my and my wife's revolvers in a 5 gal. bucket of hot water and Dawn.  Take off the grips first and leave the guns in the water as long as you wish.  I usually let them soak for 15 min. to 1/2 hour and clean under water.  I dry them and then they go into a 5 gal. bucket with 3 gals. of WD-40 in it to get the water out.  If i'm really lazy and its the end of the season I've been known to leave them in there for months at a time.

          Bore butter is a great lube but will run like water on a warm day and get all over the revolver.  You might be able to stiffen it with beeswax.

[coyotejoe]

I don't have three gallons of WD-40 sitting around so I try to keep water out of the internals. I pull the cylinder, remove the nipples and brush and patch out the chambers and bore with detergent and water. Then patch dry, wipe off fouling inside and out with a damp cloth, wipe dry and oil with CLP break free. Grease the nipple threads and reinstall then reassemble the gun. Nothing wrong with using a warm oven to thoroughly dry them, heck I used to run my revolvers through the dishwasher! I stopped only because it was not energy efficient nor cost effective.

[williedee]

After I thoroughly clean my revolvers with soap and water, I take a nitrile (blue rubber) ear syringe filled with non-corrosive moose milk (after rinsing the parts with clear water) and give her a good blast in the nooks and crannies, especially in the frame areas. This stuff mixes with whatever water there is in the parts. The white solvent also tells if you did a good job. Then I give 'er a good squirt of my "white corn cob" solvent to mix with and chase anything else out of there that dosen't belong. The alcohol evaporates and leaves the Ballistol that neutralizes salts and prevents rust. When I do a complete disassembly once or twice a year, depending on usage, I will put a little synthetic grease where needed. Don't find any crud or rust in there. If I'm going to store the gun for for a while, I'll spray it down with a good rust preventave oil.

*Moose Milk: 1 cup water soluable machinist's oil> 1cup Murphy's Oil Soap> 8cups distilled water> 2ounces Ballistol> shake well-cheap!
*White Corn Cob: 1 ounce Ballistol> 8 ounces 91% alcohol> shake well & shake well before use. Little goes a long way.

[FourBee]

I wash and rinse my gun parts in very hot water.   Lay the parts on a T-towel and the hot parts dry pretty quickly while I'm busy with the other parts.   Very little toweling is needed when I'm done.  Then I blast the parts with "     B A L L I S T O L "     F O R     B L A C K     P O W D E R     G U N S.   Afterwards I wipe them off and reassemble the gun.  I don't have any problems with rust.

[tpelle]

While packing up at the end of a range session, I spray the revolver down (including the bore and in the cylinder) with Moose Milk.  BTW, my recipe for Moose Milk is simpler than the one posted above:  3 oz of Ballistol with 21 oz of water, mixed in an old Windex spray bottle.

When I get home I remove the cylinder from the frame, the nipples from the cylinder, and the stocks from the frame.  Everything but the stocks goes into soapy water.  I scrub each part in the soapy water and run patches soaked in the soapy water through the bore and into the cylinder until they come out clean.  As I finish each part I leave it in the water so as to prevent flash-rusting.  When done, I fire up my air compressor and blow-dry the parts, spray off the lockwork with WD40 followed by Rem-Oil in through the hammer, trigger, hand and bolt openings.  I then reassemble the revolver, greasing everything with Crisco as I go, and finally use a Rem-Oil soaked patch in the bore and in the cylinder.

So far, none of my cap and ball revolvers show any rust, except for a tiny spot on the nottomof the loading lever of my 20-year-old 1860 Army.

[Elijah Gunn]

If I do a complete disassembly I use dish soap and hot water to clean the gun, and then bake it in the oven for 20 min or so at 150ish deg. While it is still hot I oil it up with olive oil.

[Mulegunner]

I never use any petroleum based lubricants or cleaners at all!   Clean all the parts with hot soapy water...then lay out on a towel.  Using Q tips, rags, patches....I go over all the parts with Bore Butter then let it sit over night.  The next day I wipe it down with a clean dry rag.   Occasionally I take it back out to check for rust and maybe go over it again with a light coating of Bore butter.   I have yet to have my revolver rust using this method.   The use of petroleum lubricants will cause your revolver to foul and bind quickly when firing black powder.   Bore butter will "treat" the steel,  similar to a cast iron fry pan.  This is all the cleaning and lubrication I have used on any of my blackpowder firearms over the past 10 years,  and I have never had a rust issue....even after letting a gun set for months.

Just my 2 cents.

[bedbugbilly]

I noticed that Elijah Gunn mentions that he uses olive oil to oil down his revolvers.  I would never have thought about using olive oil years ago when I first got started in muzzleloading - I just never gave it a thought.  I purchased a privately published book a while back that was written by a man who grew up shooting and working on '51 Navies - he knew Civil War vets as well.  I'm in the southwest for the winter and don't have the book with me or I would quote it.   However, I do know that the author states that some of the best gun oil made and used many, many years ago was produced from high quality extra virgin olive oil.  (Evidently it was used in clocks as well.)  If I remember correctly, he states that good gun oil can be made by putting the olive oil in a clear, tall glass container and corking it.  The container is then set where the sun will hit it and the container should be gently turned every so often - this is over a period of a year.  At the end of the year, you carefully "pull" the oil off with a straw (gently dip it in and put your finger over the end of the straw - pull it out and put in a clean container).  Any sediment, etc. will be at the bottom and evidently the natural sunlight does something to the olive oil?  I'm going to try it here this winter in Arizona as we have hot sun everyday and see what happens.  I also have begun using pure virgin oilive oil to oil down the holsters and leatherwork I make and it works great.  Just thought I'd pass this on in case anyone cares to try it.  A year may seem like a long time to produce the gun oil from the olive oil but if you remember to turn the bottle every so often and then just forget about it for a while - what have you got to loose in trying it out except the cost of the olive oil? 

[AtlLaw]

I noticed that Elijah Gunn mentions that he uses olive oil to oil down his revolvers.

Gatofeo also mentions using olive oil.  Heck, if it's good enough for those two it's good enough for me!  So I bought a bottle of the house brand olive oil at the grocery store and plan on using it on my BP weapons!   

A year may seem like a long time to produce the gun oil from the olive oil but if you remember to turn the bottle every so often and then just forget about it for a while - what have you got to loose in trying it out except the cost of the olive oil? 

Now that just sounds neat as heck!     I'm glad somebody else likes to try to do stuff like that.  Let us know what happens!  I wonder if there's anything to it...    I should think turning it would remix any sediment... but what do I know... 

[FourBee]

Posted by: bedbugbilly    The container is then set where the sun will hit it and the container should be gently turned every so often -

Posted by: AtlLaw   Let us know what happens!

I second AtlLaw's request........   My reaction to setting it in the sun is that it would sour or spoil, but if no air gets to it, well I don't know, just have to wait and see.

[madcratebuilder]

I prefer Ballistol after a wash and dry, it emulsifies with water, never had any rust issues using it.  My routine is to let my revolver set disassembled overnight with a heavy coat of Ballistol.  Then I wipe down and treat with Eezox for storage.

[bedbugbilly]

As a follow-up to my post on the olive oil for gun oil -  although I don't have the book with me here in Arizona -  yes, the bottle is to be kept tightly corked during the year long process.  As far as "turning" the bottle - sorry - I should have been more clear on that.  I remember that the author spoke about turning it gently - by turning it, he was speaking about rotating the bottle on its bottom so that the side facing the sun was changed every so often - he wasn't talking about turning the bottle end over end as this would agitate the contents.  Sorry I didn't make that clear.  I'm not a chemist (barely passed chemistry in high school many years ago) so I don't know what effect the natural sunlight has on the olive oil.  It's worth a try though to see what happens.  I don't know if olive oil "spoils" or not so if it doesn't work out for gun oil, maybe it could still be used for cooking? ;=)  (We'll let "Mikey try it first").  Good luck to those that try it and I'll report back on my success or failure!  Thanks to those who posted on this thread - lots of good tips and ideas!  Sincerely, bedbug