Heavy crust in a barrel

[Robert Swartz]

Just finished my first match shooting a BP cartridge in a pistol. It's an Uberti SAA in .357. After getting home and taking the gun apart to clean. There was a heavy crust of BP where the bullet exits the cylinder and enters the barrel. I've shot muzzleloaders for 25 years and  never seen anything like this except maybe in reenactor guns where they don't adequately clean them. It took some effort to break the stuff up. I guess I should've tried brake clean. My usual concoctions of windshield wiper fluid and then Moosemilk eventually softened it up. What do others do? What products are out there now that I'm probably not aware of? 

[Lucky R. K.]

Try soap and water next time, that is the best BP cleanup.
Lucky

[River City John]

Ballistol is my suggestion.
Mix a 25% Ballistol to 75% water. This is a little steeper ratio than what most use, but it does the trick. If you start with a bronze brush with a wrapped wet patch of this mixture, it will break up anything. Then a few follow-up wet patches and Hey Presto!


Perhaps a tad bit more crimp will allow the powder to burn a little more fully before sending the slug down the barrel.

RCJ

[Blackpowder Burn]

What type of lubricant do you use on the bullet?  Is it a true BP lube (i.e., SPG or equivalent) or the hard crayon type lube used by commercial casters for bullets intended for smokeless powders?  The crayon lubes don't play well with BP.

I've been shooting BP cartridge for many, many, many moons, and never have the issue you report.

[Robert Swartz]

Ballistol is my suggestion.
Mix a 25% Ballistol to 75% water. This is a little steeper ratio than what most use, but it does the trick. If you start with a bronze brush with a wrapped wet patch of this mixture, it will break up anything. Then a few follow-up wet patches and Hey Presto!


Perhaps a tad bit more crimp will allow the powder to burn a little more fully before sending the slug down the barrel.

RCJ

Have seen Ballistol in aerosol form at the local sportsman shop. I would like to find it in the mixable form. I know, order it. May do that.  To Lucky, yes, have done soap and water on ML. Back in my reenacting days, we'd pour boiling water down the barrels. Even used leftover coffee a few times. My Trapdoor cleaned up real easy. The pistol was a mess, lol. Shooting BP cartridges is new to me. So, I'm on learning curve here.

[Robert Swartz]

What type of lubricant do you use on the bullet?  Is it a true BP lube (i.e., SPG or equivalent) or the hard crayon type lube used by commercial casters for bullets intended for smokeless powders?  The crayon lubes don't play well with BP.

I've been shooting BP cartridge for many, many, many moons, and never have the issue you report.

Thanks and I don't know? I didn't load the bullets. My running partner did the loading and honestly. This was our first match with these loads. Any information and education are welcomed. He loaded me up with probably 100some of these bullets. I may be forced to shoot these up and deal with the cleaning and make improvements. Or, pop the bullets out and we reload them. He's gonna cry if we do this, lol. As I have stated, we're on a learning curve regarding cartridge guns here.

[Blackpowder Burn]

I strongly suspect it's due to improper type of lube.  Pull one bullet and take a look.  If it's a hard, waxy lube, there's your problem.  You need a bullet designed with more lube capacity than the typical bullet designed for smokeless powder, and the proper type of lube.  BP lube will be soft.

A great source of proper BP bullets is Mark Whyte of Whyte Leater Works.  He sells Dick Dastardly's big lube bullets in all the common calibers, lubed with SPG.   www.whyteleatherworks.com

[Drydock]

Sounds like the wrong lube all right.  I clean mine with plain water, then follow up with Ballistol.

[wildman1]

Ballistol without water is NOT a good BP solvent. Water without ballistol IS a good BP solvent. Mix em together and they work very well.
wM1

[Ridge Runner]

Definitely the wrong lube.  I use SPG and have never had this issue.

[Robert Swartz]

yep.....it's the lube. Called my buddy and sure enough these are smokeless bullets.   

[Coffinmaker]

  Chiming in here   

First . . . The CAVEAT:  I don't like Balistol.  For anything.  Well, ok, it's sort of ok for softening stiff leather boots.  So I can't recommend it for BP cleaning.

The bestest BP cleaner found is WATER.  Yep.  Water.  Warm water is betterer.  For range use I suggest PAM.  Hydrogen Peroxide - Denatured Alcohol - Murphys Oil Soap in equal parts.  Peroxide neutralizes the nasties in BP.  Murphys aids in cleaning and leaves a slick film behind.  Alcohol acts as a drying agent.  It's also cheap to make.  I tote a small spritz bottle everywhere.  Keep the bottle in one of those funny little drink sleeves to keep sunlight away from the Peroxide.

I also won't shoot any ammunition I don't personally load.  You just learned a lesson about that.

Hide and Watch

[Blackpowder Burn]

Coffinmaker,

While I very, very rarely disagree with anything you say (lord knows I don't have near the experience!), I have to say I've been completely satisfied with Moose Milk - in my case about 90/10 water and ballistol.  Since changing to it a number of years ago I've had excellent results with cleaning (the water component) and zero corrosion issues.  Three to four moose milk soaked patches and a bore snake through the bore, and wiping down the balance of the gun with moose milk.  Everything from my revolvers to my BPCR rifle.

Of course, free advice is worth every penny you pay for it! 

[Robert Swartz]

  Chiming in here   

First . . . The CAVEAT:  I don't like Balistol.  For anything.  Well, ok, it's sort of ok for softening stiff leather boots.  So I can't recommend it for BP cleaning.

The bestest BP cleaner found is WATER.  Yep.  Water.  Warm water is betterer.  For range use I suggest PAM.  Hydrogen Peroxide - Denatured Alcohol - Murphys Oil Soap in equal parts.  Peroxide neutralizes the nasties in BP.  Murphys aids in cleaning and leaves a slick film behind.  Alcohol acts as a drying agent.  It's also cheap to make.  I tote a small spritz bottle everywhere.  Keep the bottle in one of those funny little drink sleeves to keep sunlight away from the Peroxide.

I also won't shoot any ammunition I don't personally load.  You just learned a lesson about that.

Hide and Watch

Interesting, because the equal parts alcohol (denatured) Peroxide and Murphys. I have been using for years. After talking with my buddy, yes, the bullets are smokeless. I have no issue with him building bullets. Back to the drawingboard. Yes, lesson learned. Never had any issues like this with muzzleloaders.

[Navy Six]

Robert, a friend of mine loaded up some black powder 357's but used smokeless lubed bullets like your friend did. I advised him not to do so. During a Cowboy match the fouling in his 92 carbine was so bad he actually got a cleaning rod stuck in the barrel. Conversely, I have a couple of 357 Marlins that run all day long on black with SPG or equivalent lube. The muzzle crowns always have a grease "star" on them, and that goes for pistols and rifles. Clean-up is easy, and I would stay with the Ballistol/water mix or just plain water for now, but you will discover a lot of things will work.  Don't be put off with these initial results as unfortunately using smokekess lube was one of the worst things your friend could have done.

[Blackpowder Burn]

My first experience loading BP involved a Uberti 44-40 Model 73 Winchester clone.  Not knowing any better, I loaded the BP with the same smokeless bullets/lube combination I used for my smokeless loads.  I fired the smokeless loads to sight in the rifle (it was new) and then fired the BP ammo.  Withing 10 rounds I couldn't hit the 25 yard target.  Upon taking the rifle home to clean, I almost couldn't run the cleaning rod through the barrel.  When I did, I pushed out long stringers of lead.  Took quite a while to clean it!

My first thought was - "Dang POS Uberti, I musta gotten a rough barrel!".  I finally figured out it was the wrong bullet design with wrong lube.  As Navy Six says, you know you have enough lube with you have a wet lube star on the muzzle.  Once I corrected that, I shot the rifle for many years with nary another hiccup - and the bore was still bright and shiny when I sold it.

[Abilene]

Robert, everything they said above is true. 

BUT!

If you are just going to shoot the rounds in a pistol, there are easy ways to do it.  I have been shooting real BP in my pistols for 20 years with regular, unlubed bullets.  First I melt the crayon lube out of the bullets.  I think they might do okay with that lube in them, but it is very easy to melt it out.  I load the cartridges as usual, just no lube in the bullets.  When I shoot them, after loading the cylinder, I squirt a glob of butter-flavored Crisco over the first two rounds to be fired, on the left side of the revolver.  That's it.  Gun runs fine all day.  Cleans up easy later.  I keep the Crisco in a little plastic squeeze bottle in a bag on my belt.  I just do this for CAS, so I lube it at the loading table.  It has never melted and run out on me, but I'm not walking around all day with them loaded that way.  The bore of my guns are lubed with Ballistol, by the way.  Depending on what you have in your bore, you may need to gun-scrubber it out and re-lube with something BP likes.

Note that this is for pistol only.  My BP rifle rounds have soft-lubed bullets.  I re-lube regular smokeless bullets for the rifle.  They have small lube grooves but my longest rifle barrel is 20" and it is usually pretty humid around here, so they are plenty accurate for me.

[Robert Swartz]

Definitely the wrong lube.  I use SPG and have never had this issue.

Yep, wrong lube, looks like I'm gonna be pulling bullets.......thanks guys.

[greenjoytj]

I squirt a glob of butter-flavored Crisco over the first two rounds to be fired, on the left side of the revolver. 

When using Crisco, choose to use the un-salted variety.  The butter flavour Crisco is salted.


To the OP,  try making a batch of Emmert's Improved lube.  It's a good simulation of SPG lube.


I mix Ballistol at 7:1 water to Ballistol, even at this mix ratio a little of the oil will separate and float to the top.  A good shake of the bottle blend the droplets of oil back into the water.
I don't feel it is of any benefit to mix higher concentrations of Ballistol.

[Robert Swartz]

When using Crisco, choose to use the un-salted variety.  The butter flavour Crisco is salted.


To the OP,  try making a batch of Emmert's Improved lube.  It's a good simulation of SPG lube.


I mix Ballistol at 7:1 water to Ballistol, even at this mix ratio a little of the oil will separate and float to the top.  A good shake of the bottle blend the droplets of oil back into the water.
I don't feel it is of any benefit to mix higher concentrations of Ballistol.

....the point on unsalted Crisco makes sense. My only thought, as a portion of lube it will be diluted with other ingredients. I am a stickler on keeping my guns clean. I get on them as soon I return home. I remember back in my CW reenacting days. Some wouldn't clean a gun until it stopped working? I was lucky in that one of Friendships and NMLRA stalwarts was the late John (Jerry) Eder, also my neighbor. He stressed that to be a good shooting weapon, a black powder gun must be cleaned and often. Kind of like my Dad always said about cars, "it's easier to change oil than it is engines"! I have some SPG and have made lubes out of other stuff. I will take all advise. I'm on a learning curve with BP cartridge guns.