Nipples and cleaning

[Cimarron Lawman]

Howdy. I'm a BP newbie.

On a revolver, do the nipples need to be removed after every shoot? Or can I simply run a pipe cleaner soaked with ballistol through them?

[knucklehead]

I don't know if its needed or not but i remove the nipples each time for cleaning.

I use ballistol mixed with water 20% ballistol 80% water.

I remove the nipples and drop them with the cylinder into a bowl filled with the ballistol/water mixture.
Then I clean the rest of the handgun. after handgun is cleaned i will clean out the cylinder.
I fire up the air compressor and blow out the nipples real good then install into cylinder.

I put some bore butter on the cylinder pin when assembling the firearm
reasemble the firearm and now its clean ready to put away.

[rickk]

It may depend somewhat on how often you shoot it. If you shoot it every weekend, you can probably get by with taking them out once a month. If you shoot it once a year and put it away, you should take them out every time.

[Cactus Cris]

My cleaning routine- Take cylinder out, put in ultrasonic cleaner, take grips off frame, put in u.c., run for 20 min., take cylinder out, take patch & rod, swab out the holes, take small ear swab clean arbor hole, take pipe cleaner clean inside of nipp, take old tooth brush and brush outside of nipp, blow excess cleaner off, swab big holes with straight Ballistol, add lube to arbor hole.  Take frame out, blow dry, add Ballistol, blow excess out & off, reassemble.  Takes longer to tell than to do.  Works for me for 10 yrs now.  The ultrasonic unit takes 99% of fouling off.  Harbor Freight bigger unit, catalogue order only.

[Sunwapta Haze]

I almost hesitate to respond given my rather limited experience but ...

I do not remove the nipples for cleaning.  I simply remove the cylinder from my 58 Remmies and toss em in a hot water bath whilst I clean up the rest of the pistols with hot water.  Spray down the pistols and cylinders with moose milk (Ballistol and water mixture).  Wipe off exterior with rag, pull bore snake through barrels and use bore swab for cylinders.  I blow a bit of air through the nipples (use what mother nature provided - no compressor), apply bore butter to both ends of the cylinder and reassemble.

I have stored my C&B for months after such a cleaning procedure with no problems whatsoever.  When I finally replaced the factory nipples with Treso's they came out easy.  Your milage may vary ...

[Will Dearborn]

MY regimine is similar to Sunwapta Haze's.

*shrug*

Long days and pleasant nights,
Will

[hellgate]

The only time I remove the nipples is after a successful "shakeout cruise" for a new gun where I find that they all perform flawlessly (no failures to fire, no blowback of caps, etc). After cleaning I take them out and generously apply anti-sieze grease to the threads and reinstall them FOR GOOD. After each match & cleaning I put about 1/2 drop of oil du jour in the nipple cutout so it will spread around the base of the nipple. so far, they always come out if needed but I leave them be if they are doing their job. I use Q-Tips and canned compressed air to blow them out after cleaning & swabbing. I nipple pick the flash holes prior to each match before and after charging just before capping.

[Dick Dastardly]

The above is all good advice and quite varied.

I made a Moosemilk Spa out of a covered plastic bin that's about revolver size.  I filled it with moosemilk and when I get back to the ranch after a shoot I dump my ROAs and cylinders in the spa.  Then, whilst they are soaking I clean my long guns.  After their leisurely dip, I pull out the ROAs wipe 'em off and pull a boresnake thru the bore and set 'em aside.  Then, I brush out the cylinder chambers and use a quick toothbrush treatment around the nipples.  Last, I blow everything off with compressed air taking extra care to blow out the nipples.

The Moosemilk leaves just enough fine lubrication/rust prevention in the guns for continued use.  For long term storage, make that winter in Wisconsin, I give everything a spray of Ballistol and only lightly wipe 'em down.

As you can see, there's a recurring theme here.  Guns get cleaned, attention is paid to the nipple holes and guns are stored with some lube on them.

Moisture is your enemy.  If you have a lot of it where you are, get some silica gel packs and put them in your gun safe or cabinet.  Dry guns won't rust as quick as damp ones.

DD-DLoS

[Noz]

DD, I tried your moosemilk bath idea and it's not for me. The pistols came out a gummy mess. Took longer to get the mess off of them than doing it the "old" way. I give mine a soak or spray with clean water, swab the bore and chambers with a 20 ga mop, spray down with moosemilk, blow dry with air compressor, lightly grease base pin(arbor) and put them away.

I don't take nipples out.

[Cimarron Lawman]

What about the grip frame on a Colt? Does it need to be removed and cleaned? Seems like powder will work its way between the frame and the triggerguard/grip and cause rust. I guess I'm not clear on how much of the gun gets immersed.

[Cactus Cris]

When I clean my Colts, I take the back grip frame off with the grips, put it all in the sonic cleaner.  The barrell sticks out cause it is "seasoned" with Balistol and I don't want to "un-season" it if it gets in the sonic tub.  The ulta-sonic cleaner takes EVERYTHING off the metal- oil, fouling, grease- whatever.  All I have to do is re-oil,grease where needed after it is dry (blow off with air).

[sharps54]

Cactus Cris,
Is this cleaner you are talking about? http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=91957
Mild Myles

[Cactus Cris]

YEP--That be the one.  Doesn't have a top so I made one out of plexaglass so the liq. wouldn't evap.  I was using Cabelas BP solvent but it got too $$$ so I saw Knights BP soap at Sportsman's, got it and it works just as well.  Just a 1/2 tea spoon in plain H2O.

[Montana Slim]

My most heavily used C&B revolvers, main-match Pietta 1860's, are only stripped/cleaned and re-lubed once per year. This includes the only removal of the cones for the same period.

Some pistolas may need cleaned more often.
Take care,
Slim

[HANCOCK]

Chris , I was just asking about ultrasonic cleaners over in the STORM, and was referred here. It sounds like the cleaner works to your satisfaction. Have you tried Balistol as the cleaning agent in the water?
After reading how others clean C&B, I may be spending too much time , but one of the things that I do is run a pipe cleaner chucked up in a drill into the nips, and there is  always LOTS of gunk in there . I chuck a pretty long piece of pipe cleaner in the drill , so that I can just clip it with  a side cutter to get fresh stuff as I clean, and dry.
It is a lot of dinkin around, but with the amount of crud in the nips I figured I was doing the right thing.
If you say the US cleaner can get that crap out of there, thats good enough for me, Harbor Freight, answer the phone , it's me.


HANCOCK 

[Cactus Cris]

Hancock-  I put about 6-8 drops in the solution.  Guess it helps to keep rust out.  I blow the pistola dry, squirt straight Ballistol inside, then blow excess out & off.  I figure that excess oil & grease attract fouling and gum up the works.  Have done a 12 stage match w/o cleaning or adding oil to the arbor.

[rifle]

Here's my take on the nipple malady. They(nipples) should be taken out and cleaned every time the revolver is fired. The threads in the cylinder should be cleaned also. A small bore cleaning brush screwed into the cylinder nipple threads while the cylinder is wet or immerced in soapy water also. You see, blackpowder residue can get into the threads of the nipples and the cylinder threads. It corrodes. Not good. Better to safe than sorry. The shoulder that the nipple seats on has a corner that collects fouling too and it should have a tooth pick or something like that run around the corner of that shoulder to loosen the fouling. I don't understand the aversion people seem to have about taking nipples out and cleaning them. I'd like to know why so many of you have an aversion to taking out nipples. Anyone?  Why would people clean everything else but those nipple threads?
Putting anti sieze grease or a blackpowder lube on the threads before putting the nipples back in is a good idea that has been mentioned above.
The whole gun should be disassembled and all parts cleaned also.What's the aversion to taking the revolvers down? What's the aversion to lubing the insides? Fouling goes into the innards whether there's lube in there or not and it(fouling) sticks in the wrong places. Lube covers the parts and spaces between them and keeps the fouling from making the gun malfunction or run ragged. There are threads on the screws in the frame and fouling gets into those threads. Trigger screws,bolt screws,hammer screws ect.ect. If the gun isn't taken down the fouling will corrode the threads. When the threads go where would a person get something like a trigger screw with oversize threads to fit after the hole is re-tapped? A new screw has to be "made". No offense but, I'd hate to buy a used gun that some of you have owned for a few years. To me,as an old timer, it's sacrilege to "not" disassemble and clean everything in a cap&baller after it's been used,especially with blackpowder. Just my opinions stated here.
Ballistol is good stuff but when it's mixed with more water than ballistol then water is left on the gun if it isn't wiped dry. That can't be good.
I'm under the impression that when a newbie askes questions the proper answers should be given. The bad habits people have shouldn't be given as though that is the proper proceedure.  That's not ethical.  I'm under the impression that shoddy cleaning methods are bad habits. I'm a bad guy now I guess.

[Mason Stillwell]

Well Pard lets see. I have a full time job, a full time boolit making business and I shoot 3 to 4 weekends a month year round .

Their just ain't time to remove the nipps ever time. The Anti seize will keep the crud out of the threads and they will come out when I need them to.

This has worked for quite a few years now so I'll just keep at it. If I was retired or only shot once a month and did not make boolits for other Pards then I might take out the nipps every time.(NOT)

Mason (hope this helps) Stillwell

[rifle]

Lets see. About 2 minutes to unscrew the nipples.  A minute each to use a tooth brush or gun cleaning brush on the nipple and it's threads while kept wet with soapy warm water. About two minutes(all six nips) to use a piece of pipe cleaner while the nipples are under the water to clean the holes. Three minutes to use a 22 cleaning brush to clean the cylinder nipple threads while the piece is in the soapy water. One minute to run a tooth pick around the corner of the rebated nipple seats with the cylinder in the soapy water.
Well,that's about 14 minutes and it can be done faster probably as well as slower. Hope this helps.   Excuses for shoddy cleaning methods doesn't make it right. 

[Mason Stillwell]

Pard all I can say is you are FAST >

I cannot do that job right in that time

Mason