Which revolvers for the holy black?

[mrhazmat]

New CAS guy, just finished first season and having a great time.  But,  I have to become a soot lord!!!  I feel the call, so to the point.

I have a pair of RNV 45 cal. Blued, shot with smokeless in all matches this past year, and a new pair of EMF Alchimista's (sp?)  45 also blued, which have not been shot yet.

Would you dedicate either pair to BP?  Which ones and why? I have read about problems with cleaning after mixing black with smokeless and could avoid that with the Alchimista I suppose.

Also, how important is it to "season" barrels (both handgun and long arms) before shooting BP.  I will be using only REAL BP and not the substitutes at this time.

All replies welcomed!

Regards,
Rafe     SASS #91558

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

Welcome to the darkside, mrhazmat.

Either set, or both for that matter will do just fine for the real gunpowder.  Don't worry too much about cleaning or preparation, the problem has been much overblown.  Clean them well, and concentrate on removing jacketted bullet fouling.

Read these pages before proceeding too far'

The main thing on making or buying BP bullets is that the bullet lube should be BP compatible.  The standard lube is SPG.  Other than that you will have to be very talented to screw things up beyond àll human recognition.

Hold it;  There will be more free advice, and worth every penny spent!

[Paladin UK]

Welcome to the `True way` of shootin pard,

You have obviously been summoned by you deep inner self (It will happen to all unbelievers eventually  ), to partake  of the Propellant made from Gods own ingredients , None of this fad synthetic smokeyless will ever touch your beloved smokepoles again once you have squeezed the trigger and sent that first BP round downrange 

Welcome to..... the Dark Side!!
Paladin (What lurvs the Holy Black) UK

[mrhazmat]

Thanks for the replies.  I went to one of our regional shoots and a feller was shooting full house BP loads and said then and there "next year I am going all BP".

Thanks for the advice, to not make so much of the cleaning issues on guns previously used with smokeless, so I'll give them a good cleaning and lube them up good with Ballistrol then Bore butter and go for it.

How about the seasoning of the barrel? Is that just for the shotgun?  Also will be setting my 66 Yellowboy for BP(alas 45 colt) as well.

Oh, bullets will be BigLubes 250gr. so that should not be an issue.

New Soot Lord here so all info is appreciated.

Rafe

[hellgate]

I don't think you'll need to season anything. If you have not shot copper jacketed bullets then not to worry. Copper fouling really grabs lead. I used to shoot cast bullets in my .30-06 and found that once I got ALL the jacket fouling out of the barrel the cast lead bullets shot quite well (especially if you are REALLY ANAL about casting, sorting, weighing, aligning,loading, etc the same way each time). CAS is great 'cause it is not precision shooting. Shoot both guns and see what happens. Maybe one pair will have tighter cylinder gaps and bind up on you and the other pair will go all day. The big lube bullets are also known as "grease wagons". As long as you use a good BP lube and plenty of it you are gonna have some fun. I have a pair of Uberti cattlemen and one bound up on BP but it had a couple of high spots on the back of the barrel causing cylinder drag. A teensy bit of dressing with a very fine toothed file fixed it.

[August]

I have experienced an improvement in cleaning efficiency on the second and third round of using black powder in pistols.  In other words, they have gotten easier to clean with successive uses.  However, I really feel this is the result of getting all the residual petroleum lubricants out of them and off of them after several cleanings rather than because of any "seasoning".

With proper lubrication (both the gun and in the bullets you use) you should be successful on your first attempt and have no problems.  The better you complete the thorough cleaning, and elimination of stray lubricants, from the gun before preparing it for black powder, they better your experience will be.

I don't know anything about using Holy Black in Eyetalian gunz.  A great deal depends on how well the base pin bushing (I'm assuming your Colt's copies have a basepin bushing) channels blow by away from the base pin.  I have Colt's gunz and USFA gunz and they both do a good job of protecting the basepin.  The Colt's is somewhat better in this department because of some very subtle shaping to the circumference of the base pin bushing where it is exposed at the front of the cylinder.  That slight difference in configuration makes the difference between a pistol running for a whole match and one that gets sticky after a couple of cylinder's full of firing.  The Eyetalian gunz you have may do a good job of this and may not.  I dunno.

Rugers, on the other hand have a very good design feature for black powder use.  They don't have a bushing for the base pin, of course.  But they do have a substantial central extension at the front of the cylinder for filling the gap between the cylinder and the frame.  This extension results in an offset between the barrel gap and the gap down, into the base pin.  That offset means that less gas and soot is blowing stright down onto the basepin than happens on the 1873 design.  So, potentially, the Roooogers should serve you well for black powder.  

I've shot a lot of black powder through Rooogers and they work well with that ammunition.  When they get sluggish, I just drop a little Ballistol into the space between the cylinder extension and the frame and they start running like new again.

Of your two sets of guns, the Roooooooogers have the best probability of getting you through your first match without problems -- assuming you properly clean and prepare them before the match.

Then, in the future, if you're like me, you lubricate all your pistols with Black Powder compatible products so they work with whatever ammunition you feel like shooting when ever you feel like shooting it.

[Dick Dastardly]

Howdy and welcome mrhazmat,

You've already chosen the right bullets.  Either or both of the guns you've mentioned will do well with the One True Powder.  Make sure to get all the copper fouling out of the barrels and you are good to go.  As for "seasoning", it'll handle it's self as you go.

Glad you're here.

DD-MDA

[Noz]

I had about decided that the whole bp-petroleum  problem was way over rated until I ran out of Ballistol and lubed my 1860s with CLP. After the second shoot I had to go buy a bronze bore brush to get the fouling out of the barrels. Never again.

[Steel Horse Bailey]

Noz, the way most of us who DO still use BreakFree CLP, Rem-Oil, etc. is to use it as a lube for the moving parts, but I use BP-friendly grease on the cylinder pin and down the barrels & chambers.  (TC's Natural Lube 1000 PLUS, Bore Butter - I like the wintergreen scented (yellow tube) version, but the have pine scent in a green tube.)

I've been doing it this way since the mid '70s, w/ NO issues.

[Slowhand Bob]

I think the seasoning stuff is about those who are doing the front stuffers and perhaps even the buffler rifle guys but I bet most of our shooters are shooting through a shiny barl at each match.  When my barls have been swabbed (no bore brush) with Windex and/or Ballistol, after a match they return to a metal shine state and I see no evidence of any seasoning after years of shooting them.  I have seen many posters make the claim that Ballistol is actually just another petroleum product and not what most of us tout it as?

My most used cartridge guns are Evil Roy Ubertis using Cowboy.45Special loads.  I am currently hoping to rebuild a beater '73Win Uberti in .45 to use the .Cowboy.45Special also but the gun has other issues that worry me.  I have and have had toggle links in all of the big bores commonly offered as well as matching pistols sets and all have worked fine making smoke, including Uberti Schofields.  The only thing I have that I do not use bp in is my one set of guns in .357.  These only get used when conditions make bp less  desireable (read fun).

[Dalion]

If I may venture an observation, I do a lot of ML and Buff gun shooting, and the predominate opinion of most shooters in those disciplines is that unless you are shooting a barrel made of wrought iron, like most of the original muzzleloaders had, you are wasting your time and money seasoning.  You season an iron pan to fill in the relatively large pores with your seasoning grease and as that builds up it makes using the pan easier. 

If you are using a lubricant that can microscopically fill in the pores in modern, even modern mild steel, you are probably not using a lubricant that is compatible with black powder.

[Steel Horse Bailey]

+1

I think the seasoning that some insist on is a little overblown.  The reason I believe this is because the new cleaners most of us use pretty much clean the metal and strip off any layers of lube or "seasoning" right down to the bare metal.  Now, since many of us use Moosemilk to clean, this may sound like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth, but like Dalion mentions, we're no longer using very porous iron, but now we use steel, and finely machined steel at that.  While steel does have pores (microscopically speaking) it is a much smoother surface.  Stainless steel is considered to be a rough finish compared to carbon steel, and while I don't have any micro-photography to illustrate, I'm sure that even the SS of today is waaaaay more of a smooth finish than what was possible 200 years ago ... when seasoning a barrel became "the norm."  (It may have been begun before 200 yrs. ago, but you get my point, I hope.)

I do sometimes "season" my bores before a match, but sometimes I have gone in "un-seasoned" and frankly, I can't tell any difference.

YMMV

[USBP1969]

Gentlemen,

What's the best way to remove copper fouling from a handgun barrel?

Thanks,
USBP

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

Gentlemen,

What's the best way to remove copper fouling from a handgun barrel?

Thanks,
USBP

Firstly, has your barrel accumulated that much fouling?  Clean the barrel as best you can with your normal technique then look at the rifling at the muzzle at an angle and have some light glancing in from another angle.  If you see any copper colour, that is the jacket fouling.  There are several very good solvents.  I still have some old formula HOPPE's #9, but there are others availabe at your local sporting goods shop.  Use as directed.  If you are a hunter or target shooter, you will already have at least one of the good ones.

[Ima Sure Shot]

Be very careful of copper removal if the gun is Nickle plated.  Solvents for copper removal can damage Nickle. Ima

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

Please don't refer to Black Powder as 'the Holy Black". There is nothing holy about it, it is just gunpowder. I get a bit annoyed with those who want to ascribe mystical powers to gunpowder.

Sorry, lecture mode off.

Here is what I do with any gun that I intend to only shoot Black Powder through, whether it is a new gun or a used gun. First thing I do is completely take it apart and strip all the oils off of everything. Everything. I usually use a fairly strong solvent like lacquer thinner or paint thinner, taking everything down to bare metal. While the gun is apart I take care of any deburring or smoothing of parts that needs to be done. Then I lightly lubricate everything with Ballistol, being sure to coat all surfaces of all the parts including the frame, and I put the gun back together again. The reason I do this is because some fouling is bound to work its way down inside the gun, and coating the parts with Ballistol will prevent any rust from forming. Parts that are not coated in some sort of oil will rust from the fouling, but oil will prevent rust from forming, and Ballistol is completely compatible with BP fouling.

Regarding cylinders and bushings. Fouling building up on the cylinder pin is the chief cause of binding with a revolver fired with Black Powder. Any sizable bushing on the front face of the cylinder will deflect fouling blasted out of the barrel/cylinder gap away from the cylinder pin and will prevent fouling from building up on the cylinder pin.

Here is a photo showing the bushings on the front of three cylinders, a stainless Ruger Vaquero in the center, an Uberti Cattleman on the left and a 2nd Gen Colt on the right. All of these bushings will prevent fouling from reaching the cylinder pin and will keep the revolver rolling, as long as enough BP compatible lube is used on the bullets.





Some folks believe a removable bushing is an advantage for Black Powder, but that has not been my experience. That Ruger cylinder in the center protects the cylinder pin just as well as the two removable bushings, the Ruger will get through a match just fine without binding.


Here are the bushings compared side by side; the Cattleman on the left and the Colt on the right. Although the scalloping of the bushing is a bit more pronounced on the Colt, my experience is the Cattleman bushing deflects fouling just as well as the Colt bushing and both guns can shoot an entire eight stage match without binding.



Regarding seasoning, I dunno if it means anything, but I have noticed that after being shot a few times with BP and cleaned with a good water based BP solvent, then lubed with Ballistol, my guns get a bit easier to clean. Less elbow grease is needed to remove the fouling, it melts off the steel easier. This is not 'seasoning' it has nothing to do with preparing the gun, other than the initial removal of oils with a solvent. It has more to do with repeated applications of Ballistol once the shooting and cleaning cycle has begun.

P.S. Big Lube bullets are an excellent choice. They will carry enough BP compatible lube to keep the fouling soft in the bore, as well as keeping any fouling deposited on the cylinder face soft. Soft fouling is easily swept aside by the end of the barrel as the cylinder rotates. Hard fouling can build up and cause binging.

[cpt dan blodgett]

+1

I think the seasoning that some insist on is a little overblown.  The reason I believe this is because the new cleaners most of us use pretty much clean the metal and strip off any layers of lube or "seasoning" right down to the bare metal.  Now, since many of us use Moosemilk to clean, this may sound like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth, but like Dalion mentions, we're no longer using very porous iron, but now we use steel, and finely machined steel at that.  While steel does have pores (microscopically speaking) it is a much smoother surface.  Stainless steel is considered to be a rough finish compared to carbon steel, and while I don't have any micro-photography to illustrate, I'm sure that even the SS of today is waaaaay more of a smooth finish than what was possible 200 years ago ... when seasoning a barrel became "the norm."  (It may have been begun before 200 yrs. ago, but you get my point, I hope.)

I do sometimes "season" my bores before a match, but sometimes I have gone in "un-seasoned" and frankly, I can't tell any difference.
A lot of small bore shooters must believe in the seasoning thing as they virtually never clean their rifles
YMMV

[USBP1969]

Firstly, has your barrel accumulated that much fouling?  Clean the barrel as best you can with your normal technique then look at the rifling at the muzzle at an angle and have some light glancing in from another angle.  If you see any copper colour, that is the jacket fouling.  There are several very good solvents.  I still have some old formula HOPPE's #9, but there are others availabe at your local sporting goods shop.  Use as directed.  If you are a hunter or target shooter, you will already have at least one of the good ones.

Thanks Sir Charles.

[wildman1]

Driftwood I think they reason BP firearms become easier to clean after being shot several times is that takes any "roughness" out of the bore. I used to firelap my ML's and the bore would be as shiny as a mirror. I have a stainless '92 that took close to 30 patches to clean the first time I shot it, now 3 patches and it is clean. WM

[Blackpowder Burn]

I've also found that the Outers Foul Out system works quite well.  It's basically a reverse electroplating process that is very simple to use.