Fouling mitigation

[bladeracer]

I've been wanting to post about blackpowder and Perentie's thread seemed like a good reason to, but I don't want to clog his question with my rubbish so I started another thread.

I've been shooting a muzzleloader occasionally for a few years, purely for the giggles. Due to our crazy handgun laws I'm able to start shooting Cowboy with a pair of revolvers, as long as they're not cartridge revolvers. After six months I can buy cartridge revolvers so whether I stay shooting black remains to be seen, but it is great fun. Last month I finally got a pair of 1858 New Model Army .44 revolvers, and have started testing blackpowder in .38 Special in the lever-action rifles. I need to start loading blackpowder .30-30 as well. As with Perentie, I'm also interested in how long I can run them before the fouling becomes too awful. Ian McCollum has been doing a series "Having Fun With Blackpowder" using old breechloading milsurps and I think they're starting to see issues after a few dozen rounds. With my Hawken Rifle I find it gets very difficult to push the ninth or tenth ball down the bore, but I think a lot of fouling can be reduced by using the right lubes in the right amounts. Karl Kasarda found with the Schofield revolver that adding a couple grains of smokeless under or above the black charge can help burn out a lot of the crud, but I haven't tested that myself yet. I'm not sure if it was Dustin or Jake but one of the guys from Everything Blackpowder or Guns of the West got surprising results putting the duplex load on top of the black charge, cleaner burning and higher velocities.

A local Cowboy match is generally going to be four or five stages, each firing five rounds in each revolver, ten in the rifle, and two or four rounds in the coachgun. So, for myself, about 25rds in the revolvers, 50rds in the rifle and 20rds of 12ga. When Rose shoots with me we could double that, or she could shoot smokeless .38's in the rifle and smokeless 12ga. loads. If the club's Vaqueros are available she could even shoot those instead of the .44's. I don't expect to start seeing issues with fouling after that few rounds, but if I stay back and practice after the match then it will add up and will likely become a problem. I'm hoping to put a lot of rounds through the revolvers and the .38 lever-action on Sunday as I want to determine how many I can fire before I start having issues. I've put a few dozen black .38's through the Uberti 1866 without any issues at all, but I think the old pistol-caliber levers have fairly wide tolerances.

I want to play more with grease as I think that's the key. Powder with a ball on top, with no grease I think has the biggest fouling issues. A lubed felt wad under the ball can help lube the bore, but they're an expensive way to shoot if you're buying them. I'm using a lubed patch in the muzzleloader and a lubed wad under the ball/bullet in the revolvers and the .38 cartridges, but when I use up the 1000 I bought I don't plan to buy more wads. I bought 500gm of lard the other day as I want to experiment with grease cookies under the bullet in the .38's, and grease on top of the ball in the revolvers. Grease cookies can be a little tricky to set up as you want just the slightest compression but not enough to squeeze the grease into the powder. I haven't decided what to use for a card between the powder and the grease though. Something impermeable ideally so the grease doesn't soak through into the powder, a .375" plug of 5mm foam rubber might be good, the more you compress it the tighter it should seal against the sides of the case.

I haven't experimented enough with charges to determine whether heavier or lighter charges create more or less fouling. I used to shoot 70gn in the .45 Hawken but I've dropped back to 40gn last year for a more fun experience. I haven't yet done any accuracy testing with blackpowder in anything as I only use them at very close ranges. I will have to do this with the .30-30 if I want to have any chance of hitting that 500m bison silhouette though.

For the revolvers I bought a hand vice that seats all six balls together, which greatly speeds up reloading the revolvers and I've ordered two different paper cartridge kits. I think paper cartridges will really speed up the reload. Instead of dropping the six charges in from vials, then pushing in six wads, and dropping six balls on top, then seating them all together, I'll just drop in the six cartridges and seat them as one. It might take me longer to cap the six nipples than to load the cylinder. I'm leaning toward pre-loading syringes of grease that I can just squirt into the chambers without even having to look at them. I haven't decided on what to use for grease yet. I don't want to use a petroleum product that needs solvents to break down when it gets into your clothing, so something vegetable- or animal-based sounds like the way to go.

VAPA does not allow wads under the ball/bullet, and requires grease on top to fill the chambers. But only one person I've chatted with so far has complied with that, most run a wad and only one person greases on top of the ball. One guy did have a chainfire years ago and has never fired his revolver since then.

My first loads in the .38 Special were 17gn of FFFg, a lubed wad, with a 125gn cast bullet seated at 1.475". This load made 870fps in the Uberti 1866 20". So this week I loaded 50rds of 15gn, lubed wad, 2gn polenta to take up the space, and the same bullet seated to the same length. These make 1044fps, 175fps more than the 17gn load, and 30fps more than 3.3gn of AS50N measured in the same session. I'm assuming I had more compression on these due to the polenta. These loads had ES of 60fps and 57fps and SD's of 20fps and 18fps so they're fairly consistent. I want to try 12gn next, without the wad, just polenta filler, and perhaps a 3mm thick cookie of grease on top of the polenta. I may paint the driving bands of the bullet with Liquid Alox as well, I'll decide if I can be bothered at the time. The blackpowder is nearly double the price of smokeless and I'm using five times as much of it so this is expensive shooting. The wads are more expensive than the bullets so they have to go.

Something else I'm curious about with the .38's in the rifle. If I shoot a Cowboy stage of 10rds of black, then Rose shoots a stage with 10rds of smokeless, and we alternate through the match will that clear out any of the fouling?

Permit came through on my Rossi Coachgun yesterday (despite my licence being expired still) so my next trick is loading 12 gauge blackpowder loads. Do I buy more Magtech brass or just use plastic hulls?

[No1Mk3]

G'day bladeracer,
Brass 12g is neat, but it can get expensive even though it is a one off outlay. With plastic you will quite often only get 1 load out of them before the Black burns little pin holes in the case, no problem as used cases are easy to get from the shotgun range bins for free. You can also trim back to 65mm in any gum without problems and thereby reduce your shot column height to save on wads (I use carpet felt and cork). My current load is 73g of 2F with 1 oz of #6 which flattens the SASS poppers pretty good. As for lubes, I use cheap felt wads soaked in lube ( normal 50/50 beeswax and vegetable oil,) in the revolvers and cartridge rifles, I have fired a string of 40 in the Martini Henry and Snider without issues. Grease over in the revolvers is possibly better, and when I did it that way I bought a large syringe designed for gearbox and diff oils to make it easier, quicker and less messy to apply.

[bladeracer]

G'day bladeracer,
Brass 12g is neat, but it can get expensive even though it is a one off outlay. With plastic you will quite often only get 1 load out of them before the Black burns little pin holes in the case, no problem as used cases are easy to get from the shotgun range bins for free. You can also trim back to 65mm in any gun without problems and thereby reduce your shot column height to save on wads (I use carpet felt and cork). My current load is 73gn of 2F with 1 oz of #6 which flattens the SASS poppers pretty good. As for lubes, I use cheap felt wads soaked in lube ( normal 50/50 beeswax and vegetable oil,) in the revolvers and cartridge rifles, I have fired a string of 40 in the Martini Henry and Snider without issues. Grease over in the revolvers is possibly better, and when I did it that way I bought a large syringe designed for gearbox and diff oils to make it easier, quicker and less messy to apply.

I already have 25 pieces of brass for the 12ga., which would probably be enough, if I ever ran out I could just finish off with factory loads. It does mean having to load them every week but if I can't manage it I'll have plenty of factory ammo with me.

73gn of black is bloody expensive though, at $200/kg, that's almost a buck a shot just for the powder. I don't have a popper at home but I could borrow one from the club to work up an effective load here. I brought one home last month for welding repairs, I should've thought about load workup while it was here. I have lots of #7-1/2 shot salvaged from field loads. I was planning to start around 35gn of FFFg and 330gn (3/4oz) of shot to go easy on my shoulder. I shot the Falcon Saloon Cowboy Action 26gm load last week over the chronograph at 824fps (only had one round of it) so if I can get close to that level I'll be very happy. Five years ago I tested loads right down to 255gn of shot at 750fps and 330gn of shot at 500fps with AP70N.

We go through a fair few syringes vaccinating the cows so I figured I can load up 100 syringes with 5ml or so of grease and just dump those into the chambers. For now I'm using 15gn of FFFg in the .44's but I haven't done any load testing other than some 20gn loads which felt the same to me, and both make around 500fps. I'll have to do some accuracy load testing which I'm hoping to do this Sunday.

[on_one_wheel]

Firstly .. I'm jealous as of your revolvers, one day I'll get one...

I can only speak from experience with the 50 muzzleloader.

Iv had some great sessions where I treat my muzzleloader like its stolen, especially when there's a few lads to let loose on it with me.

I'm using a lard / bees wax neatsfoot oil home brew, I've learnt that liberal amounts of lube help immensely. My patches are soaked in the lube when it's still hot in the saucepan, I add another smear to the patch and lube the ball with my greasy fingers when loading, then bust out the rag in my pocket to clean my fingers.
If it gets marginally tight i give the bore a quick brushing, fire a cap off to ensure the crud is clear of the nipple and flash hole... back into it.
It can get messy but I could literally go all day without a real clean, loads of black sooty grease, that rag sure comes in handy.

[Oldbloke]

I had a problem with fouling in my ML.

Was told try,
40% Superfry
60% Olive oil

It has improved.
Was told it needs to be like snot.
Extreme ambient temperature may require a small change.

[bladeracer]

Firstly .. I'm jealous as of your revolvers, one day I'll get one...

I can only speak from experience with the 50 muzzleloader.

Iv had some great sessions where I treat my muzzleloader like its stolen, especially when there's a few lads to let loose on it with me.

I'm using a lard / bees wax neatsfoot oil home brew, I've learnt that liberal amounts of lube help immensely. My patches are soaked in the lube when it's still hot in the saucepan, I add another smear to the patch and lube the ball with my greasy fingers when loading, then bust out the rag in my pocket to clean my fingers.
If it gets marginally tight i give the bore a quick brushing, fire a cap off to ensure the crud is clear of the nipple and flash hole... back into it.
It can get messy but I could literally go all day without a real clean, loads of black sooty grease, that rag sure comes in handy.

I do have to say that the revolvers are more fun than the muzzle loading rifle
I had a look at the Hawken logbook and twice I've done a session of sixteen rounds without cleaning, but only with 40gn and 50gn charges - one was a double-ball as I was chatting and got distracted while loading I quickly worked out that I wasn't likely to get more than ten shots out of it due to fouling so I only keep 20 vials loaded for it. I've got sixty loaded for the revolvers but I'll make up 200 vials today for Sunday practice. I'll use the lubed wads for now.

I'm still chasing beeswax to add to the lard. Bunnings do 4L bottles of liquid beeswax, do you reckon that would work with the lard?

[Tinker]

Every BP shooter seems to have their own recipe. The trick is to keep the fouling soft, so that each shot will clean out some of the crud. When it dries it becomes a bugger to remove. The fouling absorbs water, so folks shooting breechloaders will blow into the barrel via a small tube inserted in the chamber between shots, the moisture from your breath keeping the fouling soft. Your question about firing smokeless loads in between BP loads is an interesting one - it may clean the fouling out if it's soft, or it may bake it on.
An easy lube is Lanotec grease, which is lanolin-based and fairly heat stable. I put a blob of it between a waxed cardboard wad and the bullet in my Martini Henry.
Some folks also swear by Udderly Smooth moisturiser, also lanolin-based but miscible in water. They dip the bullet in this prior to chambering the round. It works well, but is difficult to not get any in the chamber. It's too soft to use as a grease cookie though.

[bladeracer]

I had a problem with fouling in my ML.

Was told try,
40% Superfry
60% Olive oil

It has improved.
Was told it needs to be like snot.
Extreme ambient temperature may require a small change.

I didn't think of olive oil, I'll try that.

[bladeracer]

Every BP shooter seems to have their own recipe. The trick is to keep the fouling soft, so that each shot will clean out some of the crud. When it dries it becomes a bugger to remove. The fouling absorbs water, so folks shooting breechloaders will blow into the barrel via a small tube inserted in the chamber between shots, the moisture from your breath keeping the fouling soft. Your question about firing smokeless loads in between BP loads is an interesting one - it may clean the fouling out if it's soft, or it may bake it on.
An easy lube is Lanotec grease, which is lanolin-based and fairly heat stable. I put a blob of it between a waxed cardboard wad and the bullet in my Martini Henry.
Some folks also swear by Udderly Smooth moisturiser, also lanolin-based but miscible in water. They dip the bullet in this prior to chambering the round. It works well, but is difficult to not get any in the chamber. It's too soft to use as a grease cookie though.

My mate just used axle grease but that will be filthy stuff to clean up. I generally blow through the nipple of the Hawken but VAPA doesn't allow any blowing in case it ignites embers.

The Lanotec sounds good, I'll see if I can find some of it around here. I think grease cookies are going to have to be mainly lard.

[on_one_wheel]

Firstly .. I'm jealous as of your revolvers, one day I'll get one...

I can only speak from experience with the 50 muzzleloader.

Iv had some great sessions where I treat my muzzleloader like its stolen, especially when there's a few lads to let loose on it with me.

I'm using a lard / bees wax neatsfoot oil home brew, I've learnt that liberal amounts of lube help immensely. My patches are soaked in the lube when it's still hot in the saucepan, I add another smear to the patch and lube the ball with my greasy fingers when loading, then bust out the rag in my pocket to clean my fingers.
If it gets marginally tight i give the bore a quick brushing, fire a cap off to ensure the crud is clear of the nipple and flash hole... back into it.
It can get messy but I could literally go all day without a real clean, loads of black sooty grease, that rag sure comes in handy.

I do have to say that the revolvers are more fun than the muzzle loading rifle
I had a look at the Hawken logbook and twice I've done a session of sixteen rounds without cleaning, but only with 40gn and 50gn charges - one was a double-ball as I was chatting and got distracted while loading I quickly worked out that I wasn't likely to get more than ten shots out of it due to fouling so I only keep 20 vials loaded for it. I've got sixty loaded for the revolvers but I'll make up 200 vials today for Sunday practice. I'll use the lubed wads for now.

I'm still chasing beeswax to add to the lard. Bunnings do 4L bottles of liquid beeswax, do you reckon that would work with the lard?

Iv never heard of liquid bees wax, is it mixed with paraffin oil or something?
I'm lucky to have a proper old school hardware store near by, they still weigh out and bag nails for customers, carry spares for lanterns and he also sells blocks of bees wax.

[bladeracer]

Iv never heard of liquid bees wax, is it mixed with paraffin oil or something?
I'm lucky to have a proper old school hardware store near by, they still weigh out and bag nails for customers, carry spares for lanterns and he also sells blocks of bees wax.

I don't know, it does seem odd that it would be liquid at room temperatures without having some sort of additive, but as I want to mix it with the lard it might not be an issue.
https://www.bunnings.com.au/gilly-s-4l-natural-liquid-beeswax_p0348032

[Oldbloke]

MUST be diluted with something.

[bladeracer]

MUST be diluted with something.

I would think it must be. I had to go to Narracan and Yinnah this arvo and hoped to drop past Bunnings but didn't manage it. I'll try again tomorrow.

I can't see anything in the SDS.
https://media.bunnings.com.au/api/public/content/c9256616bcdb4192a08e3344507f4032?v=1dae952a

[on_one_wheel]

Just googled it
"solvent like turpentine or mineral spirit"
Both are compatible with BP, should make a good brew.

Ps don't forget to share a picture of those lovely revolvers

[Oldbloke]

Stick to pure bees wax mate.

[bladeracer]

Just googled it
"solvent like turpentine or mineral spirit"
Both are compatible with BP, should make a good brew.

Ps don't forget to share a picture of those lovely revolvers

They're actually fairly ratty but that's how I like them
They are Uberti Remington New Model Army 1858's in .44-cal.

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They came from a NSW dealer who bought 80 firearms from a reenactor in Qld, so these two spent years firing nothing but blanks. I bought a .36 as well for my mate which is in lovely condition. I was concerned they might've been put together out of junk parts for that purpose so the price was really good. The nicer one is 1996 manufacture and in very nice condition. The tattier one is 1965 production, and the cylinder has clearly come from an even older one. It has been recrowned at least once as the muzzle is significantly shorter. The cylinder is machined differently and does not index correctly. Looking from behind when you cock the hammer you can see that the nipple is off to the left. From the front of the pistol you can see that the pair of chambers on each side are not in the same vertical plane as the frame. The cylinder over-indexes so I figured the bolt was bent. But I put the cylinder in the other pistol and it indexes the same, so it's been machined that way. I've been trying to get a replacement cylinder with little luck so far, but for what these are worth it'd be cheaper to buy another pistol. I'm going to fire six rounds with the pistol inside a cardboard box and see if it spits any shrapnel out of the cylinder gap. The forcing come appears quite generous so it may not be an issue, at least not for Cowboy where precision is considered a dirty word I'll try filing some metal out of the side of the bolt slot and bend the bolt over to try to correct the indexing if it is an issue. The bolt also randomly doesn't pop up to lock the cylinder in place so I want to order a new bolt and bolt spring. If the cylinder is not locked and you bump it before you fire it can throw the index way off, and that could be nasty. There are some slight differences between the two so things changed over the 30+ years between them, and I'm guessing the cylinder might be twenty years older still.

Taylor's in the US does cartridge conversion cylinders for these for US$245 to shoot .45 Colt (and for the .38 Special in the .36-cal version), but say that they can't export them out of the US. The cylinder would be twice the value of the complete pistol but it would be a nice feature, and would hopefully fix the indexing issue.

I haven't fired the bad one yet as I don't want to be around other shooters in case it does spit lead out, and I want to shoot it in a box on the bench. I'm hoping I'll be able to do this on Sunday as I should be on my own.

One of the club members has a stainless Uberti 1851 .36 Navy that I want to buy off him as well. He bought it new and only shot about a dozen matches with it decades ago.

[bladeracer]

Stick to pure bees wax mate.

A club member runs hives so I want to talk to him, hopefully tomorrow. He's just up the road from me.

[bladeracer]

I'm making my own gun belt and holsters due to my damaged shoulder, it dictates where I have to hang the pistol on my right side to be able to draw it comfortably, those eight-inch barrels are long. I did the belt a couple weeks ago but have been waiting on the pistols before doing the holsters. But the leather guy was crook with covid this week (Farmworld got him), hopefully next week I can start the holsters. We've had heaps of people here this week for Rose's mum's 90th celebration though so I wouldn't have gotten anything done anyway, the last ones left today.

I also need to build a Cowboy gun cart for carrying all the firearms.

[perentie]

I like the Remingtons. When I was shooting Cowboy 15 to 20 years ago I had a Pietta in 44 and a Ruger old Army. I liked the way you could drop out the cylinder on the Remingtons so converted the Ruger to do the same. I had a spare cylinder for each and took them out to load them. I made a steel inverted T gadget with a vertical pin the cylinder was placed over and a lever hinged from the top to make a rammer. I used a brass flask with a suitable size spout to load with then dropped in the balls rammed them with the tool then a smear of grease over. No fouling as could shoot all day like that. Had pockets on my belt for the spare uncapped cylinders.
My rifle was a original 73 carbine 44-40 (made in 76) still got it. I had a mold with 2 deep grease grooves that had enough grease to keep the fouling soft. Grease star at the muzzle.. My old hammer shotgun was an original too. Used to reload pickups with black. Card and felt wad column. Over shot card wad. (still got heaps of those I dont use now) and roll crimp with one of those hand turned original crimpers. Didnt worry about fouling in the shotgun.

[bladeracer]

I like the Remingtons. When I was shooting Cowboy 15 to 20 years ago I had a Pietta in 44 and a Ruger old Army. I liked the way you could drop out the cylinder on the Remingtons so converted the Ruger to do the same. I had a spare cylinder for each and took them out to load them. I made a steel inverted T gadget with a vertical pin the cylinder was placed over and a lever hinged from the top to make a rammer. I used a brass flask with a suitable size spout to load with then dropped in the balls rammed them with the tool then a smear of grease over. No fouling as could shoot all day like that. Had pockets on my belt for the spare uncapped cylinders.
My rifle was a original 73 carbine 44-40 (made in 76) still got it. I had a mold with 2 deep grease grooves that had enough grease to keep the fouling soft. Grease star at the muzzle.. My old hammer shotgun was an original too. Used to reload pickups with black. Card and felt wad column. Over shot card wad. (still got heaps of those I dont use now) and roll crimp with one of those hand turned original crimpers. Didnt worry about fouling in the shotgun.

Yep, I like being able to drop the cylinder for loading without having to disassemble the pistol like the 1851-1861 Colts.
I'm using this for loading, from Viceroybooks.com.au.

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We're not allowed to load from the flask anymore, must use premeasured vials, which are faster anyway.

I'm using the Uberti 1866 in .38 Special simply because I want to run blackpowder and it's so much easier to strip and clean than the 1892's. When I asked about lube on a US forum one guy runs his bullets through the lathe and cuts an enormous lube groove around them, like 3-4mm wide and just leaving a thin stalk of lead to support a thin plate at the base of the bullet. I'd love to see what a fired one looks like as it must collapse the tail of the bullet I reckon.

We did a shoot this arvo and then I've come down with a cold so I may not be up to shooting IPSC tomorrow

[perentie]

In all these years I had never heard of Viceroy Books until this week I googled Musket Nipple Wrench as I wanted to buy one. Their name came up ,so I bought one from them. I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of stock they carry. I will be using them again..