Cleaning a revolver after BP cartridges

Hey guys. Wasn't sure where to put this one, so it may get moved.
I've decided to load up some .45 Colt rounds with BP and have gotten most of the stuff. I got the lube from randyrat on here, and am about to load some up.
Do you just submerge the entire revolver in hot soapy water when you clean one up after something like that? I didn't know whether to get the soapy water into the trigger and hammer mechanism or not. I suppose it wouldn't hurt it as long as I lubed it with some Ballistol immediately after drying.

How do you guys do it? Thanks.

i first off spray the entire revolver minus the grips and with the cylinder removed with a mixture of 75% water and 25% ballistol. after allowing it to seep into all the crevises i use a toothbrush to scrub all reachable places as well as a bore brush up n down the barrel insides. also do the same with the cylinder.

i allow this to set for 5 to 10 minutes to continue soaking then i follow this with scorching hot water to remove the gunky mixture and i scrub the entire revolver with the same brush in the water rinse.

after everything is clean and bright i allow it to dry from the very hot water...then when im fairly confident its all dry i begin to spray it down inside n out with remington oil...down every opening and all around...i then allow it to drip for a couple minutes followed by a good rubbing with a clean dry towel

sounds like a longer time frame when reading it then it actually is. this goes very fast and leaves a sparkling clean revolver when done.

the oil displaces the water inside the hammer and trigger area so that when you disassemble it in the future all that will be found is some brown oily substance that wipes rite off with a rag leaving the parts and springs sparkeling clean with no hint of rust of oxidation.

I clean them just like a cap n ball revolver strip the grips and into a hot water bath with some soap for a soaking then scrub disassemble and a scrub again , and on the cap n ball a gentle olive oil massage . Must keep the ladies happy, if expected to preform.

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How do you guys do it? Thanks.

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Hand steam cleaner with a pointed nozzle - patch - drops of Eezox on hand, trigger, loading gate, hammer and cylinders - wipe down with Eezox = Done
I shoot 6 handguns with BP and after thousands of rounds have never field stripped them for cleaning

Colt SAA's break down pretty easy, the action and internals are simple to remove and re-install. I take mine completely apart. Evidently it isn't necessary but I feel better and it gives me something else to do.

On my Colt SAA I run patches through the bore and cylinder. I then run a pot of hot water through the coffee machine, add liquid dish soap, and soak all (except grips). After a short soak, a few more patches, a spray with Ballistol and water mix, and it's finished. The Ballistol mix, after it dries, leaves a very nice coating of what seems to be a very fine grease.
I have never take the gun apart any further than taking the cylinder out. Process seems to remove any lead from bore, and outside of cylinder.

Holy cow Batman, that black powder fouling must be some caustic stuff!
Seriously, when my wife and I got done with a cowboy match and had 4 Colt clone conversions, two lever guns, two double barrel shotguns, and sometimes a pair of pocket revolvers and several hundred casings to clean. I removed the cylinders and used Ballistol and water on patches with cleaning rods and jags to clean them and the barrels and then wiped down the exteriors. When they were reasonably clean we wiped down with straight Ballistol. No problems. Once a year we pulled the side plates off the 73's and wiped out the insides. Never found any rust in there.

Duke

Hot water? Sounds dangerous! :kidding:
I just clean w/ moose milk and lube with Wonder lube. Kinda lke the shine moose milk leaves on everything.

I clean my black powder cartridge revolvers with Friendship Speed Juice (home mix) - barrel, cylinder,and scrub visible build up in cylinder window and around barrel. I dry it then clean again with Ed's Red. It takes maybe ten minutes. I do this at the range right after shooting. My guns look like new after hundreds, if not thousands, of black powder rounds.

It's always a good idea to run a wet patch (with Ed's Red) through the cylinder and barrel a couple or three days later.

I am not a fan of getting water inside of my revolver action.

FWIW
Dale53

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Originally Posted by TXGunNut

Hot water? Sounds dangerous! :kidding:
I just clean w/ moose milk and lube with Wonder lube. Kinda lke the shine moose milk leaves on everything.

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Have read that in the old days in the West, folks sitting round the campfire would take apart their pistols and throw them in a pot of hot water with lye soap, and then reassemble without regards to serial numbers matching the gun. I skip the lye soap, campfire, and having only one Colt SAA 45, matching the numbers is not a problem. The SAA is a gun, along with Sharps and '85's, that should be fired with the powder available at the time the gun was made.........

The SAA is a gun, along with Sharps and '85's, that should be fired with the powder available at the time the gun was made......... '74 Sharps



Amen to that! I think the smokeless hunting loads for my RBH are gonna last a long time, BP loads don't last more than a month or two. Funny thing is the BP loads are hotter than my usual SP hunting load.

I bought a Hornady ultrasonic cleaner a couple of months back and have been using it to clean my BP cases and handguns. A little detergent in the water and six or seven minutes later the things are clean. It has made life easier, not that cleaning was that onerous before, it just makes it a bit less laborious.

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...that black powder fouling must be some caustic stuff!

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Duke - Contrary ... a neutral pH value is 7.0. Black powder foul comprises primarily of sodium bicarbonate that has a pH value of 8.4. There's also a minor amount of sodium sulfide in the foul. The highest caustic value in the pH range is pH 14. So BP foul is nearly a neutral pH value compound

Good point John, I was being sarcastic or perhaps sarcaustic.

Duke

Since the subject of cases came up. Early in my shooting experience (many, MANY years ago) I left some .38 cases sit after shooting with black powder. They were ruined. The fouling drew moisture to the case and corroded them beyond redemption.

After that, I would take a gallon milk jug about 3/4 full of water with a couple of squirts of Dawn Dishwashing liquid to the range with me. After shooting black powder cartridges I would decap them and drop them in the jug. By the time I got home, most of the work was done.

Shake the jug several times, then take the lid off and rinse them several times with hot water. I then empty the jug into a collendar and shake the excess water from them and while still damp dump them in my Dillon vibratory tumbler. They come out as good as new (I use a bit of Dillon tumbler polish).

Dale53

My experance with Blackpowder is spot on with what John said. Blackpowder's only issue to
me is the fouling draws and holds moisture. Not much of a real problem. I think a
worse problem was the corosive primers from not all that long ago. Current primers and
Blackpowder to me seem to be less of a problem than smokless/copper and Hoppy's #9.
If you don't get all the copper and all the#9 out of your bore in a very short time you will
have a green chea-pet in your bore, and yes that seems to be a more common problem.
I use moose milk at the range for a qiuck mop up, then another going over at home. I then use balistol drop's into the action with the grip's off, hit it with a air compressor. If it comes out black I do it 1 or 2 more times till clear. If it is not clean then I remove the trigger guard and
have never had to do it then more than once. Oh, this revolver is a stainless interarms
Virginian Dragoon 7 1/2" 44mag. It is so much fun to shoot with blackpowder that I don't
remember the last time I shot it smokeless. I quit keeping track at 9000rds of blackpowder
and 4 deer. 2 standard mag loads and 2 blackpowder loads. 45 to 90yds the deer or I could not tell much difference, only recoil. all were pass thru's. It was raining in 3 of those hunts and I
cleaned after getting back to camp, no issues. Just discolored brass. I do the same as the other guy's with the brass and jug, just not on the hunt. None of my other gun's are stainless but I have not seen any difference treating them the same way.
Point being they don't have to be classic blackpowder cartrages to use blackpowder and the deer did'nt fallover dead quicker because they herd you were useing smokeless mag loads.
And not clean more just a little different.

Have Fun,
RICK

I shoot 2-3 Blackpowder Cowboy shoots a month. I just use some warm water with a bit of Murphy's oil soap dumped in there and clean the whole gun with that. When I get done I oil everything with Break-free, and grease the pivot pin and cylinder ends. I haven't had any rust on my guns in 6 years so I know it works, and it smells better than Ballistol and is easier to find. I have been known to shoot a match, put the guns away for 2 weeks and shoot another match before cleaning. BP isn't nearly as corrosive as some would have you think. I believe some of these stories about "years ago I shot with Bp and it ruined my gun" are guys who were actually using Pyrodex.