Bore Butter and seasoning a barrel

[Tasmanian Rebel]

I have had an interesting thing pop up recently with my 2 Shiloh's. Shiloh #1(Ms Sidra) was my first BPCR and I started using TC Bore Butter with this rifle. Cleaning process after shooting would be to run a dry patch to look at nature of fouling followed by wet patches until clean, dry patches, then bore coated with a Bore Butter until the next firing session. After roughly 2000 rds using this proceedure I read somewhere where some folks were possibly having some corrosion issues with B. Butter so I stopped using this stuff and cleaned and store with Kroil. I have now shot about 4000 rds through this gun which cleans up well and is superbly accurate. I purchased Shiloh # 2 to use for a backup gun and from day 1 have used only Kroil or ballistol in the bore after cleaning to keep the corrosion away. I have noticed an interesting thing with gun #2. After the first wet patch the following patch had a bit of rust on it. This rust is apparently forming within seconds after the first wet patch. The rust is gone after the first dry patch and doesn't come back until the next shooting session and the wet patch goes back down the bore.I initially thought this was due to a bit of vinegar I was using in my water on the patch but this occurs with even plain water. I'm beginning to think there may be really something to the claim by the Thompson Center folks about seasoning a bore with Bore Butter (If this is indeed why I'm having the rust deal). I have put about 700 rds through gun #2 and the problem persists and is not seen with Ms Sidra gun using the same water combo to clean the bore. Has anybody else out there had a similar observation? I'm thinking about trying the B. Butter on gun #2.

[Ray Newman]

Taz: for several years, I've been utilizing TC "Bore Butter" in the bores of my rifles w/ no ill effects. I live in the 'wet' Pacific No. West & my safe is in an unheated garage. However, I do have a Golden Rod heater in the safe, which really doesn't seem to do much good @ all under these circumstances. Some of the rifles have been stored w/o firing for awhile.

[Stan Koslow]

There is somthing there. Used it for many, many years and will not change. Here is the important fact. You can have a 'seasoned' barrel, one that will spit a pound of fouling right out the front. Use petro cleaner of any kind and your seasoning is gone, I mean gone. Start all over again. I use the old time classic 1/3 mix, won't hurt your seasoning. Hydrogen peroxide, rubbing alcohol and sweet Murphy wood soap. Ammonia can be lethal as well if trace elements are left in the barrel ( some window cleaners)Why do you want to ruin your seasoning efforts. Now that doesn't make a lot of sense! I think of BP like those who buy 'organic' food. New fangled man made petro is not needed. If you can't eat it or put it in your mouth , don't expect your gun to eat it either. Animal and vegitable you won't go wrong. Don't mean to stand unbending here but I am not bending.

[Josh A.]

I quit using bore butter a couple of years ago after having a guy show me what had happened to his rifle barrel. It seems he did his normal cleaning procedure and then stored it with bore butter. After a while there was a light frosting of corrosion under the bore butter. I don't know what particular circumstances set it up, but I don't want to have to think about it.

The Friendship speed juice thing, with peroxide, is not really my deal either. Peroxide is a pretty stout oxidizer, isn't it?

As far as petroleum products, it is not that big a deal. Anything that burns down to that asphaltum looking residue can cause a problem, but there are lots of rust preventatives that don't. Even if you use a petroleum oil, just clean it out before you shoot it.

Speaking of the seasoning deal, I have been trying to get one of the smart chemical guys to find out what happened to some of my cases. Years ago I was using a homemade lube. After firing the cases the inside of the case mouth looked like a bumble bee. Alternating rings of the normal black and rings of bright pretty brass where the lube groove was. Now after having fired some of those cases 30 times, the clean rings are still visible. Even though I switched lubes. I never had it happen with any other lube. Something in that lube reacted to or protected the brass from all these subsequent firings.

I'd be interested in knowing what happened.

Josh

[Lee Stone]

My gosh Josh. You just may have discovered the perfect corrosion preventative and now can't find it.

[TYRVR]

While I do not use T/C bore butter, I do keep a tin of patches that have been saturated with my bullet lube to use in the barrel before firing the first shot, I find in my rifle the clean bore shoots high, by running that patch with lube down first, this does not happen, 1st shot goes to point of aim.

Ol'Tye,

[Frank]

Hi Lee,
I have a Lyman Great Plains Rifle 50 cal, Shiloh Sharps, Browning BPCR, Browning Traditional Hunter, Renington Rolling Block, Springfield Trapdoor and several pistols that I have never used anything but black powder in over the last 15 years. NONE of these rifles or pistols has ever had a drop of oil in the barrels. The receivers are cleaned and oiled but the barrels have always been cleaned with a water solution of different kinds and Shiloh Creek Cleaners, then Bore Butter. In 15 years I have never had a problem with any of the barrels. I even ran this method by Kirk when this post first started and he agreed this was ok and to stick with it.
Frank Costa

[Stan Koslow]

Hey Josh,

Maybe I can turn a favor to you. Don't up the laundry bill for those guys with the white lab coats, not yet. You want to try somthing else that will slide lead down your barrel like a hot knife through butter? Remember that sweet little thing in your senior year of high school? I think her name was 'Pam'. Need I say more.

Ive spent my time at Friendship and I will tell you there is probably no place on this earth where there is more knowledge both old and new about BP. I learned this trick while on a 4 day drive there and wasn't sure if I needed to 'cut' my lube to make it last for the 5 days of shooting. There is an old timers saying about shooters, Beware of the man who holds through the fire.

If you ever test a lube, try this simple trick. Place it on a spoon and put some hot fire to it. Is there a residue? Does it come off easily? Does it still hold its property? Does it bond itself. Some may wish to wear a fancy white coat while doing this but there is really no need to.

Want to test the properties of petro. Take that seasoned cast iron skillet, the one that those eggs sunny side up just slides off and lands on the floor. Clean it reeeeeal good with your favorite petro solvents. Now cook another batch of eggs on it and see if they slide off as easy. If you think that petro will be totaly gone from the skillet, you won't have any issue with putting it back in the cubboard and sitting down eating those eggs. Or will you?

Well gentlemen I am now lonely. No more cards to hold.

[Kenny Wasserburger]

Tas,

I used to use bore butter also. Do not anymore. But do not worry that rust looking stuff you see is not rust its BORE BUTTER coming off the barrel surface. After a while once you get all that seasoning out of the barrel them rusty looking patches will go away.

I use Kroil now and not a thing else. I just put one or two dry patches down the barrel and then Dress the bore with some bullet lube before firing my match.


For cleaning good old water works well, I have in the recent past tried Butch's BP Bore cleaner. It works quite well and has MP-7 in it a well known cleaning agent that some CA Shooters have used with good effect. This stuff works well.

The other that I have tried that seems to work well is Windex with vinegar in it .

Kenny Wasserburger

[LJBass]

Gentlemen,
You are running over a subject that was pretty extensively aired on the old Shooters.com board. The Mad Monk had nothing at all good to say about bore butter. Something to the tune of it being a little like chapstick (petroleum jelly). I used it for about six months as a pre-lubing agent in the bore of a 45-70 I was shooting at the time in an attempt to season it. Bad idea! The bore looked clean, but if you ran a patch within an inch or two of the muzzle and shined a light down it you'd see these black streaks staining the lands and grooves. I was told that those streaks were tar (as in paving type) and in order to remove them it would take a toluene based cleaner like Goof Off. Sure enough, that stuff worked, after a great deal of scrubbing and patching I had a clean rifle again and got back the accuracy that had been slowly degrading during my use of bore butter. I would recommend that those of you who have been using bore butter on a regular basis take a real close look inside your barrels, especially if you have been shooting over it.
Regards, LJ

[Timberlake]

LJBass,

I had an experience much like yours after using a lube that contained small amounts of Petroleum products. Took a good deal of scrubbing to clean it up. As far as "seasoning" of a bore, IMO nothing more than snake oil! A good bore/bullet lube is also very good for a chapped asshole. Just my thoughts on the matter.

JTL

[5090]

For what it’s worth…

I live in NE Washington State. I store my BPCR’s in a gun safe in my basement. After each shooting season I clean with Windex with vinegar and water solution. I then put them rifles away dry. I have done this for years with no problems. Best of all, the vast majority of the time the first shot in each rifle at the next shooting session is in the group. Works for me.

5090

[Josh A.]

I doubt I have discovered the perfect corrosion preventative, but I would be interested in knowing what happened. The lube was bees wax, olive oil and Murphy's oil soap. Not a great lube, most of the commercial lubes work better. Regardless, some interaction did take place.

The frying pan is a sloppy analogy. The pan is cast iron and subjected to prolonged contact with animal fat at low temperatures compared to rifle powder burn temps and time. While there may be some similarities I don't particularly want the bore of my expensive rifle to have the black flaky texture of a cast iron frying pan. I doubt we will be able to find one master class shooter that has a black, dull barrel interior.

It strikes me that a muzzleloader, especially a roundball rifle is much more tolerant of a bit of barrel roughness than a rifle that is trying to put an inch and a quarter long piece of bare lead through the barrel without tearing off shreds. Matter of fact, I have heard numerous stories of roundballers "shooting slick" suggesting that the rifling doesn't have enough "bite" to it to hold the patched ball. I dunno.

I am of the opinion that a barrel that is spotlessly clean, smooth and straight is the best. It seems to me that a bit of pre-lubing may help before shooting, but as long as the bore is not damaged between shooting sessions the method may be irrelevant. Rust bad, no matter what snake oil you are using.

I am sure there is a great deal of knowledge at Friendship and elsewhere, but I am not sure knowledge in the muzzleloader arena holds up in translation to BPCR.

Take care,

Josh

[Jay Glenn]

All good and important issues when it comes to our rifle bores. I have been using pure neats foot oil that Paul Mathews recomends and works excellent as a rust prevenative. Take a look at his books. Good stuff

[Trigger Dr]

Just a thought....
The old timers did not have the benefit of our "new technology" and for the most part did well, as evidenced by the number of original rifles with bores going from adequyet to very fine. Given the life span of these rifles, this would seem to me that the methods they used were the best. Now with our modern methods, what will our rifles look like in 125 years?

A thought on hydrogen peroxide use. This is not to suggest that this will result in an explosion, or be the best mnethod of removing copper fouling. Just a scientific fact.
When hydrogen peroxide comes in contact with brass or copper, heat is generated and pressure is generated if in a confined space.

This is was the root cause of the explosion and sinking of the Russian Sub Kursk. They used hydrogen peroxide fueled torpedoes and there was a leak....BANG

Trigger dr