Cleaning help

I just bought a muzzleloader on a Black Friday sale. I've been trying to get everything figured out since I know nothing about them. I ended up with pyrodex powder and powerball bullets after trying a few others. I need to stay Colorado legal. It is shooting pretty good but maybe not as good as I hoped. I can get 5" groups at 100 right now. The problem I'm having is with getting it clean. At the range I run a wet patch then a dry patch through it between shots. Then at home I'm using hot water then rem oil to clean it. Here are the problems I'm having:

1. The thread pattern my cleaning rod is different from all the cleaning tools I bought. I guess I'm going to have to buy a different rod for the ml instead of using one rod for all my guns. If there is a decent cleaning kit for a .50 cal I wouldn't mind knowing about that.

2. What products are you using to clean pyrodex? It seems like it takes a ton of patches and scrubbing with what I'm using now. With my rifles I like to clean until a patch comes through totally clean but it seems almost impossible with the ml.

3. How do you store your ml if you will not be shooting for a while? Lots of oil? I had a little surface rust around the crown after sitting up for a month. My plan now is to store it wet and just run a dry patch through before I want to shoot. Does this seem ok?

Any advice would be great because this is getting frustrating. If it's just a fact of life that I need to spend an hour cleaning it every time I shoot it then I will deal with it.

First advice, dump that powder. Blackhorn 209 is legal in CO and way way better.

To clean the pyrodex out jus pour hot water down it and then patch it dry. If you oil it you'll need to clean out the oil prior to shooting. I do run a little oil in mine when it won't be shot often and I clean it only after each shooting cycle unless I'm hunting then I only clean it after season.

All that said Blackhorn 209 will solve all your cleaning issues, you can easily shoot 50 shots without running a patch in between shots. The big diff when cleaning Blackhorn is you have to use a rifle bore cleaner, not water.

I hunt CO and I use BH209, no excuses lead conicals and Thor copper conicals. Really in CO there are only two things that limit you, no scope and no sabots but unlike ID, OR and WA you can use the most efficient powder and ignition system.

dotman said:

First advice, dump that powder. Blackhorn 209 is legal in CO and way way better.

To clean the pyrodex out jus pour hot water down it and then patch it dry. If you oil it you'll need to clean out the oil prior to shooting. I do run a little oil in mine when it won't be shot often and I clean it only after each shooting cycle unless I'm hunting then I only clean it after season.

All that said Blackhorn 209 will solve all your cleaning issues, you can easily shoot 50 shots without running a patch in between shots. The big diff when cleaning Blackhorn is you have to use a rifle bore cleaner, not water.

I hunt CO and I use BH209, no excuses lead conicals and Thor copper conicals. Really in CO there are only two things that limit you, no scope and no sabots but unlike ID, OR and WA you can use the most efficient powder and ignition system.

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Exactly! Bh209 will change your world.

Pyrodex is a mess no matter what you try to clean it with. I'm with the other two, ditch it and go to Blackhorn.

Use your ramrod plus a T handle as a cleaning rod. Windex is a great cleaner for Pyrodex - Just soak the patches in it, run a couple wet ones and a couple dry ones and you should be good to go. Hoppe's #9 Plus or Blackhorn solvent are good for Blackhorn if you go that route. Store oiled - T/C bore butter or bore seasoning patches worked for me but there are others. Make sure you get the breech clean inside and out including the flash hole or you'll get corrosion.

What has been said plus be sure to relube your breech plug well after you clean it.

I'm assuming you mean Powerbelt bullets; these work great in T/C rifles as their threads were designed for use with sabots which are not CO legal. A word of caution however: don't put much more than 100gr of powder behind them as I believe they will start to deform and without a scope you don't need it. I haven't used Pyrodex in a long time, but I use 777 and T/C's T7 solvent works wonders. I will be trying BH209 eventually, but I have another pound or so of 777 left to work through and it works great in my experience so I'm going to need to see some empirical evidence to make me want to switch. Most rifles will come with the threaded patch tip for the ram rod in the box, so I would double check to see if you have that.

Ok thanks guys. I will probably try to finish off the pyrodex and then switch powders. I did mean powerbelt bullets but my dang phone thinks it knows what I want it to say. I went with the heaviest ones I could find (348gr I think). Unfortunately my ramrod is only threaded on one side and the thread pattern only matches the T handle that came with the rifle. I went ahead and ordered a cleaning rod so hopefully I will be able to really scrub the bore with that. I may try the windex thing too.

Depending on if you have a full-barrel breach plug, I also carry a bore snake for field cleaning. It works quite well and gets it 90% of the way dry. I think I have a 12ga because I bought it before they made a .50 cal version. Be careful not to do this if you don't have a full-barrel breach though as it will get stuck.