Interesting...But I faithfully clean my guns after a day of shooting.

Oh no, I never said it wasn't good practice, because it is, but back then, It was absolutely mandatory.

My flinter friend and I have both let the black powder residue sit in barrels for a long period of time, in my case for over a year, as an experiement. After a few months it turns light grey. Neither he nor I had any rust or pitting of the bores. We both live in the same relatively dry climate but still an interesting outcome. We have an average of 21" of rain a year and are at 3700 feet of elevation.

I experimented on a cheap pre-war steel barrel Belgian gun, he on a reproduction flintlock.

Best,


Mike

Back in the day, flintlock muskets were converted to percussion (by US arsenals) by plugging the tough hole & drilling/tapping the top-rear of the barrel for a nipple. Later on, people began to "re-convert" these guns back to flintlock. However, one thing that they had to do to make it convincing was to file away all of the horrible cratering (not pitting, but CRATERING) caused by persussion cap reside on the surface of the barrel (around the nipple). Such deep cratering is never seen on guns that are in original flint condition. Although Mike got way with a year without cleaning, in more humid climates, I'm sure some rust will result - but the gist of his point is still valid - no doubt in my mind.

Damn - I meant to type "touch hole" - not tough hole ! (Freudian slip ????)

So again, my point was to agree that primers caused more problems than powders...

I can believe it. Potassium is extremely aggressive and basic in nature.

This is a video showing what happens when you load a muzzle-loading rifle with DENSE nitro powder using a BULK powder measure. It also shows the effects of a barrel obstruction. I expect similiar results if you load any dense nitro powder using BP or bulk powder measure regardless of whether the gun has composite or fluid steel barrels.

120gr of HS-6 creates a pipe bomb.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmsBF6CXs18

Holy cats! 120 garins of HS-6 would blow a cannon apart! But boy I'll tell you, a picture or a video is worth 1,000 words!

Wonder how many grains they loaded in this one? !!:shock::shock:

Ummm, 120 grains of HS-6?