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Well, first off, there are probably just about as many different choices and blends of liquids out there to remove BP fouling as you can shake a stick at. Most do contain water. Some also contain vinegar and that works well also. The stuff I use, you cant get any more so I will not mention it but it is 80% water. After shooting I clean the bore with the solvent, wipe the muzzle to remove soot and grease and then use a good quality water displacement oil. There are many on the market. You also want to make sure that you remove any leading that may be in the bore as well. Lead away patches seem to work pretty well for doing that for me. Once you find a solvent you like, its a simple matter of a few wet patches and then one or 2 dry ones and a good oily patch through the bore, wipe the outside and thats pretty much it. I have found that I enjoy cleaning my BP rifles a lot more than I do my smokeless rifles. To me, they just clean easier and faster, no hard carbon or jacket material to deal with, no nasty solvents, just a few wets, couple of drys and some oil and your done. Cleaning the brass is more involved, rinse your deprimed cases, most wet tumble them with either pins or ceramic to remove the residue, dry and then tumble again to shine them up. You are going to cuss at that '74 till you find the bullet, lube and charge it really likes and then your gonna love it for ever. A kind of rule of thumb to start loading black is, primer, powder to a height just slightly higher than the base of the seated bullet, a little compression, a wad, a wad of waxed paper (to keep your wad from sticking to the base of the bullet) and your bullet. Shoot that load and then change only one thing at a time till you hit that magic load. Sam
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