Hello all, I am not new to shooting but am new to BP cartridge rifles. I have a Browning 1885 BPCR that I need to start using to shoot silhouette and need some pointers about the pitfalls of keeping my rifle from suffering from the corrosive effects. I have read all of Matthews books, scoured this site, and asked a lot of questions of other shooters. I think I have a pretty good handle on developing loads, but any helpful instruction is always appreciated. I am not put off by the labor intensity of black powder shooting but I prefer to err on the side of caution. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Jim McGuinness

Are you planning on wiping or using a blow tube?
Barrels are pretty easy to clean the fouling out of them.  Lots of cleaners out there.  Oiling the bore with a good oil is a must to keep rust away.  I use Ed's Red, its cheap to make and works for me.

Cheers,
Steve

To clean a BPTR is easier than a modern rifle, or muzzleloader. You have 3 things in the barrel, black powder, lube, and maybe lead. BP is water soluble. I first use hot water and Dawn dish cleaner and a spoon full of baking soda. Three to five patches and the BP is pushed out the bore. Windex with vinegar also works great. Dry it. For lube and lead, I then use Hoppies. Hoppies was designed for corrosive primers, and lead. It works as good now as it worked 100 years ago.Use a tight patch. Dry your bore, then WD-40, let dry, and lightly oil. Good luck and good shooting.

Whatever method one uses to clean a BPCR, consider there was a reason U.S. Army regs called for cleaning each of THREE DAYS after firing.

I use a mixture of soluable oil and water used in machining operations as a coolant. There are many brands and I use a 5% mixture. I clean at the range after a day's shooting with two wet patches, one dry patch and one oily patch. I use CLP for the oily patch. I then go over the rifle after I get home to make sure all is well. Corrosion is not the problem you have been told it is with proper cleaning.

Cleaning the brass is also important. I use a Thumbler's tumbler like may others have said. I use a mix of steel pins and ceramic media and run for about an hour or more if needed. Jump right in and get shooting.

Thanks to all so far. Rifle is 45-70, I am torn between blow tube or wiping after each shot, I have a bottle of Hoppe's BP solvent and use Kroil on other things, is it worth while to put my spent cases into a jug with antifreeze or something else at the range? I suppose I am lucky on one hand that the range I go to is high desert, low humidity conditions so the residue doesn't attract moisture immediately, but probably on the other hand it works against me by drying the fouling faster, or am I mistaken? Jim

The keep it simple water and then oil guys have it right.  The rest is mumbo-jumbo left over from conditions 120 years ago.  

If you use blackpowder, there is no corrosiveness, and very little potential for rust.  One cleaning is all it takes, and all that is needed is water.  It's best to do it as soon as possible after you finish shooting, but if you're in a dry climate, a few hours or overnight likely won't matter.

My personal way of doing this is I use my blow tube to blow a mouth full of water through the barrel, followed by a cotton patch.  A single water rinse and one patch is generally all it takes to get the barrel clean.  If it still has any apparent fouling, repeat the water and patch.  

Then, push a dry patch through to remove the last of any lingering water.  

I then look at the barrel against the sky and see if there's lead in the grooves.  if there is, I push a tight patch through saturated with real turpentine.  That will generally strip the lead out in one or two passes; if you have a leaded spot, mop it back and forward in that area a few times.  Once the lead is out, run a clean dry patch through to remove the turpentine residue.  Kroil works almost as well as turpentine, and other cleaners like Hoppes work to some extent also.  Use whatever one you like.

The final step is to oil or grease the bore to protect the newly cleaned steel from rusting.  I use my bullet lube, on a patch.  Oil can be used instead if you prefer, but I try to keep my barrel as close to in use seasoned condition as I can for consistency, thus the bullet lube.

The mumbo jumbo about cleaning repeatedly for days, using solvents, etc comes not from blackpowder, but from the mercuric salt primers used in the late 1800's up into the 1920's or 30's.  Modern primers don't do that.

This is all presuming real blackpowder.  if you use Pyrodex, it has horrible residual salts that cause rusting; and it's real hard to get out of the barrel.  Repeated cleanings are necessary to remove that, and sometimes the barrel will still rust anyway. 

Make it as easy or as complicated as you like.  As long as you do the simple water and then clean patch, anything after that is unlikely to hurt.  Clean it several days in a row, use magic elixirs, protect with the snake oil de jour; it will all work.  Just make sure you do the basics, before the magic.