# Seasoning you bore



## FrontierGander (Dec 6, 2010)

Found this on another forum:
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Why We Don't Season Barrels Anymore

by

Paul H. Vallandigham
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Periodically, some new shooter comes on the forum claiming that he needs to "SEASON" his barrel.

Today's modern barrels are made of STEEL, an alloy of iron and other metals, which produces a much harder metal. Muzzleloading barrels are made either of a soft alloy with lead in it to make it easy on the cutters (12L14), or harder steels, like 440 alloy steel, which withstands high pressures, but is harder on tool bits. They are not made of the iron that was used in the 18th century.

We don't season Steel, because its next to impossible to do (those pores in steel are filled with trace elements, so there is no room to allow oils or other substances to be burned into the pores), and its Not necessary for good accuracy, or to prevent rust. Simply running an oiled, or greased cleaning patch down the barrel AFTER seating a PRB on the powder charge, will protect the front portion of the bore from rusting.

Today, the most common IRON product to be found in a home is the Frying pan, or "Skillet" used to cook. Even those are becoming more rare- often only seen in camping equipment, rather than used in the home kitchen. Skillets are made of CAST IRON, which, unlike Wrought iron, have large PORES in the surface.

We SEASON cast iron skillets (but not steel, aluminum, or Teflon coated skillets) to fill the pores of the steel to prevent rusting (RUST adds a terrible taste to food), and to make a very smooth slick surface to use to cook certain foods, like Eggs.

To Season a Frying pan, or skillet, you first rub the surfaces of the skillet with shortening, or lard, or fat. Coat it liberally, so that you don't miss a spot. The place the greased skillet in an oven heated to 500 degrees!

Leave the skillet in the oven at that high temperature for at least an hour. Then turn off the oven. When the oven and the skillet cool to room temperature, inspect the skillet. If there are spots of plain steel showing, or if the entire surface of the skillet is Not Black and Smooth, and slick to the touch, repeat the process, until it becomes that smooth, black Greasy feeling surface (a dry grease- not gooey). With a properly seasoned frying pan/skillet, you can fry eggs on them, and the eggs won't stick to the pan.

In the 18th century, when barrels were forged from soft iron, the barrels were seasoned, often by the gunmaker. He would coat the rifling with a thick layer of fat, then heat the barrel up in his forge, and burn out the fat. What was left in the open pores of the iron bore was the "Seasoning", that prevented rusting inside the barrel.

I am sure that somewhere, in this country, someone is forging IRON barrels. The Possibility exists then, that a shooter could run into a modern made gun, made with a true Iron barrel. I can't imagine the cost of such a gun, considering the labor involved in making such a barrel using the old forging methods, and I would not fire such a gun, since there are cheaper, safer barreled guns available for shooting and hunting.

With Steel Barrels, any attempt at "seasoning" the barrel will only result in frustration, and in a clogged bore, that eventually looks like a smoothbore. The Grooves of the rifling fill up with charred residue, to the point that there appear to be NO more grooves.

This very thing has been observed these past 30 years, in Thompson/Center rifles, because that company's early loading manual spoke about just adding more "Wonderlube" to the barrel if a ball or bullet began to stick in the barrel because the barrel was not cleaned, or swabbed between shots. A lot of people, including members of this forum have made (and probably will continue to make) a lot of money buying up OLD T/C rifles, with the barrels "Shot out", for bottom prices. (The current T/C manual no longer carries that advice, I am told).

The gun barrels are taken out of the stocks, given a good soak for several days with soap and water, then scrubbed well with a bore brush to remove all the crud accumulated in the grooves of those barrels. It comes out in CHUNKS! Typically, when the barrels are CLEANED, they look as good as new, and shoot PRBs just fine. The guns are then sold for a nice profit.

[Plunge a piece of soft wire coat hanger, heated red hot, into a container of oil - any oil. The wire will come out with a smooth, Shiny Black coat on the surface, that is quite durable. It's the closest you can come with modern metals to see what a seasoned barrel WOULD look like].

Years ago, now, I offered to try to help a small local gunsmith, who had just opened up a New shop, get more business into his store, by getting the members of my local gun club to come out, on an Advertised Saturday, to offer to inspect and CLEAN and oil the guns of hunters intending to hunt in the up-coming seasons, for a nominal charge. He looked at me IN HORROR! He told me that if people actually cleaned, inspected, and oiled their guns, he would be OUT of BUSINESS!

He told me that a substantial part of his pre-hunting season business profit came from customers who brought their guns to him to be cleaned and oiled for the next season, having done nothing to them since the last one!

I was raised by a father who Insisted that our guns be cleaned as soon as we got home, and before we did anything else. He inspected our work, initially, and was as hard as any drill sergeant ever heard in Boot Camp.

I can't even imagine taking a dirty gun to a gunsmith, unless it was jammed, and I could not get the gun apart to clean it first. (That's not going to happen with any MLer I have). I would be embarrassed to take a dirty gun to my gunsmith. I obviously was raised in a different world.

If I had to give a truly SHORT answer to WHY we don't Season MLing barrels, It would be, that "we clean our steel barrels, so seasoning is never necessary (nor possible)". Cleanliness is next to Godliness, so goes the old Proverb. The context was different, but the wisdom is still sound.


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## 7Mag Hunter (Dec 6, 2010)

While technically BB may not "season" a steel barrel in the
same fashion grease "seasons" a cast Iron skillet, it does a
good job of reducing bore fouling and waterproofing the outside
of my Hawkens....Get the barrel hot (after cleaning) with a
hair dryer, and smooth on a light coat of BB on the outside
of your barrel...Wipe off excess.....Now put some water on
the barrel and see how it beads off...BB contains Beeswax,
and when applied hot, it adds a layer of protection I prefer
over oil based products..


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## FrontierGander (Dec 6, 2010)

it does nothing to reduce fouling. Ive done testing with it before and the fouling got harder to the point where i was unable to reload.

Its good to rub into an oil finished stock though! I use it on my kentuckys stock, let it sit over night and then buff it the next morning.


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## Bernard goldsmith (Dec 6, 2010)

I'll have to go with Gander on his explanation on seasoning a barrel. I do use bb on my patches, helps loading the balls.


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## FrontierGander (Dec 7, 2010)

BB is good for a patch lube with round balls. I like to use a bit of it along with hoppes black powder solvent and patch lube. For conicals though its much to thin and messy.


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## flyfisher76544 (Dec 7, 2010)

FrontierGander said:


> it does nothing to reduce fouling. Ive done testing with it before and the fouling got harder to the point where i was unable to reload.
> 
> Its good to rub into an oil finished stock though! I use it on my kentuckys stock, let it sit over night and then buff it the next morning.



You ever try Stumpy's Moose snot mix?


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## Marlin_444 (Dec 7, 2010)

flyfisher76544 said:


> You ever try Stumpy's Moose snot mix?



Sounds good...  Have not tried it to date...

See you in teh woods...

Ron


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## LanceColeman (Dec 8, 2010)

Don't mean to sound rude or anything like that. But I believe many of todays smokers would be in alot better shape if folks would STOP believeing the advertising behind bore butter and wonder lube.

Like FG said it's pretty much next to impossible to season a steel barrel. Even harder than that with a stainless or molly coated one.

However..... if you insist. and you believe.. and you think of it like a cast iron skillet... allow me to ask you a question...Exactly WHAT do you use to season a cast iron skillet?? Cooking oil??Bore butter?? grease?? wonder lube?? Lard?? See where I'm headin??

Once of the best lubes I have found for patches in my trad smokers?? STRAIGHT lard. lotsa folks mix it with stuff, lotsa folks put some bees wax in there to stiffen it up. Me?? I like it straight.

I have tried every marketed, hyped up and advertised off the shelf cleaner there is out there. And payed alot of money for them as well. My favorite cleaner?? P.A.M. mixed 33.3-33.3-33.3 thats isopropyl alcahol, hydrogen peroxide, and murphy's oil soap. and it will wind up costing like an eigth of what them store bought ones do.

Deer tallow and bear grease are awesome and hard to beat as  barrel preserves and lubes. But unless ya plan on makin yer own?? They aint cheap either. That same cleaner up there?? the P.A.M. it also makes a fine patch lube.

The other best cleaning agent. see how expensive this one is.. HOT-SOAPY - WATER. I splurge a lil bit here and use either DAWN dish washing detergent or some flakes of ivory soap shaved off the bar.

So what do you put down yer barrel during the off season?? what is a good protectant and preservative?? Best thing I've found is REM-OIL which BTW is also a good lil lube as well.

I mean use whatcha want... buy whatcha want... There's 4 traditional smoke poles in my house and 3 inlines..... and all bore butter ever done for me was leave a cruddy brown residue in my barrels...

And that aint a nice seasoned film. Thats a buncha brown crud and gunk that has to be swabbed back out.


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## Whiteeagle (Dec 8, 2010)

X2 on what LanceColeman said! Only exception to lard is that I mix mine with 1/3 pure bees wax to keep it from getting too thin in hot weather.


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## killitgrillit (Dec 8, 2010)

I use 1lb. of beeswax mixed with 64oz. of olive oil for patch lube, hot soapy water to clean and rem-oil for protectant.


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## johnweaver (Dec 9, 2010)

How do you collect that Moose Snot?


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## FrontierGander (Dec 9, 2010)

its pretty dangerous really.  There are these crazy dudes than actually run the woods in loin cloths and use glass jars to collect the snot from rutting bull moose. From what ive heard, one guy distracts the moose by grabbing its back legs and the other then uses the jar, slips it over the moose's nose and over time, the bull starts grunting and such, the snot starts to flow and slowly fills up the jar.  Its very expensive as well due to the danger in obtaining the stuff.


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## LanceColeman (Dec 9, 2010)

killitgrillit said:


> I use 1lb. of beeswax mixed with 64oz. of olive oil for patch lube, hot soapy water to clean and rem-oil for protectant.



And that my friend sounds like ya smoker is kept in fine shootin condition as well. One of my huntin partners likes the olive oil recipe as well.


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## TGUN (Dec 12, 2010)

I agree with Lance that bore butter is pasty junk and that you cannot season newer barrel metals, BUT I do think something magically good happens when you stop using hot soapy water. I think you can strip all the oils out and make it hard to keep them from rusting. I do not put ANY HOT SOAPY water in my muzzleloaders and have not for 20 years. Since I stopped doing that, I have had no rusting issues AND my fowling has gone down considerably. (Although I do not shoot inlines so cannot speak for them). 
I think this is as close to seasoning as you can get. I reference wonder lube but I guess a home mix of NON-SALTED lard or tallow or thick bear grease or something similar would work. I get a big jar of wonder lube and it last me years
A home mixed cleaning solution: 15% water soluble machinist oil, 80% water, 5% Murphy’s oil soap and a few drops of dawn. I use it between shots and final cleaning. After shooting, i put a rag in my pan and close the frizzen so excess moisture does not run out and get between my stock and barrel. I run wet and dry patches until they come out clean. I will bunch up some wet and dry patches on a cleaning screw and scrub the breach with patching. I do not brush or scrape the inside on my barrel with anything but patches. After they come out clean, I will run 3 or 4 patches coated with wonder lube, the last being heavenly coated. I do the same to the outside parts. That is it. If I shot allot, I will go back in a few days or a week and wipe out the wonder lube with dry patches (that pulls out a little more junk) and recoat. The first few times you clean this way, go back 2-3 times over the next few weeks and re-wipe and recoat with wonder lube. After a while, you will see the difference and  you will not have to go back, and re-wipe unless you have shot allot. Also, I use butchers bowling alley wax on all my stocks. 
I have sent my Flintlock back to the builder a few times over the last 10 years and he even pulled the breach plug once. He said the barrel was clean and no rust or damage was present.  
Again, something magical happens when you stop scrubbing with hot soapy water.


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