Wondering what i need for cleaning and shooting a .50 caliber Renegade Hunter?

[mongrel]

I am going to offer a bit of advice as both a Hunter's Safety Instructor and as a cynic who has witnessed and been party to a number of mishaps that could have turned tragic, due to carelessness. I just thank God that none did. It might seem to go contrary to the purpose of this forum (discussion) and might seem to be intended to rain on a newbie's parade, but it's said out of a concern for safety. In that spirit I don't particularly care who likes it -- or not.

This rifle you've purchased and have been doing your level best to learn all about, before using it, is a deadly weapon. There is a very old and wise saying as to how familiarity breeds contempt. "Complacency" can be just as dangerous as contempt, when it comes to guns and a number of other things, because it leads to carelessness.

There are now 13 pages of discussion in regard to the care and feeding of your rifle. God knows how many differing opinions have been expressed as to projectiles, powder, lubes. I've contributed to the mix and at this point I'm almost sorry for that. There is a serious possibility of information overload in play here, in addition to which there has been snapping of caps and introduction of ball to barrel while seeking the perfect combination of components and methods, as per the advice received here. One of the essentials in maintaining safety in the use, handling, and care of firearms is simplicity -- not only a lack of complication but a lack of distraction, and in that sense an overload of information can be just as dangerous as not knowing what you're doing at all, particularly when physcially handling a firearm and the ammunition intended for it.

Settle on one or several pieces of advice, stop being concerned with whether there's some better product or way of doing things -- the advice offered here has been good to the tenth power. Settle on what you intend to do and what you intend to do it with, and go out and get to shooting. If you're not yet prepared to do that, then please set the rifle aside while waiting for the last item to be found and purchased, or for the day at the range to arrive. As many guns as I build and work on and consequently handle, with testing for function a necessary part of the process, I never play with a gun.

We have had the discussion a few times about how some call their guns toys and others have a problem with them being called weapons -- but they are NOT toys, they ARE weapons, and there are more than too many people in the ground because that distinction was overlooked or ignored.

If this hurts feelings or makes anyone angry, I'm sorry -- or maybe it would be more honest to say, too bad. I know from personal experience how easy it is to make one simple, slight mistake in the handling of a firearm, when loading and discharging it wasn't intended -- but somehow happened anyway.

[flintboomer]

 
You said it well Mike.

[graybear]

The first thing you need to do before cleaning your rifle is make sure it's not already loaded, load it with a starter load(1 grain per cal. is a good starting point) use whatever lube you want w/whatever patch mat'l you have that lets you seat the ball without having to beat the ball home and shoot it. Once you've finished firing the gun for the day, try whatever cleaning method you want to try. The important thing is to make sure it's clean. Go until the patches look clean, not necessarily white but very pale gray, oil lightly w/a rust preventative oil and check the next day w/a clean patch. If necessary, clean again. Once you're familiar w/your rifle, you can start trying different patch, ball, lube & powder combos as well as different clean methods. Each rifle is different and part of the fun of our sport is finding what works for YOUR rifle. The main idea is to have fun. You now have lots of good ideas for things to try. Go for it.

[isaacdavis1214]

Mongrel i am not upset or angry at all in what you posted,because every word of it is true.I personally shouldn't have been messing around with the gun but was anyway,if i had it to do again i wouldn't have dropped the ball down the bore.It tought me a valuable lesson though the hard way,i personally bought Break Free CLP to clean the gun and i have a method already laid out to clean my gun thanks to the people here.I will not be messing around with different powders,lubes ect. by any means in the early stages of me owning this gun.Will let everyone here know how the shooting session goes tomorrow if it doesn't rain.I'm very excited to finally be able to shoot this rifle,but i will be VERY safe and careful,and WILL NOT mess around with this gun anymore.

[isaacdavis1214]

Hey everyone i just got done cleaning my black powder rifle (and shooting it) it was a BLAST!Even with Pyrodex i couldn't see if i hit the target for a few seconds lol,towards the end i let my buddy shoot 100 grains of powder and fire just for shits and giggles,he fired without a hitch,then when i fired something strange happened,the cap went off but no BOOM,so i shot 2-3 more caps off and it finally went off,although it was delayed so when the cap went off i relaxed and it went off and smaked me in the cheek lol.I just assumed it was dirty,so when i got the gun home i noticed a cap was lodged under the hammer (more like a part of a cap.) and i got it out so it may have been that,or it might have been where we didn't swab the bore every 2-3 shots like we were since we fired 5-8 consecutively and didn't swab when that happened,other than that the gun fired perfectly.


I cleaned the gun very thoroughly,especially the bore.I came home and filled a pan full of hot soapy water (removed the nipple) and swabbed with a cleaning jag water in and out of the bore until the patches came out pretty clean,i didn't let the inside of the gun dry on it's on i took and swabbed clean patches in and out of the bore until dry and let the outside of the gun dry in the corner,barrel pointed down of course.I then cleaned the hammer as good as i could with hot water and the nipple as well.After and hour or two of letting it dry i took and sprayed patches with Break Free CLP and went over the hammer,bore,and the metal parts of the gun (not the nipple,unsure if i should coat it with CLP or not.When i coated it with CLP i noticed the patches still weren't 100% clean,it wasn't black stuff that was on them but something else?I don't believe it's rust since it only took me an hour or two to get back then i immediately started to clean it,so maybe this is normal?

My question now is should i reassemble the gun and let the CLP stay on the gun?Should i be worried about the patches not coming out 100% clean?Should i pump more water through the bore then re-coat it with CLP?And what could have caused the delay in the gun firing,i'm thinking it probably just got pretty dirty which caused a delay as the spark couldn't quite make it down the barrel.Does anyone have any tips or comments?Btw the gun didn't have nearly as much recoil as i thought it would have,at 50 grains it was just a gentle shove lol.

[mongrel]

Your misfires and the hangfire were more than likely caused by the fragments of cap under the nose of your hammer. It's a good idea to check after every shot to be sure both the recess in the hammer nose and the nipple itself are clear, since percussion caps do like to leave debris behind to foul things up. I doubt the lack of frequent swabbing of the bore had anything to do with your problem since the most likely culprit was right there when you looked.

Sounds like you had a great time.

The Renegade, BTW, is a relatively heavy gun for its size, and heavier loads for hunting or longer-range shooting ought not be a problem in terms of recoil. Now muzzle blast will become an issue out of that 26" barrel, as you amp up the power, but shooting on the range you should be wearing ear protection and when you haul down on a whitetail I seriously doubt you will notice much less than an atomic bomb going off -- you tend to be sort of distracted at that point in time!

[isaacdavis1214]

That's what i believe it was to,my buddy that i was shooting with was the first to hit something with the gun lol,he hit a 1 gallon jug of water about 60 yards or so away....and let me just say a .50 caliber round ball will pretty much destroy a 1 gallon jug,the exit wound was huge!

Do you think i cleaned the gun pretty thoroughly Mongel?And is rubbing alcohol the only thing you can use to swab the bore before going shooting again?Or would a WD-40 soaked patch work pretty well followed up by some dry patches since i might be going shooting again tomorrow?Thanks.

[Rev]

That's what i believe it was to,my buddy that i was shooting with was the first to hit something with the gun lol,he hit a 1 gallon jug of water about 60 yards or so away....and let me just say a .50 caliber round ball will pretty much destroy a 1 gallon jug,the exit wound was huge!

A couple years back we did some ballistic testing with the AZ Game & Fish, shooting blocks of ballistic gel 18" thick with two lined up in a row (36"). Every shot from a .50 cal. regardless of load penetrated the first block completely (at about 35 yards) including some with rib bones set in them. A couple ricocheted out the side or top, but enough penetrated all the way that it was obvious the others would too. The testing was to try & determine how much lead would be left behind in particles from the round ball, in light of Kalifornias lead ban in some areas. It was obvious the lead ball held together almost 100% while making a major wound channel. One shot I took with a 100 grain charge penetrated almost 24 inches after shattering a rib bone, then exited out the top of the gel with no noticeable lead left behind...

BTW, according to game & Fish, a considerable percentage of modern ammo shatters on impact with bone, leaving a lot of lead behind...

[Watauga]

In the Hope of saving someone some Trouble in the future.
I am going to tell of some things that I have experienced in past years shooting adventures.

With a T/C Coil spring lock you can take the Hammer off and clean the outside of the lock and then take the lock out to clean and lube .Then you can put the Hammer back on no big deal.

If However you do this with a CVA, Traditions and Jukor and  Ardesa etc... 
The "V" spring will get loose and it will be a bit of a chore to get the Lock out of the stock. 
And will take a Spring Vice to put the spring back in.
This will also bring you to another potential problem with the Ram Rod retainer spring getting loose and then you get to pull the Barrel to fix that  

Adjustable powder measures are a cool thing till the screw gets loose that holds the adjustment and you put in 100+ grains of powder and only wanted 50.
I caught this before putting the ball in so I put a wiping cloth down and dumped the big charge.
Reset the measure reloaded normally and proceeded to shoot what sounded like a Cannon 
Just because you dump the charge will not keep a good amount of powder from sticking in the Rifling  
(It kicked like a 85 grain hunting load with a Max Hunter and we were shooting PRB) 

You can get a manual and parts brake down on most CVA, Traditions and Jukor and Ardesa Guns by going to the Traditions web sight.
They call them different names but the guns are similar enough to help you figure things out.
Thompson Center has them on line too.
If you are new at this or need to refresh your memory this is a good resource.
If this saves someone some trouble then it is worth the grief of me learning these things the hard way.

[mongrel]

Isaac, if I gave you cleaning advice I would probably get jumped big-time. Enough to say that I've never had a cleaning patch come back lily-white, nor have I had my bores rust, because after drying them out I oil them. That's all the more I can say as to that without starting an argument, so someone else can take you step-by-step through the process and offer an opinion as to what constitutes clean enough.

I don't swab the bore out every few shots while shooting; I swab when I can't easily load any more, and I use plain water to do it. I use a rifle to kill deer and to practice for killing deer -- no other type of shooting or any more strict need for accuracy is of any concern to me. Since my deer hunting is done in heavy woods and I have yet to be offered a shot of longer than MAYBE 50-60 yards, my accuracy requirements would not satisfy most people even for plinking purposes.

I will defer to others more skilled or methodical than I am. I build guns and know much about their history and I try to teach folks to be safe with them -- beyond that I am far from being or claiming to be any sort of expert.

[isaacdavis1214]

Rev i believe it,i would not under any circumstances want to be shot by that .50 ball!I will direct the questions i asked to Mongrel to everyone else,pretty much do you guys think i cleaned the gun well enough?And is rubbing alcohol the only thing you can use to swab the bore before going shooting again?Or would a WD-40 soaked patch work pretty well followed up by some dry patches since i might be going shooting again tomorrow?

[William]

Don't worry about a little left over carbon, your barrel is clean enough.  One alcohol dampened cleaning patch tomorrow down and back before you start shooting will remove any excess oil left in the bore.  Be safe and have fun.

[isaacdavis1214]

The only problem is we dont have any rubbing alcohol  is there any other method of getting the oil out?If not i will have to buy some before i go shooting.

[William]

One or two dry patches on the cleaning jag, run in and out of the bore should soak up any left over oil, please don't panic.

[flintboomer]

and don't forget to snap a cap or two before you load for the first shot tomorrow.

If you have any trouble getting it to go off on the first shot, don't panic just unscrew the nipple and put a few grains of powder under it, screw the nipple back in, cap again and fire.