Advice for cleaning a rough bore?

flyingdutchman86

flyingdutchman86

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Picked up a Springfield 1903 with a rough bore, appears to be mostly old dry crud, anyone have any good products or tips for cleaning a rough bore beyond the standard cleaning kit?

Cheers, Aaron.
 
Shoot it, rapidly to heat up the barrel.
Then quickly grease bore with nylon brush on rod while barrel still hot.
Just dip brush into grease.
No need to plug up the bore, thin layer is fine.
Leave the grease in bore a few days.
Remove grease with patch on a jag.
Repeat entire process a few times.
 
When at home boiling water alternated with bronze brush and Hoppes#9/light oil/diesel fuel ( pick your favorite) works for me.

Of course nothing I know beats Swiss rifle bore cleaning/maintenance method mentioned by diopter above :)
 
I like alternating treatments with a good de-coppering agent like Butches Bore Shine or Sweets 7.62 and JB bore paste which is a mild abrasive. Many M1903s are found with pitted/corroded bores from firing corrosive primed wartime ammo. The true condition of the bore will become evident when the crud and fouling are removed.
 
I have used ammonia to help with the heavy copper fouling in my enfield... just plugged the muzzle and filled from the breech. Let it sit a few hours then checked.. then another few hours... brushed vigorously and mopped/oiled

looked ok after. there was a huge amount of copper in the old girl
 
I once tried a trick that I found online with very good results. Take a properly sized bronze bore brush and introduce it to a dollar store stainless pot scrubber. Just twist the brush into the curly strands of the scrubber and pull away pushing in any loose strands into the bristles of the brush. You don't need much. Next, I soaked a bore mop with my favorite solvent and basically soaked the bore repeating every 10 minutes. Let the solvent penetrate. Insert the modified bore brush and scrub for a few minutes, re-wetting the bore with the soaked bore mop. Clean the bore out with dry patches and enjoy the results. This procedure isn't intended as a regular cleaning process but it sure works with grungy milsurp bores.
 
Just clean it the easy way with foam bore cleaner and let the foam do all the work with very little cleaning rod use.

Below a .303 Enfield bore after firing 50 rounds and just one shot of foam bore cleaner.

foamclean_zpse279b70b.jpg


If the bore has dried cosmoline/grease in the bore a solvent or boiling water should first be used. This is because the grease/oil will slow down or prevent the foam bore cleaner from working.

I can't stress this enough but more damage to the bore is done when cleaning than any other reason. And the foam bore cleaner removes carbon and copper without using a cleaning rod. (spare the rod and spoil the bore) Below is a bore scope photo of a Mosin bore and damage done by corrosive primers and poor cleaning methods. And this type bore eats copper bore brushes, gives false copper readings from the bore brush residue.

pittedfrosted_zps38361969.jpg


So do yourself a favor and do not use any harsh cleaning methods and just use foam bore cleaner with minimum cleaning rod time.
 
Bore solvent is standard use if you're into milsurps. Many different products will give you the same results. Old grime and who knows what else that has been in there for decades comes out with a few passes and wads. If you're not familiar with the rifle's history using a copper fowling bore agent.
 
Also just a note, it is always good to try to see how it shoots before doing extensive cleaning. My buddy had a Lee Enfield that shot decently. One day he decided to use the copper remover to see if he could get it to shoot better. After the cleaning the rifle could barely group anything, and it was especially frustrating for him due to how well it shot before hand.
 
Just clean it the easy way with foam bore cleaner and let the foam do all the work with very little cleaning rod use.
Click to expand...

I will attest to this with great results.

I have a 22-250 barrel that I bought that looked OK but on the well used side.

I cleaned it with Wipe-Out over night about 8-10 times before the patches came clean.

To my surprise, it almost looks new.
 
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Electrolysis. I had never thought of using this for bore cleaning until it was mentioned by a member here. If you want squeaky clean this is your ticket. When you are done it takes about two patches to wipe it dry and one to lightly oil and it's over, for a total of three rod strokes. If done correctly it seems rediculessly gentle too. As a side note, the barrel I just did this to had no discolouration on patches run through it beforehand. It had crazy amounts of copper plated to the piece of gas rod I used and disturbingly large chunks of carbon foaming out the muzzle. It did the best job of any cleaning method I have ever seen.
 
Eaglelord17 said:
Also just a note, it is always good to try to see how it shoots before doing extensive cleaning. My buddy had a Lee Enfield that shot decently. One day he decided to use the copper remover to see if he could get it to shoot better. After the cleaning the rifle could barely group anything, and it was especially frustrating for him due to how well it shot before hand.
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Sometimes a bit of fowling is good, however too much deep clean is not. When you get a new ( new to you) rifle and you don't know where its been, I find it good to run some bore cleaner solvent through it. I don't do it often, only when it looks cruddy and has unknown history.
 
There are all sorts of methods that will work well eventually. Depends on if you are in a rush. Everything mentioned here will definitely work.

The easiest by far is the foaming bore cleaner method. The most available in Canada at a reasonable price and still effective is WIPE OUT.

Sweet 7.62 or Butch's Bore Shine will work but you have to stay with them and IMHO shouldn't leave them in your bore overnight.

There is often a good reason why a bore fouls badly. In old milsurps it's usually caused by frosty bores which is really tiny pits. The pitting can vary from tiny to large pits. When you get the crud out you will be able to tell how bad your bore is.

I recently did a No4 MkI* Long Branch from 1943 that has seen Turkish use and it was full of copper/carbon fouling. I know it was fouled by the person that brought me the rifle because it wouldn't group anymore. Nice full wood rifle that the Turks used but didn't abuse. Whoever they issued it to had taken great pains to make sure it had been cleaned properly. The present owner has had the rifle for at least 10 years but has never shot corrosive primed or Chordite ammo through it. The bore was one of the worst I have ever seen.

It took three full 24 hour days of soaking and a whole bottle of Non Foam type Wipe Out to even start moving the fouling. The owner guesses around 500 rounds without even a brush down the bore. The two groove bbl looked like it might be unsalvageable. Well it was fine when all of the fouling was finally removed after the fourth day of scrubbing. I could not believe how much came out of that bore. There were actually small slivers of copper fouling on the patches. I only used nylon as a bristle brush.

The bore was worn about 25% but still shootable and reasonably accurate. It shot into 3in at 100yds with a mixed bag of ammo he gave me to test it out. Most of the ammo he shoots comes from yard sales and gun shows from the grab bags and boxes. He doesn't trust milsurp ammo so only picks up commercial loads.

The throat was pushed forward about 2 1/2 inches and likely that is what kept his pressures tolerable.

He joked that he would bring it back to me in another ten years. I told him I wanted $50 for my troubles or it would become my rifle. Big snivel. To bad for him but he did pay me after two days. I didn't give him his rifle until he did. I had dealt with him before.

Wipe Out foam cleaner is the least painful method
 
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flyingdutchman86 said:
Wow thanks for all the thorough advice fellas, I think I'll try the foam cleaner route and see what the results are.
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Make sure you remove any grease or oil from the bore before using any type foam bore cleaner, a wet patch of alcohol, lighter fluid etc. will allow the foam to make better contact with the bore.

Also foam bore cleaner can be left in the bore overnight without any harm to the bore. When I return from the range I apply the foam with the muzzle slightly down and then just let it sit overnight. The next day a "few" passes with a cleaning rod to remove the foam and oil the bore is all that is needed.

I have two Savage bolt action rifles with button rifled barrels and below is a magnified bore scope photo of a new Savage bore. These type bores will eat bore brushes and give you a false copper reading. And the best way to clean the bore is with foam bore cleaner doing all the work and minimum cleaning rod time.

6inchesfrommuzzle-2_zps507846d8.jpg


Below is the same bore after fire lapping and a bore brush will never hit the bottom of the "speed bumps" of a button rifled bore. Meaning brushing does very little so just remember foam bore cleaner doesn't have any sharp edges and only removes carbon and copper.

firelap_zps159e74ab.jpg


All the copper below was removed from the frosted and pitted Enfield barrel below with just one application of foam bore cleaner. And it doesn't get any simpler than this and letting the foam doing all the work.

foamclean_zpse279b70b.jpg
 
I like to use brownells bore polish on my bores after foam cleaner, on some old rifles I have gone through 50 patches with polish and still stuff comes out, so far it's been worth my time to get some shine back in some old bores
 
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