One trick that worked quite well for me clearing out an old GEW 88 bore, was to use some undersized cast projectiles paper patched with standard printer paper. fired a full box, then cleaned at the range while the barrel was still warm. way easier to remove the last of the fouling at that point. bore looked great afterwords and patches were generally the dull gray that usually comes from a typical milsurp bore.
how to clean nasty milsurp barrels
- Thread starter ROCV
- Start date
Lots of discussion about chemical cleaners, but abrasive cleaners work too. I use JB bore paste, which is an abrasive embedded in oil, and alternate with copper remover on used MILSURP bores with pretty good results. JB was developed for bench rest shooters who are totally anal about clean bores. Follow manufacturer's instructions and don't overdo it;you want to remove fouling, not barrel steel.
The early abrasive cleaners were embedded in a tallow like substance that had been mixed with cosmolene.
That's just a comparison of course.
The name on the product was "Motty's Bore Paste" and it was the best thing going for removing Cupro-Nickle, fouling. Mix up some "Young's 303" with water to clean out the corrosive residues and carbon, from the ammunition available at the time.
Cordite left a very difficult to clean carbon type residue behind. Young's was specially formulated just for this purpose and was/is excellent with black powder.
I bought out the stock of a small gunshop appx 30 years ago and didn't try to sell off all the different cleaners. I kept a case of each or a partial case of the cleaners I thought I would have the most use for.
I have a half jar of Motty's left, out of a dozen box and about a half dozen 3oz cans of Young's out of two 24 can cases.
I believe Young's is still available
JBs is good stuff, I used it for my HBR rifles. Iosso is another great abrasive cleaner.
maple_leaf_eh
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Agree. Just be sure to reach for the JB bore paste and not the JB Weld.
I had the same experience with my '51 Tulas, tons and years of milsurp fouling and never could seem to get it 'white metal'. Finally after using Boretech C4 and various Copper solvents (they all seem to do the same/well) I found some Remington 40X Bore cleaner. It's prob like JB-Paste but even thinner. It's a liquid sorta like 'runny mud' and after running several patches with it and using a .338 brass brush (30-cal was too 'loose') I'm able to see "almost clean" metal - and I did that to my .223 Ruger too. After getting a Teslong scope last year I got serious about cleaning (after embarrased at what my 'old style' cleaning left behind). I don't know if the JB is more abrasive but the 40X being 'runny' makes me think so. The rifling is still fairly deep but the edges are pitted - and were like that B4 the 40X. Shoots 3-4" at 100yds with irons.
Here's pics from my Tula this Summer - B4 and After (the after is at higher magnification) :
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Here's pics from my Tula this Summer - B4 and After (the after is at higher magnification) :
i was told to use windex for years before i gace it a shot. well let me tell you, GOOD MOVE. if you just spray windex down the barrel (through the chamber barrel towards the ground) and just keep spraying till its soaked. now put rifle away for cleaning later. when cleaning later you will notice it is easier to clean by a longshot.
lets go brandon
lets go brandon
Windex contains ammonia which will help reduce fouling. The military solution to corrosive primed ammo was to clean the bore with water(preferably hot) as soon as possible after shooting. Water won't remove metal fouling though.
maple_leaf_eh
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Those pits are big enough to lose your boots in! Good job cleaning out the fouling.
Now the next question is just as important - how does a fellow proceed once he's emptied all the voids? I always thought a few rounds through a bore that clean would invariably scrape off enough copper jacket material to make the next half-dozen rounds and beyond more consistent.
Now the next question is just as important - how does a fellow proceed once he's emptied all the voids? I always thought a few rounds through a bore that clean would invariably scrape off enough copper jacket material to make the next half-dozen rounds and beyond more consistent.
Its really tough to find a universal answer. Some rifles do shoot better with a fouled bore. I've seen accuracy go to $hit after a through de-coppering and then come back as the bore is re-fouled with jacket material. OTOH, bench resters will say that a bore must always be sqeaky clean for the best results.
The old hunter's admonition is to hunt with a dirty bore as a hedge to ensure that the rifle will shoot where it was zeroed instead of having a first round flyer out of a clean bore.
Maybe the best practice is to see how the rifle actually shoots instead of getting pre-occupied with how clean the bore can be. Non-corrosive priming came into large scale use 70 years ago and eliminated concerns over rust/pitting caused by residual primer salts. Call it old army habits, but I still can't tolerate a dirty bore and will religiously remove powder fouling; just in case the Sgt-Maj is still watching.
- Location
- Western Manitoba
I had read an article some time ago that seemed to make sense. If your job is to make one accurate shot with a cold clean barrel - think sniper creeping around jungle for several days; hunter for deer - then need to do the sighting in for that one cold, clean barrel shot. That is, one shot per day and clean and oil bore for overnight - clean out in morning like you would for "real". Can not blast away a string of 15 or 20 shots to "sight in", then go home and scrub, and then expect that next clean cold barrel shot to go where the group did. Some rifles might - up to the shooter to know what his barrel will or will not do. I have read of barrels that "need" a couple fouling shots before really accurate, then precision starts to go away 20 or 30 shots later - other barrels show no appreciable change after several hundred rounds - shooter needs to shoot enough to know what that barrel wants.
Concern is about situations where there are no "sighter shots", no "fouling shots" - need to pull off a single cold clean barrel shot - will only know if has been done a few times previously.
Concern is about situations where there are no "sighter shots", no "fouling shots" - need to pull off a single cold clean barrel shot - will only know if has been done a few times previously.
I see you've already got about four pages of suggestions for various chemical treatments intended for heavily fouled bores. If you're willing to set some old wives' tales aside, I have a suggestion for you:
Scrub the hell out of the bore with medium steel wool wound around a worn out bore brush until it is tight enough in the bore that you need a little help from your other hand to run it up and down the bore. It will do a good job for everything not laying in the bottom of a pit or the inside corners of the rifling grooves that are out of reach of the steel wool. Then try your chemical cleaners of choice after that. Or soak your steel wool with your chemical cleaner of choice while scrubbing away.
Hundreds of thousands of shooters are poised to leap to their keyboards to inform you that using steel wool in your bore is sacrilege: doing this will guarantee you have just damaged/ruined your barrel. That has been gospel truth passed on to the masses for generations. Two of my childhood gods, George Nonte and Jack O'Connor, wrote about this dangerous transgression. That's where I first heard this tidbit of knowledge.
Meanwhile, McGowan, Montana Rifle Company and more than a few other custom barrel businesses "hand lap" their barrels with that exact same steel wool. And I've watched some of them doing it, standing in their shops.
As I've mentioned here on Gunputz elsewhere, I spent most of last year getting a barrel shop that had gone up on the rocks in operation again. One day after work was over and the crew had gone home, just for poops and giggles, I pinned a barrel blank that had been rejected for flaws (button slipped and rifling ran parallel with bore axis for a short distance) to determine starting size.
Then I attacked the barrel with steel wool as explained above, labouring away to see how long it would take me to round off the bore edges of the rifling grooves and/or increase the bore size enough to run the next size up pin through the bore.
After about an hour, while the borescope showed the rifling edges were still sharp and the barrel still wouldn't accept the next size up pin gauge, about all I had was an extremely shiny bore with practically every single reamer mark removed, and a very pretty but still below standards rifle barrel blank. So I shut 'er down and went to pull a wobbly pop out of the fridge while I pondered on how much of the rest of my "everybody knows" knowledge wouldn't survive a test.
However you clean your bore, if you're unsatisfied with the bore condition afterwards, you can do actual hand lapping. Cast a pure lead lap and then work on cleaning up the bore surface of pitting, depending on how deep it is, and calculating when continuing to lap will transition from making things better to starting to make things worse.
I have only lead lapped a few barrels; each one took me about one Saturday of leisurely slow paced work - lots of pauses for measurements, pinning, pouring a new lap, etc. As is often pointed out with similar work: it's a hell of a lot easier to cut something than it is to add it back afterwards. A barrel shop pro/gunsmith could probably do the same job in two or three hours; doing my own work I'm in no hurry and it is my barrel, not somebody else's.
This is where the bullet casters are happy campers: up to a point they can lap to their heart's desire, and then adjust cast bullet size to get the fit they want with that barrel.
I have used the electronic method over the years for some very ugly looking milsurp bores.
Made my own - not expensive and not hard.
The amount of crap that shows up on the centre rod after a day of it working is sometimes unbelievable.
When I see it I am happy I didn't stand there trying to brush, foam.... repeat endlessly to get to the same point.
Yes, sometimes the now clean bore can be very pitted and ugly when you strip away the gunk, but sometimes it is surprisingly in very good condition.
Made my own - not expensive and not hard.
The amount of crap that shows up on the centre rod after a day of it working is sometimes unbelievable.
When I see it I am happy I didn't stand there trying to brush, foam.... repeat endlessly to get to the same point.
Yes, sometimes the now clean bore can be very pitted and ugly when you strip away the gunk, but sometimes it is surprisingly in very good condition.
Sorry, haven't checked this thread for a few days. Yes, the first few shots prob fill some of those craters ;-0 I didn't mention in the earlier post that I also run some Copper Solvent before the 40X 'mud'. After the first of the Carbon is gone I find the Copper streaks, mostly nearest the chamber.
I've got some pics last Summer showing that 'Cleaner' shots are a touch more accurate that 'fouled' ones. This rifle seems to shoot OK when shiny-clean like in the pic, but I've gotta put an optic on to see how consistent it really is. Irons leave too much variability to really tell. Only 3-6 " @ 100 w-Irons, can't tell what's the rifle and what's my error. Gotta try some red dot on the gas tube (I have the Tapco stock system) or a scope on the dust cover. I have the cover very snug so NO movement - you can 'bend' the ears to make it really tight. Worked on my last '51 but sold the mount :-(
If it's a gun you like to shoot (and still safe) just put the dark bore out of your mind and shoot & clean it often. One day you may look down the bore and be surprised.
I've noticed some stubborn-to-clean bores on neglected rifles that have seen corrosive ammo and have not been shot in a long time will "shoot clean" eventually with enough shooting/cleaning sessions. Not sure what is happening if its just the pits filling with fresh jacket, the barrel-fur being worn down, or maybe the pressure/heat loosening the old fouling.
I've noticed some stubborn-to-clean bores on neglected rifles that have seen corrosive ammo and have not been shot in a long time will "shoot clean" eventually with enough shooting/cleaning sessions. Not sure what is happening if its just the pits filling with fresh jacket, the barrel-fur being worn down, or maybe the pressure/heat loosening the old fouling.
