Deep cleaning a Mosin barrel.... OH COME ON ! ! ! !

BCRider

BCRider

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A while back I spent a fair amount of time over about two days cleaning the barrel of my '39 Tula Mosin. I didn't have anything special at the time to use so I was using some Hoppes #9 and a .308 brush since I could not find any .312 brushes anywhere for some odd reason. I THOUGHT I had gotten it down to bare and shiney metal.

I shot the gun a few days back and brought it home to clean it out. Figured it should be a POC since I'd done the previous Deep Clean Job..... apparently not....... :confused:

So I got a can of Wipe Out and for the past three days I've been alternateing between a blast of Wipe Out or two followed by waiting 8 to 12 hours to let it soak and rounds of running a .338 bore brush soaked in Hoppes down the bore about 30 times each. Patches are STILL coming out deeply blue, purple or black/brown depending on the products in use for each stage.

It's so bad that I'm beginning to wonder if the whole thickness of the barrel is just a "ceramic" of fouling.... :D

If there's metal in there I'm going to find it. I should start doing sets of the hack marks for each pass of Hoppes and Wipeout more or less like some prisoner in for the long haul.... :D
 
If you're using a bronze bore brush it will always show positive for copper residue.

It also sounds to me like you are being too vigorous with your cleaning and using the wrong size bore brush.

For a .311 bore I just use a .308 nylon brush and don't scrub for more than 10 complete passes before running a wet patch of solvent down the bore.

I used to remove copper fouling with Sweet's 7.62 Solvent, but I've been using Bore-Tech Eliminator and their Copper Remover with good results lately.

Bore-Tech is less toxic to boot and a hell of a lot easier to breath.

I try to use more patches soaked with solvent to clean the bore, and only use the brush to loosen things off after letting the solvent sit in the bore for awhile doing all the hard work for me.

If you really want to be fastidious about getting every last molecule of copper out of your bore, it might be a good idea to invest in a Foul-Out system.

Just be sure there isn't any rust in the bore before using it.
 
Its a waste of time using Hoppes for deep cleaning, its made to clean powder residue. I use an actual bore solvent when I pick up old milsurps. Usually i only use it once when i first get the rifle. Its toxic, smells bad, and should be done outdoors or in a well ventilated area.
 
It seems like either my efforts are coming to a happy ending or I scared the rifle by posting my lament on this thread. The last few patches are coming out rather cleanly.

I suspect you guys are right. The brush has been getting easier to push thru the last few times. I thought the bristles were bending but when I looked they are still straight. Measuring the brush diameter shows that it's now worn down to .301 according to my calipers. So at least some of the blue and some of the black coming out is likely the worn bronze from the bristles.

The heavy brushing is based on reading about the trials over cleaning other Mosin barrels. Seems they come stock with a rather heavy coating of copper and even some powder fouling.

It's sitting with another fill of Wipe Out at the moment but I suspect that I'm now done. The last few patches came out with only minor staining on them.

Looking down the bore with a light it's not what I would call shiney by any means. But if it's corroded then it's minor since there's no obvious signs of pitting that I can make out. For this one I may look at trying a few passes with some JB bore paste to see if it'll smoothen things a little.

I've actually got two Mosins. The rather rough "chewed out of metal by a rabid beaver" looking '43 Izhevsk will likely see duty with the surplus ammo when I want some giggles. From this point on I think I'm going to reserve the '39 Tula for use with copper jacketed brass cased reloads and see how accurate I can manage to make it.

Fiddler, what's this "actual bore solvent" you have?
 
bcrider, when you shoot, the first bullet is traveling over clean metal. The second shot, travels over the residue left from the first round and so on for each following shot.

Granted, every shot, pushes some of the previous fouling out but not all of it, resulting in built up layers of fouling.

I learned this the hard way, shooting HBR.

I was under the impression that I could get away with only using a copper solvent between cleanings. WRONG.

My HBR rifle was a fouler, no matter what I did or how I cleaned it. The barrel was a Hart that was extremely accurate when clean but it would fall off quickly after 15 rounds to the point of being uncompetitive by 20 rounds. It stayed consistent for 1500+ and never changed it's characteristic fouling habits with subsequent wear.

One of the other shooters came over because he felt I was cleaning to much between matches and watched what I was doing closely.

He suggested that I use a mop with a carbon remover of any type available, as long as it worked well with carbon and would mix well with KROIL. KROIL is a very light penetrating oil that is quite insidious and penetrates really well with a carrier.

Kroil actually penetrates between the layers of copper and the binding carbon to loosen up the layers and make them much easier to remove.

This really reduced cleaning times but didn't extend the amount of shots I could take before losing accuracy.
I'm not talking about accuracy loss that would bother most hunters, just competitive shooters.

I love Wipe Out and it is my "go to" copper cleaner. It will usually get rid of jacket fouling and the carbon fouling with one or two applications.

When it doesn't, I pull out the Hoppe's/Kroil(5%) mix and soak up a mop for a pass down the bore The mop shouldn't fit tightly or it won't leave enough of the mix behind.

I run the swab back and forth several times and then soak it up again for several more passes, then let it sit while I grab a coffee, then swab the bore with an alcohol soaked patch. The patch will be black with the carbon residues.

Then, time for another Wipe Out soak and another coffee or pee break, depending on your bladder.

If you decide to brush rather than patch, use a nylon brush. If the grime/fouling is very bad, as can happen with worn/pitted barrels, I have resorted to the soft stainless steel brushes but only as a last resort. Bores that are that bad, won't be bothered enough to worry about.

I've brought back more than a few bores that were considered to be unsalvageable with this method.

When I've finished cleaning, I swab out the bore with alcohol then a loose patch of alcohol/5% Kroil.

The alcohol evaporates, leaving a very light coating of Kroil to protect the bore. I do this with stainless and chrome moly barrels as well.

This method has never failed me. It will take just about any bore right back to the metal, exposing the pitting, if it is present.
 
The thing about the Mosins from what I've seen and what I've read is that they come out of the crate badly fouled. And certainly while I don't dote on my other rifles they all come clean MUCH faster than these things do. So I suspect it's a "feature" of the old style corrosive ammo.

My other rifles get an occasional wet patch or two and then a dry patch and a bit of oil with another dry patch. I'm normally in the camp which figures that you want to get the bore to where it's got whatever it's going to have and then leave it alone. So my Cowboy action rifle and my rimfires almost never see a patch and the only time they see a brush is if there is obvious leading issues. And NONE of those others has ever been as crusty and fouled as these two Mosins. It really is over the top.

Success has found a home in the BCRider household though. A few more patches after the last post and they are FINALLY coming out with nothing more than a very light grey. And that, my friends, is GOOD ENOUGH! :D It's all back together and in the safe and I'm for bed time.... 'night all.
 
I'm using boiling water for deep cleaning of any "new to me" milsurp.

Remove action from stock.
Pint of boiling water down the bore.
Wait 15 min than few clean patches alternated with Hoppes#9.
Repeat whole process after about an hour sitting idle with Hoppes in the bore.

With this process I have removed every piece of dry and caked on cosmolene that was there.

If I still doubt myself I use bore foam cleaning solution overnight-that usually confirms that bore is clean.
 
make shure you got the chamber a locking lug area good or else you will have a sticky bolt

i lie the booiling water for this too it heats the metal witch gets the cosmoline out out the pores of the steel and it takes all of it off (the water dries up on it own) its also what i use to clean after corrosive ammo

stock that can get tricky as it will hold alot of cosmoline
 
I find JB bore paste to be very good for removing fouling. It is not for regular use but you wouldn't believe the crap that comes out on your patches when you think your barrel was fairly clean.
 
The thing I have found best for removing carbon fouling is swiss gun grease automatenfett it works to well patches come out black even after 20 or so patches and that's just after shooting 30-40 rounds of gp11 witch is suppost to be clean burning ammo
 
This wasn't a new rifle where I was cleaning out the cosmoline. It's one that was well cleaned when I got it and has gone on to shoot around 60 to 70 rounds. It's always been water patched to remove the corrosive issue within an hour or two after shooting it.

It's not even the first time I tried to "deep clean" it either. It's just that this time I wasn't going to admit defeat like the first time I tried. Thus the soak, sit then scrub sessions over the past three days and brushing it out enough to actually wear out a bore brush.

As I said earlier, I've read about others that found the bores to be pretty badly fouled when they got the guns. I just didn't think it would take THIS much to clean the bore out fully. So I thought that some other Mosin owners might see what sort of job is ahead of them and stick to it until it'd done.

Now that both the powder and copper fouling are gone I'm seeing that the bore is a dark'ish colour. I'm thinking that it's time to lightly polish it with a bit of JB bore paste.

Mike, I'm pretty sure that the JB paste is a mild polishing abrasive. If I'm right on that then it's not unexpected that even a clean bore would shown some black on the patches. A way to test this is to try some on a clean rag on a flat sheet of well cleaned and polished steel and see if the JB shines it up more and the rag comes away black. The black in that case being metal removed from the surface. If I'm right and it is a fine polishing abrasive then I've got no issues with using it but as you suggest it's not something you want to use on a regular basis.
 
Electrolysis is pretty easy to set up with a 3' length of 1/8 steel round-stock or brazing rod, a roll of electrical tape, a length of speaker wire and two AAA batteries and a funnel. Glass cleaner and vinegar 1:1.

I do it to every old rifle/milsurp I get as the standard cleaning routine. It will clean the bores as well as they can possibly be cleaned.

Batteries taped together and wire marked positive and negative:
2gtww91.jpg


Tape wad on the end of the rod/electrode jams into the chamber and bands of tape prevents the rod from contacting the bore:
x5qgqs.jpg


Tape closely approximates the neck of the cartridge for positive, leak-proof seal:
2w2ro1j.jpg


Slide the funnel down the rod as it protrudes from the bore and tape it to the muzzle. Pour in enough solution that the funnel is about 1/5 full.
2ibybz6.jpg


Connect the negative wire to the rod/electrode and the positive to the rifle. Let the magic happen for about 15 minutes, repeat with clean solution at least twice. Cleanest bore you'll ever get.

Run tight patches soaked in mobil1 through the bore and chamber until you're satisfied that no solution remains and the steel is completely coated. Swab out excess oil with a dry patch.

Clean and oil everything that may have gotten solution on it because leaks do happen.

Pretty much what these guys did:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDF7BJRn02o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISB3o2qLvd4&NR=1&feature=endscreen
 
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I like Wipeout as well, but it can be too good: I had a K98 I was trading in, and I gave it a good cleaning with Wipeout and brought it to the dealer. He offered me much less than I was expecting, and when questioned, he pointed out a large void on one of the lands that I had no idea was there. Just a big place where there was no metal, but over the years the void had completely filled in. Until I gave it the Wipeout.
Oh well, he offered me a better deal than I was expecting on the pistol I was also trading in, so it all worked out fine.
 
BCRider said:
This wasn't a new rifle where I was cleaning out the cosmoline.
Click to expand...

Cosmo is hard to get out of the bore sometimes and a lot of milsurps I have seen haven't been cleaned properly prior to shooting (sometimes for years).

Worst case I had myself was M95 Steyr with rifling barely visible under caked on fouling,cosmo,copper and God know what else.
I know rifle has been shot with corrosive ammo and cleaned prior to me but owner never bothered to get cosmo out and couldn't get decent gruping with it.

Chances are you have the same problem.
 
After a lot of years of cleaning grungy motorcycles and other grungy mechanical toys I'm sure I can deal with removing some cosmoline. At least assuming that some previous Soviet/Russian owner didn't shoot it with some still in the bore and managed to bake it on. If they did that then perhaps some of what I'm cleaning out now is from way back then.

I like that electrolysis trick though. I've seen a guy that has restored some rather rust encrusted handguns to a condition that I would not have believed possible. If my bore is slightly corroded to where it's got this blackish colour then some electrolysis could well remove that.
 
If I get a rifle with lots of cosmo and other crud in the barrel, I give it a good blast with aeresol brake cleaner (after removing it from the stock). Then, I let it sit overnight with Wipeout in the bore.
 
BCRider said:
This wasn't a new rifle where I was cleaning out the cosmoline. It's one that was well cleaned when I got it and has gone on to shoot around 60 to 70 rounds. It's always been water patched to remove the corrosive issue within an hour or two after shooting it.

It's not even the first time I tried to "deep clean" it either. It's just that this time I wasn't going to admit defeat like the first time I tried. Thus the soak, sit then scrub sessions over the past three days and brushing it out enough to actually wear out a bore brush.

As I said earlier, I've read about others that found the bores to be pretty badly fouled when they got the guns. I just didn't think it would take THIS much to clean the bore out fully. So I thought that some other Mosin owners might see what sort of job is ahead of them and stick to it until it'd done.

Now that both the powder and copper fouling are gone I'm seeing that the bore is a dark'ish colour. I'm thinking that it's time to lightly polish it with a bit of JB bore paste.

Mike, I'm pretty sure that the JB paste is a mild polishing abrasive. If I'm right on that then it's not unexpected that even a clean bore would shown some black on the patches. A way to test this is to try some on a clean rag on a flat sheet of well cleaned and polished steel and see if the JB shines it up more and the rag comes away black. The black in that case being metal removed from the surface. If I'm right and it is a fine polishing abrasive then I've got no issues with using it but as you suggest it's not something you want to use on a regular basis.
Click to expand...

From the literature I have read JB paste is not abrasive. I have read many testimonials from target shooters who claim they use it often. If it were abrasive that is not something you would want to make a habit of.
 
Then it's not what the colour suggested that it might be to me. To me it looked a lot too much like the reddish brown Jeweler's rouge in grease or wax that we see as automotive rubbing compound. But if it's not in any manner abrasive then I'm wrong about what it is made from.
 
JB most certainly is abrasive, not that its a bad thing. Just keep squirting in the Wipe Out, forget the brush and Hoppes. When the WO comes out clean use something for anti rust. KG12 is about 10x more effective that WO although it doesn't turn colour and unless you have a bore scope you don't really know when it's clean.
 
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