Electronic Bore Cleaner

juanvaldez

juanvaldez

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Sudbury, Ontario
Got "bored" today so I pieced one together from an old cell phone charger, a piece of 1/4 inch ss rod, a tapered plumbing washer and some electrical tape. If you have never tried this for cleaning up old milsurps you owe it to yourself to give it a shot. Results are spectacular even on a "clean" bore.

After 20 Minutes of this:

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I got this:

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Notice the build up of black crud on the electrode

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Juan you're going to have to describe this set up better and I might just give it a try. What's the gelatinous sludge in the second pic? and what are you using as the liquid medium?
 
Gary D said:
Juan you're going to have to describe this set up better and I might just give it a try. What's the gelatinous sludge in the second pic? and what are you using as the liquid medium?
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I am using 2 parts water, 1 part white vinegar, 1 part house hold ammonia. Those are cleaning patches used to remove the remaining residue.

The most crucial part is to have the polarity set up correctly + red on the gun metal, - black on the electrode. Try for a dc power source of around 3 volts and do not exceed 6 volts. The electrode must not short out on the inside of the barrel so isolate it by using small pieces of shrink tubing or o rings. 3-4 pieces spread out over the length of the rod is enough. You want as much surface area of bare metal on the electrode showing as possible so keep the shrink tubing pieces small
 
Well, the only concern I have with this setup on a firearm is that in time it will erode and round the land's edges. It is basically an electrochemical polishing process, metal ions are removed from the cathode (barrel). It won't work on non metallic, non conductive fouling though.
 
This is basically a home-made Outers Foul-Out system. I made up a similar rig to try and salvage a Martini-Enfield .303 barrel. The amount of crud that came out was amazing. Alas, desite this and probably 100+ patches and brushes soaked in Kroil and other solvents, it ultimately was too shot out and corroded to be used. But it's certainly clean!

You do have to be a bit careful with how long you let the system run as, yes, it can begin to erode the barrel. (Same applies to Butch's Bore Shine or any ammonia-based bore cleaner, too.)

:) Stuart
 
Just used this setup on a very abused win 94. Basically only super super light rifling was visible, the bore looked almost bare.

Ran the electric cleaner three times at about 20-30 mins a time, scrubbed the bore with a bunch of brass wool wrapped around a brass brush each time, cleaned and sanded the electrode a little between uses, and Voila! A bore with pretty nice rifling! The water coming out was BLACK and would coat your finger if you dipped it in. Simply amazing how much crud there was in there. Seems it was literally enough to fill in the grooves in the rifling and make the bore appear shot out. The faint rifling was in fact the very tops of the lands showing through the crud.


P.S. For those curious - my power supply was a 3.7 DC supply. To figure out which is the positive and which is negative, get a voltometer and connect the positive and the negative to the bare wires. If the reading is negative, then you've got the wires reversed. If the reading is positive, the one the red wire is touching is positive. Wrap that wire with some red electrical tape for identification of the positive wire.
 
I made one for my k98, it also looked shot out until I ran it 40 mins with ammonia

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foaming at the top

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crud stuck to the rod

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bits of lead and copper flavored ammonia
 
Your not plating the inside of your barrel, you are using electrical current to remove copper from your bore. This process also removes bore steel depending on the purity and contamination of your electrolytic solution. This process is the reverse of electroplating and you do loose barrel steel each time you use it

You will not see any precision target shooters using this method in their target barrels.

The U.S. Military uses foam bore cleaners from small arms to field pieces, I saw the foam used at the military depot I worked at and it is now my primary “no work” method of completely cleaning all my firearms.

http://www.army-technology.com/contractors/artillery/milfoam/

http://www.6mmbr.com/catalog/item/1433308/892401.htm

http://www.sharpshootr.com/wipeout.htm

http://www.gunslick.com/pdf/GS377_MilfoamBrochure.pdf

Go ahead and keep using electricity to clean your bore…………………:rolleyes:

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NB.nagantsniper said:
were can you buy foaming boe cleaner ?? what brand names are in canada ........non in my area .
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From other posts on bore cleaning it seems the overall favourite is Wipe-Out. It is very effective stuff for copper removal, although many use good old Hoppe's or an automotive decarbonizer to remove powder residue before using Wipe-Out. A severely clogged barrel may take many applications but on a regularly-maintained firearm it's the cat's whiskers.

The electronic cleaner system is perhaps not best for regular cleaning but in some desperate cases it can work well. The Outer's Foul-Out system (now owned by Brownell's, I think) has been around for many years. You might not want to use it on your $3,500 precision benchrest rifle, but it's unlikely that it would be allowed to fall into such a parlous state in the first place!

:) Stuart
 
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