Getting lead out of rifle bore

Hoppes No9 has been used for generations. Chemically breaks bond between lead and steel allowing lead to be easily removed with a brush.
 
Grizzlypeg said:
Would lead appear as white ish streaks in the barrel? I have a handgun this is happening to. I shoot mostly cast through it.
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Yes that is probably lead. Once they start leading they will get progressively worse because the leading in the bore rips off more lead from the bullet every time you shoot. When you shoot cast you need to clean more often but catch it before it starts to build up and it's not hard to clean.
 
Hoppe’s #9 won’t touch a truly leaded bore. Only specifically formulated lead removers or mechanical means. Liquid mercury is unobtainable these days as are Lewis lead removers. Standard bore cleaners way eventually take a bit of lead out but none will do a real good job.
 
I once had an old .303 British that was severely leaded. when all else failed I poured boiling water down the barrel till it was really hot then gave it a scrubbing with a bore brush. the lead slid out in big long slivers. it only took one or two scrubs.

Brownie
 
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Brownells sells Lewis Lead Remover parts and cal kits. I bought one kit and my other pistol cals to go with it. I really only ever use it on occasion when I’m working with a new gun and don’t have properly sized ammo made up for it. They work. Hoppes no9 also works for me If it’s just starting to streak.
 
Steel wool - just out to pique your curiosity

I just returned home after seven months helping to get the carcass of what was once Montana Rifle Company running again. For now, strictly the barrel shop part of their operation.

I learned some really interesting things. One is that a lot of barrel manufacturerers - including the former Montana Rifle Company and at least one other manufacturer in town - hand lap their barrel blanks after completing the rifling and after heat treating.

Nothing new about that, right? Except, they do their "hand lapping" with medium steel wool wound around a brass cleaning brush. I have some pics somewhere that I took while watching the guys starting out, lapping barrels.

And they REALLY scrub them... not so much to get the oxide out, but to remove reamer marks after being reamed so that they'll pass borescope inspection prior shipping. They go/no go pin the barrels to a half thou with pin gauges, BTW, and rifling buttons are specified to the ten thou.

So being a curious guy, a took a scrap barrel that hadn't been properly centered before being drilled, pinned it to find the size, inspected it with the borescope, and then proceeded to scrub the hell out of it with medium steel wool, just as the barrel shop boys did finishing barrels for shipping. Except I just kept scrubbing the hell out of it to see what would happen.

I learned two things:
  1. You have to spend a hell of a lot of time and some serious physical labour leaning into that lapping rod to increase the bore diameter of a 5.56 barrel blank just a single thou.
  2. If you keep looking at the edges of the top corners of the lands repeatedly as you lap, you're going to be working for a while before you start seeing them starting to round.
No, I'm not telling everybody to ignore using brass wool, Lewis Lead Removers, firing cream of wheat through the barrel to scour leading out, etc. But the assumption I used to have that if you used steel wool in a barrel you would ruin it... well, that belief now sits on my personal scrap heap of "Everybody knows that..." moments of inconvenient truths after 60+ years of life.

I should post a series of pictures from the barrel shop somewhere here on Gunputz. Pratt & Whitney deep hole drills from circa 1930, surplused sometime after Vietnam from Springfield Armory, etc. Nearly a hundred years old and still cranking out M4/M16 barrels as well as for private companies.
 
Curious. Those of you recommending Wipeout. Is it just the regular Wipeout or is there one specifically for lead? Please and thanks.

Very interesting post Rick. Thanks for sharing your experience (which sounds fascinating).
 
There is a Brownell's product 080-000-321 - "Stainless Steel Sponge". What I received looks like two smaller balls of twirled up cuttings - like from a lathe. There is a Learning Lesson on Brownells website for this - is specifically made and sold for cleaning really grungy and rusted up black powder bores. Go here to read the WebBench article: (remove the space in the https, first) ht tps://www.brownells.com/aspx/learn/learndetail.aspx?lid=10705
 
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