Unconventional approaches to cleaning pitted bores 91/30's

BCRider said:
The hand lapping isn't that bad. You would not be working the lead slugs long enough on any one grit in any event. If you DID stick with it long enough to make it tedious then you're working the bores TOO much and opening them up too much.

Now I freely admit that by the time you start and finish you're looking at a full on day to make up the cast lapping plugs and then work them through then finish with something like JB Bore Paste and the snug patches. But really a single day to obtain a life long shooter isn't that bad an investment of time.

That one will never see milsurp ammo every again. The other will be used for casual shoulder thumping with the rest of the milsurp junk I've got. As in I've seen shotguns that can pattern better at 50 yards than this ammo give me from either rifle. Once the milsurp is gone it's good homemade loads that uses proper jacketed ammo and brass casings. No more milsurp for me. It's too variable and simply frustrating to end up with a SPAM can of crappy shooting ammo.
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I'll give it a shot, might be a little half hearted but lapping is a good skill to have. As for milsurp being inaccurate I've found the Bulgarian ammo to be quite good while the chineese is lack luster. Most recently I picked up a ton of ultra cheap Chinese 2011 production machine gun ammo for $0.20 a shot (boxing day sale) vs. the bulgarian costing $0.38 Initial testing seems to indicate about 2 moa performance (vs under 1.5 moa on the bulgarian) and the price can't be beat. With that price and adequate accuracy for the 200 yard range I use for practice it would be hard to get me off the corrosive. I also shoot my mosin sniper with corrosive but thankfully the barrel is so nice and smooth I can clean it out in seconds with windex and wd-40 leaving nothing but a little copper smear left to clean. Only downside is I fear the day I screw up the cleanup and wreck the barrel...hope that never happens.

Thanks for the tips.
 
Below is a badly pitted Mosin bore, I have news for you, more bores are damaged from improper cleaning than any other reason. And your not going to fix a pitted and frosted bore by over cleaning them.

pittedfrosted_zps38361969.jpg


Get some foam bore cleaner and keep applying until no more blue comes out of the bore, then as soon as you fire a few rounds the pits in the bore will be full of copper "AGAIN". All I do with these type bores after shooting is give the bore one shot of foam bore cleaner and call it quits after oiling the bore.

Below a 1943 .303 Enfield with a frosted bore and one shot of foam bore cleaner.

foamclean_zpse279b70b.jpg


Below is a brand new button rifled Savage barrel at the throat and two inches from the muzzle.

Throat-1-C-RS_zps60cef129.jpg


6inchesfrommuzzle-2_zps507846d8.jpg


Below is a brand new custom made hand lapped barrel which very, very few of us have.

custom_zps1da8a9ed.jpg


You are not going to accomplish anything and you may damage the bore further, so do yourself a favor and spare the cleaning rod and spoil your bore.
 
bigedp51;11011818 You are not going to accomplish anything and you may damage the bore further said:
Thanks for the input. You make some good points. My bores aren't as bad as the picture shown and those new bores look pretty rough (I've heard savage barrels start out pretty lumpy like that).

My main concern is that I'm using surplus ammo and that the pits if filled with a combination of corrosive primer and copper could be a long term issue for ongoing damage. I'm imagining that if one smooths out the little micro pits by taking the edge down a little it would be easier to clan out that gunk, but as you put it there could be increased cost in barrel life. Hmmm.
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I have many many rifles with "dark pitted" bores. All but 1 shoot well and I have to admit that I feed them cast bullets most of the time with zero leading problems.

I clean them after use and that's that, the patches never come out perfectly clean but I'm really not concerned with that because the pitting has never gotten any worse since they've been in my care.

I find as the years have gone by the more I shoot my pitted bores the more I laugh at the fact that I used to have the same worries as the OP.

Now I just play with and clean them when I'm finished.

OP, there's several of the more knowledgeable members on this forum posting on this thread. Read the posts carefully there's lots of good info as to why you shouldn't try and polish a pitted bore.
 
bigedp51, those pics appear to have been taken through a magnified borescope. I don't own one, but I have heard others say after they had a look through a borescope on a good shooting rifle, they wondered how it was possible to be accurate with all the tool marks and other imperfections in there.
Some things are better off not knowing.:(
 
Tinman204 said:
I have many many rifles with "dark pitted" bores. All but 1 shoot well and I have to admit that I feed them cast bullets most of the time with zero leading problems.

I clean them after use and that's that, the patches never come out perfectly clean but I'm really not concerned with that because the pitting has never gotten any worse since they've been in my care.

I find as the years have gone by the more I shoot my pitted bores the more I laugh at the fact that I used to have the same worries as the OP.

Now I just play with and clean them when I'm finished.

OP, there's several of the more knowledgeable members on this forum posting on this thread. Read the posts carefully there's lots of good info as to why you shouldn't try and polish a pitted bore.
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You may be right, the loss of good metal from the bore may outweigh any likely benefits. I'll probably mess around with my bore fragment a little and leave the real rifles alone for now. Thanks for your thoughts.
 
ryan said:
bigedp51, those pics appear to have been taken through a magnified borescope. I don't own one, but I have heard others say after they had a look through a borescope on a good shooting rifle, they wondered how it was possible to be accurate with all the tool marks and other imperfections in there.
Some things are better off not knowing.:(
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Lilja BoreScope Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf9zZqn00CA

With foam bore cleaner you will not get false copper indications from a copper brush that has been eaten by your rough bores. The Enfield rifle bore was cleaned with boiling water followed by a oiled patch on a pull through. During the rifles quarterly inspections the Armourer decided if copper removing chemicals were needed.

The industry has us over cleaning and scrubbing our bores and the Finnish military and US military have been using foam bore cleaners to improve cleaning and reduce cleaning ware.

MILFOAM LTD

http://www.milfoam.fi/index.html

http://www.milfoam.fi/barrel_cleaning_solution.html


Bore Cleaning Methods & Products

How to Clean Your Barrels with Less Effort and Better Results

http://www.6mmbr.com/borecleaning.html
 
Take it to an engine repair shop and soak it in their cleaning tank for a few days. The carb type cleaner will desolve everything
 
Ganderite said:
Try fire lapping with lead bullets.
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I definitly would try this method if /when I get another rough bore rifle . I polished / broke in a brand new barrel by firing unlubed paper patched cast bullets through it. Improved how badly it copper fouled immensely .
 
Get some navel jelly,and a nylon bore brush.Soak and scrub,wait a half hour,rinse with soapy water and repeat.Be prepared to freak out from all the junk.Just do not get it on the exterior...it will remove bluing!!!
 
oops said:
Get some navel jelly,and a nylon bore brush.Soak and scrub,wait a half hour,rinse with soapy water and repeat.Be prepared to freak out from all the junk.Just do not get it on the exterior...it will remove bluing!!!
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Naval Jelly, interesting. i think I have a can of that in the shop somewhere...bought some similar products a few years ago but never made use of them. Thanks for the tip, might not smooth out a bore but could clear a pit so doesn't trap it as bad.
 
Electrolytic bore cleaning will remove a remarkable amount of crud.
Many bores have never been thoroughly cleaned of metallic fouling.
Pitting is loss of metal. Little craters eaten into the steel. Can't be restored. Lapping, etc. just polishes down the surface. If the pitting is gone, its because the whole surface has been dressed down.
 
I use the electro-chemical approach, but the one challenge is that store bought ammonia is fairly weak. You have to find the stronger commercial grade stuff for it to really work wonders.
I thought I had a fairly clean milsurp barrel with an Arisaka, then put it through this process. Wiped out pitch black swabs for days afterwards and it removed a lot of copper fouling too.
But I am also a big fan of Hoppe's 9. It's my go-to cleaner.
 
Andy said:
Plug the bore, fill it with Coca-Cola and leave it for a few hours.
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Yup,Coke will do amazing things when poured on steel/iron of any kind.

For me it worked kind of like furniture stripper when I had to get off grease,rust and muck off old commercial stainless steel kitchen stove.

Diesel fuel works faster but I can't use it at work.


For crappy bores I use boiling water and brass brush with diesel fuel.After few times I go with Hoppes and Butch's Bore Shine.

If that doesn't work well enough foam cleaner comes out.
 
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