Worst Barrel Ever

I

Ian Robertson

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Location
Nepean ON
I have a #5 that I have never shot. I did look through the barrel and I knew it was black with little rifling visible. I decided in a weak moment that I should try to clean it and see what I really have. I did the same with a MN and I was surprised it cleaned up really well.

So, I decided to just use Wipe Out with accelerator. I have applied it about 9 times so far. Very heavy blue, black and brown every time with no change, real dirty! I just took a brush to it with rem clean and more wipe out, we will see tomorrow. I have heard of these being fouled like this and cleaning up okay. If this does not improve I may try some 0000 wool in it. This is the worst I have tried to clean up, a bit of a challenge!
 
A lot of these rifles have never had their barrels really cleaned. There can be lots of metal fouling. Sometimes there is a nice bore under the fouling, not just corrosion.
Electronic bore cleaning can really cut through built up fouling.
 
For an old fouled military barrel I alternate with an abrasive cleaner (JB PAste, initially, and later, RemClean) and then a copper solvent like Sweets, overnight. I leave the rifle muzzle down ona pad, overnight. The gunk draining out of the barrel gives me an idea of when it is starting to clean out.

This is what a Mosin Nagant and a Lee Enfield looked like. The MN took 4 days.

CLEANINGPAD.jpg
 
Electronic bore cleaning requires a chamber sized rubber cork, a plain steel rod for an electrode with a few spacers on it to keep it from touching the bore, (the rod is run through the rubber cork) a low voltage trickle charger or flashlight battery, and some household ammonia. One lead is clipped to the rod, the other to the rifle. There will be a foaming reaction. Good idea to improvise a funnel over the muzzle to keep the foam from running all over. I forget which is -ve, the rod or the rifle. Run for 20 minutes to half an hour, then drain and scrub. Repeat as desired. The amount of crud that will be lifted is amazing. Finish off with JB's, Remclean, wipe out thoroughly.
It is plating/deplating process. The metal fouling is lifted from the bore and deposited on the electrode. Non-metallic fouling is loosened at the same time. The ammonia no doubt also cuts the fouling.
Lyman sells commercial units.
 
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I like alternating treatments of JB Paste(friction) and a de-coppering agent(chemical) to clean up a scuzzy bore, but the electrolysis method has always intrigued me. I guess I'm getting lazy, but nowadays I avoid buying a rifle with a really bad bore unless I buy it for less with the aim of re-barreling it.
 
Ive put a nylon brush on a alum/brass cleaning rod and mixed mild abrasive tooth brush and copper solvent. Used a drill on slow speed and used that to get heavy fowled barrels.
 
I did the electrode cleaning thing once, coincidentally also on a badly fouled #5. Made the rod from coat hanger, electric tape wraps to keep it off the barrel, and a wrap of tape around a fired case to seal the chamber. Tape on the bottom of the electrode to insulate from the case. Sweet's 7.62 for solvent.

Holeeeeee does it work well.
 
tiriaq said:
Electronic bore cleaning requires a chamber sized rubber cork, a plain steel rod for an electrode with a few spacers on it to keep it from touching the bore, (the rod is run through the rubber cork) a low voltage trickle charger or flashlight battery, and some household ammonia. One lead is clipped to the rod, the other to the rifle. There will be a foaming reaction. Good idea to improvise a funnel over the muzzle to keep the foam from running all over. I forget which is -ve, the rod or the rifle. Run for 20 minutes to half an hour, then drain and scrub. Repeat as desired. The amount of crud that will be lifted is amazing. Finish off with JB's, Remclean, wipe out thoroughly.
It is plating/deplating process. The metal fouling is lifted from the bore and deposited on the electrode. Non-metallic fouling is loosened at the same time. The ammonia no doubt also cuts the fouling.
Lyman sells commercial units.
Click to expand...

This sounds like the same process used for rust removal. That being the case, the barrel would connect to the negative terminal and the rod would connect to the positive.

A question:
For rust removal, washing soda is generally the electrolyte of choice. Why is ammonia a better choice for bore cleaning? I can see how it might be better at dissolving copper fouling.
 
tiriaq said:
Electronic bore cleaning requires a chamber sized rubber cork, a plain steel rod for an electrode with a few spacers on it to keep it from touching the bore, (the rod is run through the rubber cork) a low voltage trickle charger or flashlight battery, and some household ammonia. One lead is clipped to the rod, the other to the rifle. There will be a foaming reaction. Good idea to improvise a funnel over the muzzle to keep the foam from running all over. I forget which is -ve, the rod or the rifle. Run for 20 minutes to half an hour, then drain and scrub. Repeat as desired. The amount of crud that will be lifted is amazing. Finish off with JB's, Remclean, wipe out thoroughly.
It is plating/deplating process. The metal fouling is lifted from the bore and deposited on the electrode. Non-metallic fouling is loosened at the same time. The ammonia no doubt also cuts the fouling.
Lyman sells commercial units.
Click to expand...

I did this on an old P-14 I was restoring. For about $10 worth of parts and an old cell-phone charger. The results were incredible and the amount of crap that came off of the electrode was unreal.

For less fouled bores, I recommend a foaming bore cleaner that will go after copper deposits.

I'm not really a fan of abrasive bore cleaners.

The less you pull through your bore.. the better.
 
I received recently a SKS which had shot corrosive ammo and was put away for a while. 1950 non-chromed bore.

Well it looked bad. Really bad.

I scrubbed and scrubbed for a while, with little effect.

Went to the range, shot about 100 rounds through it.

Came back, cleaned the bore, you know what? It's surprisingly decent now. :)

Lou
 
It has taken me a couple of weeks too scare up the parts to electro clean the #5. At this point using Wipe Out for about two weeks the barrel is clean and nothing much happened with the electro. I have it in a similar condition Mauser right now so we will see what it does on that one. The #5 is quite rough and pitted. Wipe Out did the job but it took a while letting it soak over night each application.

Edit, I tried it with one AA battery and nothing much happened. Added another in series and it's working now but not too violent. Adding a light bulb is a good idea in case you have a short. The negative connects to the rod not the gun. There is wrong info on the web about this for cleaning.
 
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Ian Robertson said:
Edit, I tried it with one AA battery and nothing much happened. Added another in series and it's working now but not too violent. Adding a light bulb is a good idea in case you have a short. The negative connects to the rod not the gun. There is wrong info on the web about this for cleaning.
Click to expand...

That is interesting. I have been using this process for quite some time with the piece to be cleaned connected to the negative terminal and have had good results. I think I need to reverse the polarity and try it on a piece of scrap. Better results would be welcome but, at this point, I am quite confident the neg. connects to the part being cleaned.

A battery trickle charger seems to work well as a power source. One with 6v/12v capability provides a little more control. The addition of a light bulb is a good point.
 
louthepou said:
I received recently a SKS which had shot corrosive ammo and was put away for a while. 1950 non-chromed bore.

Well it looked bad. Really bad.

I scrubbed and scrubbed for a while, with little effect.

Went to the range, shot about 100 rounds through it.

Came back, cleaned the bore, you know what? It's surprisingly decent now. :)

Lou
Click to expand...

just shoot the rust out comrade
 
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