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Offline Remmag

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Cleaning 102 year old barrel ?
« on: July 12, 2009, 01:25:00 PM »
Recently aquired a 1895 Winchester (.30/40) in good shape. It disasembled and cleaned-up nicely. The barrel has good rifling, but try as I might, it won't clean-up. I've run a zillion patches with various solvents and they are still coming out black. Does any body have any suggestions?  Thanks  ???
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Offline Graybeard

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Re: Cleaning 102 year old barrel ?
« Reply #1 on: July 12, 2009, 01:27:33 PM »
Probably rusted if that old. I'd use JB Bore Paste on tight fitting patches or over caliber mops.
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Offline trotterlg

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Re: Cleaning 102 year old barrel ?
« Reply #2 on: July 12, 2009, 04:39:33 PM »
Probably one of the electric bore cleaners would be the thing to use, look them up, you can make one up with a flash light and some metal rod.  They will really get it clean, but you may not want to see what is under all that fouling.  Larry
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Offline Smokin Joe

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Re: Cleaning 102 year old barrel ?
« Reply #3 on: July 12, 2009, 06:47:51 PM »
+1 on what Larry said........you may open a can of worms. Give it a real good shot of Kroil and let it sit overnight and see what happens.
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Offline torpedoman

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Re: Cleaning 102 year old barrel ?
« Reply #4 on: July 12, 2009, 06:51:54 PM »
i made one of the cleaners and it really works great if the barrel is leaded that bad chances are the lead kept it from rusting if you want pm me with an email add and ill send you directions on how to make one.
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Offline STexhunter

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Re: Cleaning 102 year old barrel ?
« Reply #5 on: July 12, 2009, 11:02:56 PM »
I made one of the electric bore cleaners and they work.  I used a low volt hand tool charger I had lying around instead of a battery and a 1/8 steel rod.  Tried it on it on some old military rifles I have.  These barrels were really gummed up.  So I decided what the heck, I used window cleaner with ammonia in it for the bore cleaner, don't want to leave that stuff in a barrel very long.  It really got some junk out.  Now I have a copper coated steel rod.  Then I cleaned the barrels really good with regular bore cleaners and finally with a light coat of light oil.  A couple of the barrels now look great and it improved accuarcy.  Larry is right, you may not want to find out whats under all that gunk.  One old Mosin bore now looks like a gravel road.   
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Offline StrawHat

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Re: Cleaning 102 year old barrel ?
« Reply #6 on: July 29, 2009, 01:52:43 AM »
Quote from: Remmag on July 12, 2009, 01:25:00 PM
Recently aquired a 1895 Winchester (.30/40) in good shape. It disasembled and cleaned-up nicely. The barrel has good rifling, but try as I might, it won't clean-up. I've run a zillion patches with various solvents and they are still coming out black. Does any body have any suggestions?  Thanks  ???

I had an 1895 carbine and a rifle both in 30 Gov't.  Both barrels still resembled sewer pipes after extensive sessions with cleaning and polishing compounds.  I ended up getting one rebarreled and the other I shot using paper patched bullets.  The PP bullets were accurate and after 6 months or so I noticed a huge improvemnet in the appearance of the bore.  You might give it a try.
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Offline usherj

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Re: Cleaning 102 year old barrel ?
« Reply #7 on: July 29, 2009, 02:45:29 PM »
I recently bought a 1919 Swedish mauser with what looked like a dark bore after cleaning with patches at the gunshop. Used a slightly oversized brush with shooters choice when I got home and it brightened right up. Tried it at the range and got 2" 5 shot group at 100 yards. Don't be discouraged. Hope you have good results
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