Tough cleaning job

[patw]

Need help.  A friend gave me a couple of Mausers, both with barrels crudded up beyond belief.  After the usual cleaning with Hoppe's 9 and Sweet 7.62, it was still awful.  After three days of wipeout, I am still getting blue out of one of them, dark patches out of the other.  I tried Foul Out III on one of them several times till I got the clean indicator light, then used wipeout again, and got dark patches again.  I am going to keep going with wipeout.  If anyone has better suggestions, please let me know.

[usherj]

Unfortunately, there is no substitute for elbow grease! I have used shooters choice, wich is an aggressive copper solvent like the Sweet 7.62 you are using (I believe). I also have used oversize cleaning brushes with good results. Final results have been mixed. A 1908 Brazilian in 7mm produced 12" groups at 50 yards and got removed promptly from the action. Where a Swede barrel produced 1.25" 5 shot groups at 100 yards. Both bores looked the same when I got them. Good luck

[84Jim]

Sounds like its time to try some J&B bore paste...

After the usual cleaning with Hoppe's 9 and Sweet 7.62

Be careful with that combination, I've heard tell that Sweets reacts with Hoppe's and Shooters Choice bore solvents and can pit your barrel.

[patw]

I did not know that about Sweet's and Hoppe's reacting, good to know.  I guess I will just have to keep at it, I just thought the crud should have come out by now.  Those are the worst barrels I have ever seen.  I have some Double Tuff brushes that are oversize and I will try that.

[anweis]

You need a simple electric bore cleaner. it's just a steel rod with spacers made of electric tape to keep it in the middle of the bore, two wires, and a 9v battery. Fill the bore with ammonia, (plug muzzle), insert rod, but make sure that it is not in contact with rifle, hook one terminal to rod and the other to the rifle. In 10-20 minutes you have a clean bore. Really clean, without damage from too much brishing, etc. Search google for drawing. 

[shot1]

Just shoot them a few times then clean some more. You most likely will not get a clean patch out of them. They sound like they have been neglected and will have some pitting in the bore. A little fouling left in the bore will help a pitted bore shoot better. The fouling fills the pits.

[Bigeasy]

I have had good luck with Shooters Choice "Xtreme clean".  A good brush and a little elbow grease always helps.  You might want to try an abrasive paste like JB's Bore Paste if the bore is really bad.

Larry

[Victor3]

You need a simple electric bore cleaner. it's just a steel rod with spacers made of electric tape to keep it in the middle of the bore, two wires, and a 9v battery. Fill the bore with ammonia, (plug muzzle), insert rod, but make sure that it is not in contact with rifle, hook one terminal to rod and the other to the rifle. In 10-20 minutes you have a clean bore. Really clean, without damage from too much brishing, etc. Search google for drawing.  

 Yup. I even used a variation of it on a 40mm cannon barrel section (note that the OP has already tried his "Foul Out" system though  )...





 There are as many barrel cleaning methods as there are shooters it seems; I'm sure many of them work just fine.

 On a few pitted barrels, one method I've used somewhat successfully was to clean the barrel thoroughly, then run a bronze brush wrapped with a patch using JB "Bore Bright" down the bore several times. This stuff is different from JB bore cleaning paste and has a slightly more aggressive polish in it. Leave a little of the Bore Bright in the bore (don't use solvent to clean it out) then go shoot the rifle and clean the bore again. Kinda similar to "fire lapping."

 I've found that after a few cycles of the above, the bore looks better and is easier to clean. However, accuracy did not improve in all of the rifles I've tried this on; some do, some don't. I've only tried it on poorly shooting pitted barrels, and none ever got any worse accuracy than before polishing.

[patw]

The reason I got the rifles is that he was getting high pressure signs in one of them, even with reduced "youth" loads.  When I looked down the barrel, I had a good idea why.  For that reason I wanted to get as much junk out of the barrel as possible before shooting it again.

[Mikey]

You probably have two types of crud in those bores.  Powder and primer residue from corrosive mil-spec ammo and copper residue from bullets travelling down the barrel. 

Use the electric type cleaner if you can and get as much crud out of them as possible.  I usually use a goodly amount of Hoppes with lots of patches and a bronze bristle brush, then go back at it the same way with Windex with Ammonia - the Ammonia helps negate the corrosive salts, as does water, and helps lift the copper residue.  I helped a buddy clean his 95 Mexican (? I think) that way - the barrel looked terrible, almost as though it had never been cleaned but a session with Hoppes, patches and brushes cleaned it right up and the bore looked beautiful, until we used the Windex and then we went back to the sewer treatment approach as the Ammonia lifted so much copper residue - just went back with a dry patch and brush and all that crud came out.

I would not use the JB paste or 'bore bright' until you have gone through the fiorst two or three steps.  Lots of times polishing paste will only polish the crud left in the barrel that is not visible to the naked eye - you want to get that stuff out before you go at it with JB to maximize its benefits...  HTH. 

[madcratebuilder]

You need a simple electric bore cleaner. it's just a steel rod with spacers made of electric tape to keep it in the middle of the bore, two wires, and a 9v battery. Fill the bore with ammonia, (plug muzzle), insert rod, but make sure that it is not in contact with rifle, hook one terminal to rod and the other to the rifle. In 10-20 minutes you have a clean bore. Really clean, without damage from too much brishing, etc. Search google for drawing. 

+1000

These home made devices are unbelievable at removing decades of crap from barrels.

[mrussel]

You need a simple electric bore cleaner. it's just a steel rod with spacers made of electric tape to keep it in the middle of the bore, two wires, and a 9v battery. Fill the bore with ammonia, (plug muzzle), insert rod, but make sure that it is not in contact with rifle, hook one terminal to rod and the other to the rifle. In 10-20 minutes you have a clean bore. Really clean, without damage from too much brishing, etc. Search google for drawing. 

+1000

These home made devices are unbelievable at removing decades of crap from barrels.

 I have a mosin that is still coming out blue,but at least I can see metal underneath the copper deposits now. Those deposits are probobally what kept he metal underneath looking as nice and shiny as it does. I dont use a brush. I just use a patch soaked in butches bore shine. I run a soaked (and dripping) patch down the barrel,leave it for a few minutes,then repeat. I see no reason to go for a clean patch every single time,as its not going to put copper back on the bore. After a few runs of that,I run a fresh clean patch down the bore,then a clean one soaked in the bore shine,then a clean one again and repeat.Eventually it will come out clean.

[1911crazy]

I got my orginal G.I. Rifle Bore Cleaner from colemans surplus.  This stuff will eat the chrome off a trailer hitch if you leave it on it long enough.

I soaked my newly purchased CZ24 in 7mm from century and got all the crud out of the barrel to find a "shootable bore" not a good or decent bore but its borderline shootable. Maybe fire lapping is next if its not accurate.(maybe as a last resort)

On my yugo sks m59's that i thought had corrosive barrels it was the rubber or plastic residue from shooting non lethal rubber/plastic bullets.  Again after soaking it with the orginal G.I. Rifle Bore Cleaner i again ended up with decent shootable bores.

I really don't like to use bore brushes but sometimes we do.  Run some wet patches in the bore and then bore brush it.  Then repeat, then repeat till its clean.

Now the albanian sks's is another story with the caked on cosmoline.  I got a large plastic tub from walmart and put in 3 gallons of kerosene and let all the metal parts soak in it for days.  But everyday i would take a soft parts cleaning brush and clean them and let them soak again.  Then once they seemed to be clean i gave them a G.I. cleaning with the rifle bore cleaner too.  I never seen the cosmoline this bad in any other surplus rifle.  The albanians were the worst.

[mrussel]

Need help.  A friend gave me a couple of Mausers, both with barrels crudded up beyond belief.  After the usual cleaning with Hoppe's 9 and Sweet 7.62, it was still awful.  After three days of wipeout, I am still getting blue out of one of them, dark patches out of the other.  I tried Foul Out III on one of them several times till I got the clean indicator light, then used wipeout again, and got dark patches again.  I am going to keep going with wipeout.  If anyone has better suggestions, please let me know.

 I want friends that give me mausers.