cleaning an old dirty bore

[stockerphil]

My first mil surp since 1964, this O3A3 (Remington 383XXXX, barrel maked R.A. with flaming bomb and 8-43) looks pretty good, under the cosmoline (? grease?) around the receiver still lots of green parkerizing on the bolt etc. Cracks behind the tang which I fixed. But the barrel is filhty, not sure if it's rust, solid cosmoline or pitting. Been working with bore brush and mineral spirits, Iosso, and Hoppes #9 Nitro without noticeable results. Any ideas??? What dia brush should I use, used a 30-06 and 308 but the bristles wear down to no friction pretty quick

Thanks

Information

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[Calif-Steve]

This sure sounds like a toast bore. Meaning you will soon be looking for a new barrel. Lots of the ex-VFW rilfes have bad bores. You may now be the owner of one of them. Try putting a cork in the muzzle and filling it up with hot soapy water. Lret it stand until cool and then clean it out. Good luck.

[Johnny Peppers]

Some will cringe at the suggestion, but you can scrub with the bronze bristle brushes until your arms wear out and it still not clean up. I had a nice Model 1895 Winchester in .30-40 Krag that had probably been shot with GI ammo and not properly cleaned. The funny thing was that while most of the bore looked like an exhaust pipe, the last 3 or 4 inches of the bore was still sharp and shiney. I scrubbed and scrubbed with bore brushes, and finally ended up using 1/0 steel wool wrapped around a .25 bore brush. Red dust from the rust in the barrel started coming out, and after a good scrubbing while the bore was still dark, the lands came into view and the old rifle shot very well after the cleaning.

Use the proper brush size for your bore. If you use a larger brush the bristles will just fold over and don't scrub as well.

[Patrick Chadwick]

Any abrasive cleaning will remove some of the steel as well as the rust. If the barrel is a candidate for the scrapyard in its present condition, then I suggest that you search the Blackpowder and Restorer's forums for "electrolytic cleaning", which I have described in detail on more than one occasion. The electrolytic method reduces the hard rust to a softer black sludge which you can then clean out with patches, thus saving wear on your arms and what remains of the rifling. And it will get the rust out of the inside corners of the rifling down to the last fraction of a thou, which no brush can do, because of the finite size of the bristles.

When you have cleaned the bore electrolytically, then the cleaned out rust pits will still have sharp edges that will tend to tear microsopic bits off the bullets - so you will get copper fouling very quickly. Stage two is therefore to acquire a handful of hard lead bullets and use Neco fire-lapping paste to smooth off the edges of the pits. Then it's back to shoot-clean-shoot clean.... One day electrolytic cleaning, followed by one session at the range for fire-lapping will be enough to show whether the bore is usable


Patrick

[Johnny Peppers]

Yes, any abrasive is harder than the barrel whether used for fire lapping or hand lapping and will remove metal, but the 1/0 steel wool is softer than the barrel material. The barrel described by the OP will never be bright and shiney unless you polish the pits, but getting the majority of the crud out of the bore may restore it to a shooter.

[jmoore]

I guess the supply of "new in wrap" or nearly so '03A3 barrels has about dried up? Wasn't too long ago that they littered the countryside.

[Mike Haas]

I guess the supply of "new in wrap" or nearly so '03A3 barrels has about dried up? Wasn't too long ago that they littered the countryside.

I've got three of them..just not ready to sell them..

[stockerphil]

Thanks to you all. The lands are visible - it is the grooves that still are foul. I will try the soap and water that Calif-steve suggests, while looking up the electrolytic cleaning, thank you Patrick. Johnny Peppers, did you ever use stainless steel 'Buds' instead of the steel wool? I've used them on rust removal and they seem to cut off the rust with less blue removal than 1/0 steel wool. Also have you tried 3M pads instead of steel wool?

This week I'm going to try and check headspace, if thats OK I might try firing a round through - make sure it fires OK. Any problem you guys see with firing a round before getting the barrel all clean?

P

[Johnny Peppers]

Johnny Peppers, did you ever use stainless steel 'Buds' instead of the steel wool? I've used them on rust removal and they seem to cut off the rust with less blue removal than 1/0 steel wool. Also have you tried 3M pads instead of steel wool?

P

Don't ever use 1/0 steel wool for removing rust from blue. The 1/0 grade is too aggressive for that and will scratch the blue. Use 4/0 for removing rust from blue. The 4/0 is for polishing and does a great job of removing the rust without harming the blue. It is fine enough that you can stretch it over a fingernail to get in the nooks and crannies to clean out dried oil or grease.

I have used the cleaning pads that can be bought at gun shows and they work fine, but I just prefer the 4/0 steel wood.

[stockerphil]

Patrick

Just spent 40 minutes trying to find your previous electo posts. Found section 3 - will continue looking for section 4 - about barrels

Thanks again