Comit cleaner for a cleaning / lapping compound?

[HardBall]

This may be a real stupid question but I had to ask.

Could you smear, or sprinkle, Comit on a wet cleaning patch and use it to quickly remove the factory grease/gunk from a new barrel?

Would it also act as a mild lapping compound, smoothing any rough spots?

 

[Stumpkiller]

Comet MSDS

Appears to be basically ground up marble/limestone rock with detergent and colorant added. :hmm:

Seems kind of aggressive. I use napthalene (lighter fluid), and J-B Paste if the cleaning patch feels like it is grabbing as I pull it out slowly and easily.

Alcohol, followed by toothpaste and then a through cleaning would be a much better choice.

 

[HardBall]

Seems kind of aggressive. I use napthalene (lighter fluid), and J-B Paste if the cleaning patch feels like it is grabbing as I pull it out slowly and easily.

By searching the archives, I've seen where you use lighter fluid and J-B paste. ...Now, lighter fluid I have but I don't even know what "J-B paste" is?:huh:

Alcohol, followed by toothpaste and then a through cleaning would be a much better choice.

Teefypaste! I was actualy thinking about that, but though it wouldn't be agressive enough?

 

[Stumpkiller]

J-B

 

[HardBall]

Thanks Stumpy!!!

 

[shunka]

PLEASE, OH PLEASE! do NOT use Comet or other Household chemicals on your firearms! If you need to Lap, follow Stumpkiller's advise - or you can purchase automotive lapping compound.

Except for "windex" far too many houshold cleaners have chlorine compounds in them and that can compromise your barrel steel. I realize that many folks use chlorine or other products to "age" their firearms, and two (reasonably valid) justifications I have heard are:
1)it is only on the outside of very thick metal
2)blackpowder pressures are low.

However, if you are going to use something on your bore, please check out what chemicals are in it first -
or just stick with "known good stuff". There's a lot of good homeade or store-boughten products available, including plain old soapy water and oil.

just MHO, but I don't want any of our compadres picking shrapnel out of sensitive body parts ...

best regards
shunka

 

On the other hand, for a degreaser, PRIOR to browning the barrel, COMET is about the best for scrubbing the barrel. It will remove ALL oils and finger prints, etc. As it is scrubbed on and off, it isn't left on the barrel at all, so no harm ican be done by it. My Bro has been making custom ML rifles for 34 years now, and has always used Comet for degreasing & still does. A fingernail brush is used on the barrel and an old tooth brush is used for small parts - with comet & ot water, of course. Only then will water actually wet the steel properly.
; There are too many good lapping compounds to use it for that purpose. Sol-Vol, Flitz and JB are very 'soft' as far as lapping goes, when using a lead lapp. Most barrel makers start with something like 400 then progress to 800 or 1,000 grit for the finish lapping. Of course, they are using lead lapps cast in the barrel.
: SolVol and Flitz are about equal and JB is milder yet. They will only polish steel spun in a lathe - no metal removal that's measureable after 5 min. at 1,000rpm.- with any of them.
: I use these compounds on modern factory rifle barrels for polishing prior to shooting them. 50 strokes with solvol then 50 with JB - that way, there is little to no break-in period and the barrel rarely copper fouls.

 

[Herb]

Bruce Hodgdon, who developed the Hodgdon Powder Company, wrote that he used Comet as a safe bore fouling cleaner. It is mildly abrasive.

 

[waksupi]

I've generally used valve lapping compound when building a new rifle. I pour a lead slug on a rod end, cut some grooves around it, and load it with the compound. I try for a tapered bore, generally.
I did have an old Judge Resley barrel that was rough as a cob. I didn't lap it when building it, and fired hundreds of rounds trying to smooth it out. I finally embedded valve compound into a few patches, and fired them over about ten grains of powder. I had to repeat it for a total of about fifteen rounds. It finally stopped cutting patches, and the groups went down to as good as I could see and hold from the bench.

 

[pepperbelly]

Your rifle's bore isn't a place to use a shortcut, or an untested homebrew ;apping compound.
Use a good commercial bore lapping compound like J-B. It is designed to do what you need without damaging the bore.
Other lapping compounds will either remove too much metal or not enough. They are designed to do something different than what is needed in a rifle or pistol barrel.
Experimenting with patch lubes is one thing. You can't do anything bad that can't be undone- removing leftover fouling, etc. If you remove too much metal in the bore it is gone!
Buy the good stuff. Brownell's is a very good source.
Jim

 

[RussB]

I can't disagree with a thing that's been said, but I have used "Old Dutch" cleaner for this very same purpose.

One of the cleaners is supposed to be bad...Ajax, Commet, or one of them, and I don't remember why or which one, but a good paste made with Old Dutch has never done any harm that I know of, at least in any of my rifles.

For that matter, I have even used rottenstone and mineral oil on a particular rifle. I have also used valve grinding coumpound from NAPA, and I have used "Flitz" for fire-lapping. A rifle barrel is a fairly solid hunk of metal and sometimes takes some pretty agressive abrasive action to do anything at all to it....other than just shine it.
But again, sometimes just a polish and a shine is ALL it needs.

Still yet, JB Bore Paste is the recommended best, and should be used when it's available.

Russ

 

[Gatofeo]

I use JB and like it.
An alternative is Iosso Bore Cleaner, which comes in a tube and is paste-form. I've found it at least equal to, or superior to, JB.
I've used both on all kinds of gun barrels (shotgun, rifle, revolver, pistol, black powder rifle, black powder revolvers) and they're both good.
I particularly like the Iosso because it appears to contain a small amount of ammonia, which really gets down into minute cracks and "pulls out" fouling. I can't explain it, but on heavily fouled barrels it seems to work better.
I also use either on new gun barrels, before firing the first shot. Lapping the bore with a tight patch containing either JB or Iosso smooths is noticeably. I've particularly found this beneficial on cap and ball sixguns.
See my Oct. 13, 2004 post, "How to best use a cap and ball sixgun" for more information on using it on these guns. Much of what I've said can be transposed over to modern guns.

 

[fatboy]

Ive used the JB's on several nasty military bores that I have had to work on and this stuff is great I got one rifle that looked like a lost cause to shoot 1-1/2" groups took abot a week of work but was well worth it !

 

[pepperbelly]

I collect Curios and Relics, like old Mausers.
Pitting in a barrel dosn't necessarily mean the rifle won't shoot.
I have had a rifle that had pitting in the barrel. It still shot 2" groups at 100 yards. Over cleaning actually made the accuracy worse. I stopped removing the copper fouling down to bare metal when I cleaned. The small amount of fouling apparently sealed the pits enough to make the barrel still useable.
If you do find pitting and accuracy is going you may try shooting a few conicals to allow the lead fouling to fill the pits. Or you may find the pitting isn't bad enough to hurt accuracy with prb's. You may have to use conicals exclusively.
Don't throw a barrel away before trying everything you can to save it.
If you just have some surface rust in the bore you can use light oil, like 3 in 1 oil, and some #0000 steel wool wrapped around an undersize bore brush. That alone can make a bore shine.
Jim