leaded barrel

[No Deer]

I have been doing some trap shooting the last few weeks with my trade gun. How much shooting can I do before I have to worry about leading in the barrel? Or should I get some of that lead disolver and start right away cleaning the lead? Don't want to booger up my barrel with lead, as it shoots really well with both shot and round ball right now.

 

[redwing]

You won't hurt the barrel. It just comes down to this. Do you want to do a little work after shooting,or do you want to work like H*** to clean it up later? Try some of Butch's Lead Remover and steel wool it works well. :thumbsup:

 

[paulvallandigham]

I have used HOPPE'S No. 9 lead solvent, an old, reliable modern gun solvent, to remove the little bit of lead that gets in the barrel. I have also used Shooter's choice, which works very well. A good bore brush takes much of the work out of cleaning lead out of a smoothbore. I like to dop the brush into the solvent, and then run it down the barrel in a ' back and forth " actuin to scrube the barrel while the solvent goes to work getting under the lead streaks, and allowing the brush to break them up and off the steel bore.

I found early on that if I first wipe out powder residue( crud ) with a damp patch or 3, and then use lead solvent on a cleaning patch that is fairly well soaked with the stuff, and put that down the barrel leaving the RR in the barrel for the trip home, By the time I get home, the lead is loose, and comes out fairly easily on the cleaning patch with the solvent that took the ride home in the gunbarrel. With my DB shotgun, I can't obviously have two rods down the barrels, but I found that a good soaking of one barrel, and then another good soak and wipe of the second, leaving that cleaning patch with solvent on the jag, and the RR down the barrel allowed me to clean up both barrels very quickly when I got home. After a particularly long shoot, I had to soak the first barrel longer, so I just put more solvent on a new patch, and ran it down the barrel, and left it sit while i put the rest of my stuff away. Then I cleaned the lead out of the barrel in long streaks, flushed, it, dried it, oiled it, and put it away. I do put the gun muzzle DOWN on newspaper, and paper towel for the first few days, so that any excess oil comes out of the barrel onto the paper toweling. Then I case the guns and leave them in my gun closet. I always check all the screws on my gun to make sure they have not worked loose. If I have a screw that seems to make that a habit, I dig out my LockTite, and put a drop on the threads to end that. I always check the gun's action to make sure its functioning properly, is cleaned and oiled, and ready to go. That way, I don't have to spend a lot of time preparing my guns before I go out shooting the next time. If I have not had the gun out in several months, I clean the gun and re-oil it, and check all the working parts and screws the night before the gun goes out. The process allows me to get familiar with the feel of the gun, and give me the confidence that the gun is ready to use, and will function properly. I used to use WD40 as a lube, but after I had a revolver malfunction because the stuff had dried out and gummed up the works, I cleaned all my guns of the stuff, and have changed to using RemOil, a commercial gun oil. I am sure there are many good oils you can choose to use. I just happened to find this on sale when I went looking.

 

[roundball]

One of the "electro-chemical" lead or copper removers are fantastic for rifles and handguns...would exactly the same for muzzleloader barrels...a leaded barrel is a leaded barrel, etc, etc.

Set it up, turn it on, let it sit for a few hours, come back and slide the collector rod up out of the bore and it'll be coated with all the lead that was on the bore walls which transferred over to the collector rod.

 

[redwing]

What brand do you have? Did it come with long rods 42" 46" Etc. My number one question is what about carbon? How can they work on carbon nonmetal elements in the barrel. The carbon can be a real problem in any firearm old or new.
Who has the best deals on these? I also shoot Military Target modern high power, throat carbon is a real problem.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Carbon is cleaned out with a Bore Brush. I don't think there is any kind of electronic gizmo that wil take it out. Most solvents and cleaners don't work any bettern than soap and water. I use " FLITZ " to clean and polish the front of my cylinder on my chrome plated revolver. The residue is burned into the metal, and I find that this chemical cleaner is able, after a fashion, to get it off again.

If someone else has a better cleaner for carbon, I want to hear what it is, too. :thumbsup:

 

[roundball]

The one I got was "Outers"...the collector rod is simply a few sections of stainless steel that screw together...if you've already got a long stainless steel ramrod that should do fine.

1) Clean as much oil and stuff out of the barrel and off the rod as possible;

2) Stand the rifle upright against something where it won't fall over;

3) Plug the vent or nipple hole to make a seal;

4) Slide the stainless steel rod down bore with a rubber insulator on the bottom end, and 3-4 rubber o-rings around the rod up and down it's length so it can't touch metal anywhere (or it won't work).
In a centerfire, there are tapered rubed plugs used to seal the chamber...and the bottom end of the rod rests on the end of the rubber plug that is squeezed into the chamber...but for a ML you'll need to have something non-insulated slid / taped onto the bottom end of the rod...may be that simply a few wraps of plastic electrical tape will do, just don't let the rod drop and hit bottom too hard or the rod might cut through the tape and short out.
(These things are just battery operated so there's no electrical "danger", it's just that if the collector shorts to the barrel the process won't work)

5) Pour in / fill up the bore with the "Lead Out" liquid;

6) Connect one alligator clip to the rod, the other alligator clip to the outside of the barrel and turn it on.

I found that by shutting it off periodically, removing the rod, cleaning off buildup that's already accumulated, and restaring the process seeds things up...the more that the rod is covered with lead, the less efficient the process works.

 

[Leatherbark]

If you search the internet for a homemade foul out machine (on the surplus rifle forums) you'll find out how to make one out of a piece of stainless steel rod and "O"rings and ammonia and 2 "D" batteries.....Those guys swear it will clean old Mauser barrel of all their gunk............Bob

 

[capt jack]

Paul ;

Having been an NRA Shotgun instructor for some years now , I see alot of guns with a great amount of Carbon build up in the forcing cones from extensive shooting . Could never find anything that would really disolve that stuff , until one day , the light went on . Get a can of PB Blaster from an auto store . Spray it in the bore , let it soak for awhile , then run your bore snake . ALL Gone . I try to keep it off the gun stock , just to be safe ---Jerry

 

[paulvallandigham]

Thanks, Jerry. What is PB Blaster sold for use in Auto maintenance? I ask, just in case I can't find that brand here locally. Are there any negatives to using the product in a gun barrel?

 

[roundball]

And using this device on a couple of used CF rifles I'd bought, I got the impression that there were layers of carbon and copper.
I'd get the bore squeaky clean using normal solvent, brushes, & patches...then pull off some more copper with the device.

Then when I'd give it another normal cleaning I'd get more black crud out...went through these alternating operations for a few hours while working around the house until the bore finally stopped giving up copper or black crud, and figured I was down to bare metal at that point.

 

[CZMark]

PB Blaster is a penetrating oil. If you can't find it by brand, you can't find it--there is nothing else like it.Since it is made for use on metal, it should do no harm to a gun barrel.

For carbon removal, brake cleaner and carburetor cleaner are hard to beat, but keep brake cleaner away from stocks and anything plastic.

 

[clayman49]

Hi there,
leading can be a problem if you let it! I shoot only ML shotgun and cleaning is easy, wash out the black residue/fouling, then I use a phospher bronze brush with a BP solvent; this if followed by a Tornado Brush (which is not a brush realy but coils of stainless) this loosens the leading. In the old days people use what is called a Turks Head, but they like steel wool it will wear your barrel. I follow this up with a jag with a solvent soaked cloth, then I dry and finished off by swabbing with a good quality oil for storage. I do my perc SxS shotgun in about ten mins, my flinter is quicker. Happy shooting Richard T.

 

[paulvallandigham]

If its a penetrating oil then I can think of a couple of other brands of penetrating oils. Liquid Wrench, Kroil, are two that come to mind. I will try to pick up some carborator cleaner and see if that won't cut the carbon.

 

[Dave K]

As much as I struggle with it, I am not certain you can ever get totally clean patch after shooting shot. At least I can't and I must be doing something wrong. I use a brush with and with out a patch, with water, then I go to a jag and patch, that is lubed with Ballistol. I loose count how many patches I have used, but the patches will start out kind of a green/gray and will always remain gray no matter how I scrub. Unless, I go to using steel wool and as much as I shoot the shotguns, I would think in time I would go up in bore size.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Dave: Use lead solvent to remove the lead deposits in the barrel. The stuff really does work. I have had streaks of lead come out on my cleaning patches only an hour after I put the solvent in the barrel and let it soak. If you leave it longer, it works even better.

 

[Dave K]

Paul, is there any down side to this aggressive chemical cleaner, to the barrels? Would you do it every time you shoot or just at the end of the hunting season? Soon(I hope), I will be using one of several ml'ing shotguns nearly every day. Sounds as if I could spend more time cleaning than shooting. Not, that I don't want take care of a gun,that is not the issue at all. Just trying to make common sense of it. Like I don't clean my target 22(Rem.37) with lead remover everytime I shoot it, but I will clean it, every shooting season.

 

[paulvallandigham]

If you shoot a modern shotgun, I would use your cleaning practices to remove both plastic and lead from the barrel of that gun as a general rule for your ML shotgun. You need to clean the BP residue( or the subs, if you insist on using the stuff) Daily, of course, but in the field, you may only fire a shot or two, much less than you would practicing on a trap, skeet, or Sporting Clays range. If I know I am going to go hunting with the same gun the next day, I am going to clean out the residue, and oil the gun, but wait until there is a lull in the shooting before I work on getting out the lead. I have been known to simply wipe the bore with a patch soaked in Hoppe's #9, and leave the gun sit out overnight, so that in the morning, I can run a couple of dry patches down the barrel to remove the lead, and dry the barrel before loading it for that day's shooting. (" A watched pot never boils!" B. Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac)

 

[Russianblood]

I use Shooter's Choice lead solvent and a stainless steel tornado brush for lead removal. The bronze brushes just don't work. And I would do it every time you clean after shooting shot. A little work every time is better than a lot of work later on.