Rough/rusty bore

[danno123]

Hi guys - I'm a newbie (which is pretty obvious from my post count). I've got an inline and I had a percussion pistol years ago but I'm just getting back into the traditional BP stuff.
I just bought a .50 Hawken from a guy. He said he had only shot it a few times. I believe him because with the rifle I got almost a full pound of Pyrodex, about 90 balls and about 90 caps, so I figure he only put about 10 round down the barrel.
I knew that there was a chance the bore was rusty from improper cleaning/storage but the guy only wanted $80 for the package and I thought I saw traces of bore butter in the bore near the muzzle, so I decided it was worth the risk.
I brought the rifle home and, sure enough, the cleaning patches came out brown. I used some WD-40 and a bronze brush and some cleaning patches on the bore. After doing this for quite a while, soaked patches still come slightly brown. Also, when I push a patch down, I can feel that the bore is rough about the last 6 inches of the cleaning rod's travel. I tried to polish the bore a little bit with some Iosso but there's still a rough area. When I shine a flashlight down the bore, it looks shiny and in good condition near the muzzle but I can't really see down far enough to see the rough area. After cleaning it as well as I could, I ran a patch soaked with Johnson's paste wax down the bore to protect it while I registered for this site and got some advice about what to do.
I'm leaning towards just taking the rifle out to the range and shooting the heck out of it but I thought I'd see whether there are any flaws to that plan or if I should do something about the bore before I fired it. I'm not looking to win any competitions with this rifle, but I'd like it to be accurate enough for deer hunting.

By the way, for the guys who like to know about such things, the rifle is a .50 Hawken 1/66 twist with single set trigger and no patch box. It has Spanish barrel proofmarks, so I think it's the model that Traditions sells through Bass Pro.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Obviously the guy who owned it left it uncleaned for a period of time, and the bore was corroded where fouling is the worst. To fix the barrel so its like new, you would have to remove the breechplug, and pour several laps and lap the barrel with them.

Since the the front part of the barrel is okay, I am going to suggest you go ahead and fire the gun. Sometimes, just shooting the gun will take down a lot of rough spots.

There is also a process called " Fire lapping, where you put lapping compound( you can buy it at your auto supply store) around your patch, and run the patch and ball down on the powder. When the gun is fired, the lapping compound abrades the lands and removes some of the rust and rough spots. Several members have reported good success using this method to fix older barrels.

Unless you actually make a lap and lap the barrel, you are not going to polish the rough spots in the Grooves in the barrel.

You can also use a bore brush with 4-O steel wool wrapped around it, and some good oil poured into the barrel to work the area that is rough. Sometimes this will work on parts of the grooves as well as the lands, but the lands get the lions share of the polishing. Steel wool is good for removing rust, but not very good for removing steel, to remove pits. The steel used in steel wool is not hard enough for that job. That is why we talk about using a lapping compound which is made from silica and other harder materials.

The most important portion of a barrel for accuracy is the last 8 inches, just behind the muzzle. Shoot the gun and see how it works. For $80.00, you don't have that much invested, and its worth the try. You might also look around to replace that barrel. A new barrel will cost you more than what you paid for the gun, but that is your choice.

 

[2172]

Pilgrim, welcome to the forum, and back to bp shooting. If I had that gun, I'd wrap some fine steel wool around a bronze brush, soak it in one of the solvents, and scrub for a while, concentrating on that area you ID'd as rough. Since the gun has been fired little, I'd be sure to do some of the scrubbing the length of the bbl to get rid of tool marks and such. Finally, and here's where many will disagree with me, I'd use J&B Bore paste as a patch lubricant and fire a few balls that way.
keep in mind that a bore doesn't have to be perfect to shoot well, so also shoot it and see how it prints...good luck, Hank

 

[Blizzard of '93]

welcome to the forum, you came to the right place :thumbsup: for 80$ you got a deal, it can be made to shoot fairly well. you might try getting a .45 jag and cut 'patches' from a 3M handpad (medium grit) to scrub the bore with. I've done that in the past on some rough bores with good results. use WD to wet the 'patch' and clean well after many strokes. drop a .45acp casing down the bore with the rim facing up, it helps if you shine it up good, this will reflect the light so you can see the bore when shining a light down.
good luck, Blizzard

 

[kevthebassman]

Just like to chime in that the TC Renegade I bought on[url] gunbroker.com[/url] looked like hell when I got it. Bore was full of fouling and rust, and underneath that full of pits. I nearly lost hope but tried the steel wool trick, got her cleaned up, and now she shoots wonderful!

The bore still looks like hell, but shoots great. :grin:

And it has gotten better the more I shoot and clean it.

 

[Bountyhunter]

Rust is produced from water, not oil. I think water cuts it better taking it out also. I just redid a barrel a lot like the one you're talkin about , I pulled the nipple, stood the barrel in a bucket of warm water then used a patch made from some green scotchbrite on at tight jag. It took all the crud out of the barrel and shined it up after 3-4 changes of the green patches. I would run the full length of the barrel as I think that scotchbrite cuts pretty good. You dont want a loose spot rubbed in there.

I used the regular .54 jag on a piece of the green scotchbrite about 1-1/2" square. You'll have to work it a bit to get it in then it'll be tight.

 

[walruskid1]

shoot it danno! i've seen bores that looked like sewer pipes shoot very small groups. welcome aboard. wk1

 

[Juggernaut]

shoot it danno! i've seen bores that looked like sewer pipes shoot very small groups. welcome aboard. wk1

Well put I have a .45 cal in the same condition!! Shoots very well.

Juggernaut

 

[Gus]

Welcome to the group!

I recently bought two guns in similar condition. One a TC New Englander and most recently a CVA, both in .54 cal, cap locks. Without knowing anything about lapping compound (good idea) I had my wifey hold the barrel and I used a cordless drill on the range rod with a bronze bore brush. WD-40 is cheap, so I used that til the end, and then did a final cleaning with Hoppes #9, the only de-leading solvent I own. When the WD-40 came out real dirty, I dumped it out and replace it again and again til it was clean. In order to keep the solvent in the bore, I shoved some wax in the nipple which easily came out later. Both guns shoot now like a peach. I have no way to measure how used or worn they really are, but they're very accurate with PRB's and now have an owner who pampers them. Poor little neglected guns. A rusty gun is like a wimpering puppy to me. I'm a sucker.

I don't know what it is about these smokepoles, but I don't want to shoot anything else, with the exception of my bow.

 

[danno123]

Thanks for all the advice. I dropped an empty 9mm case into the barrel and it reflected enough light from the flashlight to examine the bore. The bore has some rough spots but they're all pretty far down the barrel. The muzzle end of the bore is in very good shape for the last foot or so, so I think it'll shoot fine. I'll try to polish those rough spots out through repeated firing. :grin:

 

[J.D.]

There is also a process called " Fire lapping, where you put lapping compound( you can buy it at your auto supply store) around your patch, and run the patch and ball down on the powder. When the gun is fired, the lapping compound abrades the lands and removes some of the rust and rough spots. Several members have reported good success using this method to fix older barrels.

There is more to fire lapping than lubing a patch with lapping compound.

IMHO, any abrasive on a cloth patch will create excessive wear on the edges of the lands without polishing the grooves.

Personally, I would not use valve grinding compound from an auto parts store. Brownells sells several grits of lapping compound that are far more uniform than valve grinding compound.

If a barrel is really rough, 120 or 180 grit is a good place to start.

Fire lapping is done with a lead bullet, mini, maxie, or what have you that is bore size, or will expand to bore size. By bore size, I mean groove to groove diameter, not land to land diameter.

IMHO,the best way to fire lap a ML rifle is with hollow base minis sized to land to land diameter.

The bullet is rolled between two steel plates smeared with lapping compound to embed the compound into the bullet. The longer the bullets are rolled between the plates, the better. The information I recieved suggests rolling the bullets for 15 minutes.

The bullet is loaded into a CLEAN oiled bore and fired with only enough powder to eject the bullet. 20-30 gr FFFG should be plenty to expand the skirt, driving the skirt of the mini with embedded compound into the grooves.

The rifle MUSTbe cleaned thoroughly between shots, otherwise fouling and possible lead deposits will cause uneven lapping. Uneven lapping can, and probably will, cause more harm than good.

I have successfully used both minis and maxis to fire lap production rifles with breeches that are difficult to nearly impossible to remove. However, IMHO, lapping with a poured lap will do a better job if the breech plug can be removed.
J.D.

 

[paulvallandigham]

JD. If you read the rest of my post, I made the exact same point.

"Unless you actually make a lap and lap the barrel, you are not going to polish the rough spots in the Grooves in the barrel. "

Thanks for reinforcing my comments with your own. I too think the only way to properly lap the barrel is with a cast lead lap, in a clean oiled, barrel, using proper grits of lapping compounds.

If, However, the guy simply wants to remove rust from the LANDS of the gun, without taking the plug out and lapping the barrel properly, even the rough compounds sold in the automotive stores, which tend to be a lot cheaper than the grits sold by Brownell's, will do with a PRB that has the patch lubed with some oil, and then the lapping compound put on the patch.

I also think that this can be overdone, and cause less than uniform dimensions in the lands, and round over edges of lands. This is not quite as important to accuracy when the work is restricted to the rear of a barrel, as long as the last 8 inches of barrel behind the muzzle are in good shape. But, when you have a larger rear area in the bore, than at the muzzle, you had best use a separate OP wad to seal the bore gases, rather than expecting a cloth patch to do it all.

 

[danno123]

Thanks for the advice about lapping the bore. I don't think there's any way I'm going to get the breach plug out, so lapping with a poured lap isn't really an option.

I googled "fire lapping" and saw this article about how to do it: technical notes on fire lapping

At this point, I'm going to shoot some patched balls and see how the rifle performs. If the rifle doesn't shoot well, I'll buy some lapping compound and try fire lapping the barrel.

 

[Jumpshot]

The most important portion of a barrel for accuracy is the last 8 inches, just behind the muzzle.

Just out of curiosity, where did this number 8 come from?

 

[BullRunBear]

Dano,

Go ahead and shoot it. I am in a similar situation. I recently got an old CVA Hawken style 50 cal. caplock. (For 20 bucks, I figured there was nothing to lose.) It's beat up looking and the bore is pitted but it is mechanically sound. I cleaned it out as best I could. Took it to the range and it is quite accurate, at least out to 50 yards. Haven't tried it farther yet. The bore looks like manure compared to my own MLs but the thing still shoots.

I intended to use it for parts but now it will serve to lend out to people who want to learn about muzzleloaders (and I don't have to worry about rough handling).

Regards, Jeff

 

[paulvallandigham]

From a long time barrel maker and gun builder, Phil Quaglino. I think he knows more about what makes an accurate barrel than I do.

 

[J.D.]

JD. If you read the rest of my post, I made the exact same point.

"Unless you actually make a lap and lap the barrel, you are not going to polish the rough spots in the Grooves in the barrel. "

There is more to it than just poishingn the grooves too. It's about consistency. IMHO, there is no consistency in applying abrasive to a cloth patch.

The purpose of lapping is to, not only smooth rough spots, but to remove any constrictions in the bore.

Firing a patch/ball combination with an abrasive applied to the patch will abrade the bore unevenly and fail to remove constrictions.

Fire lapping using bullets sized to the groove to groove diameter will do both, but, IMHO, not as well as using a cast lap.

Lapping will only remove a coupla thousanths of material, and in most cases only a few ten thousanths of material, so while lapping can improve a rough bore, it probably won't help alot with a neglected bore.

 

[nightwolf1974]

I used PB Blaster, the same stuff I use to unstick old John Deere (2cyl.) engines that are stuck from sitting. The PB Blaster and a scotch pad works good.

 

[muzzlejoe]

brownells sells k-roil or your local gunsmith might have some, it works great on rusted barrels better that wd-40 or pb blaster, only downfall it smells. bronze brush and k-roil and some time the bore will come out in the raw.

 

[FPDoc]

Kroil is the best penetrating oil around. Used all the time for (suppository) Bench Rest and Long Range shooting/cleaning. A definite standard in that realm.