heavy duty lead removal needed

[bubba.50]

recently traded into a 54 lefty renegade with the worst case of lead poisinin' i've seen in over forty yrs of foolin' with these things. musta used unlubed maxi's and full powder charges to get this amount of leadin'. at first looked like no rifling at all but after cleanin' saw some down in the barrel. tried several more cleanin' sessions with foamin' cleaner and a copper scouring pad. every time see a bit more rifling but not fast enough and my arm's about to fall off. any recommendations on a sure-fire heavy duty lead removing set-up will be greatly appreciated. thanks for listenin' friends and neighbors, bubba.

[two dogs]

white vinegar and peroxide 50/50 and dont spill on blueing.

[Nobade]

Outers Foul-Out.

[stubshaft]

Kroil and Chore Boy around a bristle brush.

[Dframe]

I was going to suggest a foul out. They work quite well but sometimes you have to use a couple of times to get it all out. Congrats on the renegade. I have the Northpaw version.

[DIRT Farmer]

Patched round balls. Swab with Behers solution (1/3 peroxide 1/3 achocal 1/3 Murphys oil soap) between shots. More fun than scrubing and it does remove the lead.

[mooman76]

How about loading a charge and putting some COW over the powder before loading a patched ball. Should clean it right out.

[DIRT Farmer]

mooman, I never tried that but the way it works in a cartridge, I don't see why it wouldn't work.

[mooman76]

I've never tried it either because I never had to but it make sence to me and at worse case it just doesn't work but I can't see that.

[bubba.50]

thanks for the suggestions. will give some of them a try. i wish i could do pictures so i could show you that this is not something that's gonna be phased by cream-o-wheat. i believe my copper scouring pad is tougher than that and it don't hardly touch it. thanks again friends, bubba.

[DIRT Farmer]

Bubba, my 28 ga trade gun builds a lead ring where the shot coloum sits. I normaly shoot several hundred loads in a week of compation and it builds up. I work on it when I clean of an evening but can't keep up. I tried steel wool, chore boy and scotch brite pads. Now I just head to the range and shoot patched round balls.

[Multigunner]

Old time gunsmiths would pour in a couple of ounces of mercury then plug the barrel and let it slosh back and forth some. Mercury could even dissolve a blown through minie ball after a while.
A a few shots with cast Zinc minie balls might do the trick.
During the Civil War they issued a cleaning cartridge with a zinc or copper washer fitted to the bullet that expanded into the grooves to scrape away lead build up.

[bubba.50]

dang multigunner, now ya got me wishin' it was the fifty that was caked with lead. i got some gas-checked boolits for my 50-70 that would take care of that job. wishin' now i had some of the mercury my uncle used to collect from old washer & dryer switches to clean his old coins with. thanks all and have a good'en, bubba.

[Canross]

Something I've had success with in horribly leaded barrels are electronic barrel cleaners. Super easy to make, safe for your gun, and work really well. I used it to clean the bore on a super ugly sewer pipe barrel winchester 94 that was essentially a parts gun and discovered it still had rifling! Took two 20 minute sessions with the bore cleaner running on its own and pushed some patches and brushes through it after each session, and that was for one of the worst barrels I've ever seen.

The theory is that you're doing the reverse of electro-plating. The current running from the positive to negative strips the lead/copper/rust deposits off the inside of the barrel and plates them onto the metal rod running down the barrel. After a session of electro cleaning your rod will be black with crud. As long as the voltage is kept low there should be little risk to the iron/steel itself, as a very high voltage current is needed to pull iron apart, unlike lead/copper deposits. As it stands two 20 minute sessions with a 4 volt charger are the most I've ever needed.

One thing I can really recommend:

Use an old cell phone charger as your power source. Everyone has super complex voltage regulating setups.... but cell phone chargers step down the voltage to between 2 and 7 volts, and are usually free..... easiest solution I've found yet. Plus has the added benefit that at a max of 7 volts there's no way you'll accidentally dial up your regulator and zap yourself.

Lots of different methods all work on the same principle:
http://www.google.ca/search?q=electronic+barrel+cleaner&rls=com.microsoft:en-ca:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7SUNC_en&redir_esc=&ei=BbRdTZPnFo22sAPPvtHeCA


P.S. I would recommend this mainly for heavily fouled guns with heavy rifling. I don't know how microgroove rifling or superfine bluing etc would react to this process.... especially since you end up with ammonia bubbling out of the barrel and are deplating.

[docone31]

Here is what I do, and I have leaded mine up some fierce untill I made my own lube.
I cast a R.E.A.L., actually several of them, actually, I spend the day with them...
I use Clover for lube! That does the trick for me. I mean, I have had several that were heavy with lead, and let sit in an humid environment for two decades! Six or so, with Clover and it starts to look better. The groups get smaller also.
I sometimes use COW, under the R.E.A.L., or Corn meal. I do not know if it helps or not. I suspect the Clover does the trick.
Then, clean up with Choreboy. TaDa!
I am happy.
I then wax the bore rather than oil it for rust prevention.

[Shooter]

Kroil and Chore Boy around a bristle brush.

+1 Maybe steel wool.

[skullmount]

I use Clover for lube! That does the trick for me. I mean, I have had several that were heavy with lead, and let sit in an humid environment for two decades! Six or so, with Clover and it starts to look better. I suspect the Clover does the trick.

I then wax the bore rather than oil it for rust prevention.


Tell me more about the Clover.

Describe how you "wax" the bore.

Thanks, skullmount

[docone31]

Clover is valve lapping compound.
I put Auto Wax on a patch and jag.

[starmac]

Congrats on finding a used lefty, There was a guy had a couple fine custom leftys at the gun show here last year. He was there, I was there and the guns were there, but I checked real hard and the bottom of my pockets came up before enough green stuff did.

I don't know how yours got leaded up that bad, but I tried some hollow base buffalo maxi's in mine and they leaded terribly immediately.

[bubba.50]

a lot of modern gun shooters have no clue when it comes to bp guns. only thing i can figger is they musta shot full-bore loads with no lube or some such. thanks for the help received here and other places. with the help of my home-made foul-out, cva barrel-blaster foaming cleaner, and more agressive scubbing i can now see rifling to the muzzle. appreciate all the help friends, bubba.

[bubba.50]

by the way starmac, my gun came from a gunshow too-$75.00! so, hang in there friend.

[skullmount]

Clover is valve lapping compound.
I put Auto Wax on a patch and jag.
:coffee:
Thanks !

I have used valve grinding compound in a few guns, just not for leading.

Guess I will try the "wax" trick.

[docone31]

With a R.E.A.L., I use the lapping compound as lube. First of all, the rifleing is engraved at loading. This helps to push some of the crud down. On firing, the lapping abrades some of the lead out. I do this a few times and take a look see.
I have gotten a real bad bore to shine this way.
The wax I put on after the rifle is squeaky clean.
Oil floats on water.

[bootsnthejeep]

Don't know if you succeeded in the cleanup yet, but my method would involve getting the breech plug out. If that can't be done, you can disregard the following advice.

I stand by Big 45 Frontier Metal Cleaner as THE solution for lead. From my earlier days of reloading (when, if possible, I knew less than I do now) being a speed demon and recoil junky with 357 handloads in a stout Smith with less than adequate boolits left me fighting a lot of lead. And a few misadventures with inadequately lubed or improperly sized (read: too small) boolits caused a few more problems in other guns.

Once I knew the solution, I was able to help out some other folks that had traded into badly leaded guns or created them by their own mistakes (cough, wasn't one to throw stones about THAT....)

I was lucky to find Big 45 earlier on, and it just flat works. I'm not 100% positive that its NOT just a regular pot scouring brush, it sure looks like it, but I'm willing to pay the $5 just for their advertising.

For 357s, I use a regular 35 caliber brush, cover with a patch, wrap with several coils of Big 45, dunk the whole works in Ed's Red, and scrub away. Usually gets all the lead in the first pass. But two passes will get it all.

However, that's only if you can go the length of the barrel and dump it out the other side. No idea what one would do in a blind barrel.

Boots

[bubba.50]

if i knew what big45 is and where to get it i'd let ya know how it works on a blind barrel. the old barrel is surprisingly accurate and not too hard to load with maxi's don't think i wanta try any patched rb's tho'. and don't know how much more room for improvement but it looks a bit better every time i shoot and clean it. thanks again to all for their time and help, bubba.

[bootsnthejeep]

Order a couple, I always end up giving at least one bag away to somebody with lead issues.

https://www.big45metalcleaner.com/Order/

[bootsnthejeep]

http://www.big45metalcleaner.com/Customers/#Shooter

Skeeter liked it. That's all I needed to hear.

[bubba.50]

if it was good enough for ol' skeeter(my favorite gun writer of all time) it's damn well good enough for me. thanks friend will give it a try.