Best Copper Lead remover

[bsaride]

I have a new to me Marlin that looks like it may have 99 yrs of
leading/fouling to remove.

What is the best stuff to use and where do I get it?

Thanks,
Jay

[brshooter]

Sweet's 7.62 Solvent for Copper Fouling, Lead fouling- Brass wool around a brass brush, Carbon fouling-mix of 1/3 reg. Hoppe's #9 and 2/3 Hoppe's #9 Plus. All available from any good gun shop. Also good for carbon fouling is Slick 2000 "Carbon Killer", order directly from them at www.slip2000.com. Jon

[freedom475]

Bronze wool will remove lead very well, it is softer than the steel in the gun but is harder than the lead. I is available at most hardware stores. I will polish your barrel to a shine.

The best for removing copper foul was given to me by a 50BMG bench shooter. You can clean with SWEET's until the patches come out clean, then run a patch of this home brew and it will come out blue .He would not tell me what all was in it but amonia for sure. Try some of the 50 BMG sites.

[9.3X62AL]

PILE-ON for BR Shooter's recommendation. I went that same route to de-gunkify (very esoteric term there, very high-concept) a 1918 BSA Enfield. I knew there was steel under all that plating and carbon. It took about 10 cycles of Sweet's for 15 minutes, Hoppe's Blend for 8 hours, then Break-Free CLP over night to allow air to the ferrous metal after 85 years of accumulation. Never in all my born days did I see more green and black detritus get removed from a rifle bore. Leaving the white T-shirt material patches atop the bench overnight after patch-out produced some of the best tie-dyed color patterns ever seen since Haight-Ashbury. I could have sold them as groupie badges at Grateful Dead concerts. "Just pin it to your peasant blouse, sweetheart. That's it."

It is now one of my favorite cast boolit platforms--not terribly accurate, but what it lacks in grouping ability is more than compensated for by class and panache. Just like my rebuilt Broomhandle, whose participation in varmint hunts is hell for artistic impression--but a little lacking in technical merit.

[bsaride]

I have a penchant for the old and interesting too!

Newest firearm at this point is a 1946 revolver.

[fenris]

An old timer that only used front stuffers gave me this combo for cleaning the fouling and lead build up out . A mix of fifty fifty ammonia and alcohol. smells like hell but will remove lead and build up. I use it on all my firearms does a good job on them all. Be sure to wipe totally dry and apply a good coating of gun oil when finished.

[68 couper]

I know an old timer that would use murcury to clean heavy leading. Don't try this at home.

Couper

[bsaride]

Seems bronze wool is what I need, I am using Butch's (similar to Sweet's)
that is working, and also have the Slick 2000. Knew I was missing a piece
of the puzzle.

Thanks guy's,
Jay

[dromia]

For copper 10% ammonia and Eds Red wet patch/dry patch turn and turn about, don't leave the ammonia in the barrel for more than 15 minutes each time.

For lead a good soak with Kroil followed by tight patches or scrubbed with bronze copper wool/brush.

If you are feeling tired and are flush then Wipe Out is the biscuits, they have one each for lead and copper but I find the copper once eases the lead out as well.

In these processes the copper is dissolved but the lead has to be removed mechanically, thats how the Kroil works getting between the lead and the barrel.

[jrgift]

Wipe out is my favorite,leave in over nite if wanted.

[Wayne Smith]

A process note - you probably have layers of fouling in that barrel, and the use of specific solvents will only dissolve that layer of fouling and stops at the next layer of dissimilar fouling. To throughly clean an old bore you will have to alternate solvents over and over.

[bsaride]

Wayne,

That's what I was thinking too. On hold until the winds die down here in So Cal.
The strong solvents are only used outside.

Thanks everyone for your input and reccomendations.
Jay

[BigSlick]

You've gotten some great ideas so far, all of them will work.

I've used most of the above, or a combination over the years and have found one thing lately that works like gangbusters.

Hoppe's Elite Bore Foam (or MPro7 same stuff, different bottle). Just foam the barrel full and walk away for a while.

Come back, hit it with a dry patch, followed by a lubed patch. Done.

I know, this sounds like some kind of hokey sales pitch for some wonder snake oil, but I received a bottle from a bud, actually took it so he would shut up about the stuff, it was startin to wear on me a little.

I figured, OK, you wanna hang with chore boy and Ed's Red and Hoppe's, come on with it.

I foamed the barrel of an old Mauser given to me years ago. It was packed with cosmoline that dried while on the Ark. It was worse than glue, I tried cleaning it out years ago, and got tired of messing with it and put that little project on the back burner for about 8 years or so.

I figured I would call my bud, tell him I declared the stuff **** and that would be the end of it, cause he's been harpin about the stuff the last two or three times we went shooting.

I foamed it full, and let it sit a while, then turned the barrel up so anything left wet could drain a little. I foamed it again and left it over night.

I really didn't want to waste the time, effort or patches to deal with it, but figured it would probably be best to at least wipe the **** out before I stored it for another 8 years.

First patch slid about half way down the barrel and started getting some serious resistance, great, now I plugged the damned barrel with a gob of cosmoline, I'm gonna sell the damned thing if so. I backed the patch out a little to see if that would helpand I hear this slurpin sound. I pulled the rod/ patch all the way out and there was a chunk of cosmoline with chunks of lead speckled all thru it in one peanut butter consistency lump.

I wet another patch with the stuff and slid it down the barrel and finally got the gob in the middle to move and pushed it out the end of the barrel. Nasty ain't the word for it, disgusting might come close. It was sticky, like the last plug I pulled out but the whole thing was just full of chucks and slivers of copper, guilding metal, lead and God knows what else.

I ran a clean brush with a little #9 down the barrel and followed it with a soakin wet patch, then a dry one.

I looked down the bore with a light and it was shiny as hell. Hardly any rifling, but it wasn't pitted and what was left of the grooves looked even.

I was pretty amazed. Still not impressed with the Mauser, but that's another story.

I've since tried the stuff to clean the comp on the 500SW, several pistols, the SP101 after sending some scorching loads down range and it's as easy as foam the barrel, hit it with a couple of patches and go. It even cleaned up an old Remington 788 that I inherited that has (had) what I thought was a dark bore.

It's simple to use, the foam is idiot easy and it's not too high priced.

Maybe worth a try, cause I'm all about easy and the guns I clean seem cleaner than ever.

No, I don't sell the stuff, or work for Hoppe's it just seems to work.

FWIW,
________
FIX PS3 (http://fixps3.info/)

[Typecaster]

Hey 9.3x62—
Man, I miss those peasant blouses.
At happy hour last night I asked my wife if she still had one...probably not one of the best ideas of my life.

[Mike C]

To clean out the carbon deposits go to local GM car dealer's parts counter and buy some Top Engine Cleaner (TEC). It's made to cln carbon deposits from engines and is proported to be same as Hoppe's Elite. Works great , available as spray or liquid and MUCH cheaper than Elite.

[Lloyd Smale]

ive had good luck with wipe out too. Ive cleaned guns till the pactches came clean with shooters choise and put wipe out in overnight and was ammazed by the junk that was still in there. But the best thing for a badly fouled gun still is jb bore paste.
Wipe out is my favorite,leave in over nite if wanted.