Cleaning Out Leading in Barrels

[Wally]

I've probably been doing it wrong all these years, but I just wrap normal steel wool around a worn out brush and scrub it out in a few strokes.

Are you using 0000 steel wool?

[MBTcustom]

000 steel wool. I don't cross the crown very much. I figure that is the only really fragile part of the barrel. I vice the gun, and put my finger over the end of the barrel, so I know where to stop. Just go back and forth a dozen or so times and then out of the bore. I follow with a mop and I'm done. I have full capability to recrown the barrel if I have to but so far I have never had a problem. I use the same steel wool on the outside of the gun to gently remove surface rust without damaging the blueing, so why not use it on the inside as well?
I also have SS bore brushes I use if it gets really bad, but usually, 000 steel wool works like a charm.

[DaveInFloweryBranchGA]

Make yourself a home made Outer's Foul out. Use industrial strength pneumonia as the cleaning agent. It'll do every thing you need doing, clean your barrel of all fouling and be super cheap to do so. google is your friend on learning how to do this. All other methods are just too much work and not nearly as effective.

As far as stopping the leading, properly sized bullets of the appropriate hardness for the velocity you're firing them at will eliminate the leading from happening.

Do your due diligence research on this website. Assuming it's the hardness of the lead alone is a mistake. Follow the advice of much more experienced casters from this board and you'll do well.

[eagle-man]

I have also found that Safariland's #10 solvent does a really good job of disolving the lead. You can actially see chuncks of lead coming loose from the barrel.

[Chicken Thief]

Use industrial strength pneumonia as the cleaning agent.

Isnt that called SARS

[fourarmed]

Kroil does a very good job getting under lead in a barrel. Used with the techniques mentioned above, it will take it out quickly.

[rbertalotto]

pneumonia and steel wool..........learn something new every day!

[hithard]

Sweets and strands from a cooper scowering pad on your old brush. I put enough strands on the brush to give a nice tight fit and run through a half dozen times. Then some sweets on a mop, then back with the brush. Then a nice tight dry patch. Usually only took this routine once

So nice to not have to deal with leading anymore.

[Tokarev]

I use copper brush with ATF and it removes leading from my 9mil handgun very quickly, in about 10 passes.

[fouronesix]

I use either steel wool or bronze wool tightly patched along with an oil like Kroil. For handguns, that can really build up thick lead, I've used a Lewis Lead Remover for over 30 years. But I just have to try the pneumonia technique

[Bren R.]

a Lewis Lead Remover for over 30 years.

That's way too long to be using a Lewis Lead Remover... a minute or two at most.

Bren R.

[fouronesix]

That's way too long to be using a Lewis Lead Remover... a minute or two at most.

Bren R.

[mongo]

I use chore boy copper wrapped around an old brush and a good squirt of Ballistol. I got two cans of Ballistol from Midway. I leave a good coat in the barrels and wipe them out before shootin. The Ballistol seems to season the bore to where the lead wipes out a lot easier. Smells like old socks but is non-toxic and works,

[Gibson]

Hg
.
.
.

[Milsurp Junkie]

Mercury. If you can find some.

It has been used, and does work, by forming an amalgum with the lead/copper.
There are only two metals mercury will not form an amalgum with. Iron, and platinum. It will however wet those surfaces. After cleaning it with mercury, and then shooting rounds through it, you just contaminated an entire are with mercury vapor and aerosol droplets. Not good for you, your family, your pets, or anything else.

Mercury is nasty stuff in vapor form, worse in soluble form, and even worse in organomercury form. It does not magically disappear.

Milsurp Junkie

[Tokarev]

H2O2 slowly dissolves leading. The more concentrated - the better. Add a bit of vinegar or citric acid to it, degrease the barrel and dip in solution.

[Gibson]

It has been used, and does work, by forming an amalgum with the lead/copper.
There are only two metals mercury will not form an amalgum with. Iron, and platinum. It will however wet those surfaces. After cleaning it with mercury, and then shooting rounds through it, you just contaminated an entire are with mercury vapor and aerosol droplets. Not good for you, your family, your pets, or anything else.

Mercury is nasty stuff in vapor form, worse in soluble form, and even worse in organomercury form. It does not magically disappear.

Milsurp Junkie

Hg has been used for centuries to rid barrels of lead, you are correct.

I have a friend who has used it since 1986 it's bound to get him eventually, though. . . 26 years is really pushing his luck!

Odd, too, is his entire family is fine. I can't believe it. However he has no pets, I bet if he did they'd be belly up. Doesn't he understand that the stuff is akin to Pu-239! I'll bet you he has a house full of CFL lights too. And I'm guessing if one breaks he doesn't abandon his home for the proper length of time and take precautions, as provided for by the EPA guidelines. Found here: http://www.epa.gov/cfl/cflcleanup.html

Can you imagine what would happen if we had only known about this stuff years back when a broken thermometer was just casually tossed? That's 500 milligrams unleashed on the world, when trash was burned! Then it gets out there and cozies up to some carbon and then, organic mercury compunds! We must have missed utter devastation by accident.

[EDIT TO ADD: Just yanking your chain here, not trying to be a jerk.]

He cleans lead from his barrel by scuffing the lead with a stiff copper brush and then pouring a small amount of Hg into the barrel and "jostling" the it back and forth, and then pouring it back into the bottle. He then waits ~30-60 minutes and then patches with heavy flannel patch and disposes of it. His words:

"How long will a pound last? I have been using the same less than 1 ounce for the past 25 years without having to replenish the vial it is kept in. Maybe 1/2 of it has been used up! You will find a gray scum forms on the surface, simply use a Q-Tip to skim this scum off, it is Lead and Mercuric Oxide. This amount was given to me. I did buy a pound from Chem-Lab shortly after, but, as I recall, I have never used any of it!" He posted this sometime back, elsewhere.

So, about this much "." is consumed. Roughly the amount in a broken CFL bulb. It is patched out with the heavy flannel.

It may be the scourge that it has of recent years been made out to be. I do not know. What I do know is what I just posted. I haven't used it myself but have seen his results over the decades and would have no problems using it and would if it was necessary. Then again, we fooled with it in grade school all the time and that was 35 years ago, just before it become anathema.

But Pb, now that is NASTY stuff. God knows how many it has put in the ground

However, I do not recommend using it. Not sure why I even posted in this thread. I bow to your expertise. But nevertheless would use mercury for barrel cleaning if need be.

I am not a chemist although I did at one time take a keen interest in electrochemistry and bought a lot of equipment. It now sits in storage. Or has been tossed.

A man with your background has far more right to speak about such than I do. So I'll leave you to it. That part is quite sincere. My education is in philosophy and my graduate study was in mathematics, which I promptly gave up on after a semester as life got in the way.

I wish cancer and other health concerns were easily understood as to causation. I truly do. My son has leukemia yet he has been reared in am environment without smoking, with relatively few environmental toxins (very rural area), not even lead or mercury. . . I never cast a bullet until after he was diagnosed. He has eaten a pretty clean diet. However, I do not for a second doubt that it was in his genes and for that I blame myself.

I'll leave it with you, as sans doubt you have forgotten more than I'll ever know about such. And, again, that is sincere.

[I'll Make Mine]

As with many other chemical threats (including lead), mercury has been demonized. As with most of the others, it's not as bad as it's been made out, unless it's in just the right state. Methyl mercury can kill you, slowly, with a drop of the stuff on your skin. Liquid mercury used in forming felt (in large vats, by hand, for years on end) used to give hatters enough brain damage to produce the "Mad Hatter" Alice met in Wonderland. Use the same precautions you would while handling lead for casting (don't eat or drink while handling the metal, wash hands afterward, and change clothes if there's a chance of contamination) and you can probably use small amounts of mercury for a long time without problems.

If I had a major leading or jacket fouling problem, I'd probably try mercury after other methods had failed -- but the real solution is to prevent leading in the first place by using boolits of the correct size and hardness for your load (or going to paper patch, where lead never touches the steel).

[Tokarev]

Big difference between lead and mercury is that later is volatile.

[Milsurp Junkie]

Gibson (no offense was taken with your comments, I agree that these things have become demonized in the media, but they should be respected and used safely with common sense).

Also, if for some reason that you break a CFL light or mercury thermometer. There are two things that you can do to help clean it up. One is zinc dust, as it forms an amalgam (and slows the volatility of mercury vapor). The other one (and a lot more available) is sulfur dust. It reacts with liquid mercury at room temperature to form insoluble mercury sulfide.
This is what we used when we had mercury spills in our lab (and what our mercury cleanup kit contained). As I said, elemental liquid mercury is not really bad, it is the vapor, the soluble salts and the organomercury compounds that are the ones to be most concerned with.

At one point some unscrupulous people would wipe their bores with liquid mercury prior to selling at gun shows. The reason? The bore looked perfect and shone like a mirror, even though it was pitted and dark underneath the mercury.

Milsurp Junkie.