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Thread: Have you ever gotten your mil surp bore truly clean?

  1. #1
    Boolit Buddy
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    Have you ever gotten your mil surp bore truly clean?

    With a half dozen mil surps in the collection, and after a mountain of patches and untold number of passes with bore brushes, I now firmly believe the bores will never be "spotless". While the rifles shoot cast boolit loads great I have learned to live with the dark patches. Lifes too short to sweat the small things.

  2. #2
    Boolit Master
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    It's very hard to get all the crud out of all the pits and worked in pores of the steel.
    I posted a few threads about cleaning up the bores. You need to get through all the layers of powder,jacket, cartridge , jacket material. The worst thing is when you do get them close to spotless you start to see your bores are generally not that great.
    I use stainless steel brushes. To avoid that false blue.

  3. #3
    Boolit Master Jack Stanley's Avatar
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    Depending on the condition of the metal under the crud , yes .

    Jack
    Buy it cheap and stack it deep , you may need it !

    Black Rifles Matter

  4. #4
    Boolit Grand Master GhostHawk's Avatar
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    I started with a pair of Mosin's, 43, and 44, round recievers. Good rifling, but very very dark. Lots of fouling.

    So I would shoot 20-30 rounds, and clean. Leaded it up with too small bullets, not good enough lube, too hot loads. Tried again, Loaded, shot, cleaned.

    And then all of a sudden I looked down the bore. And I saw silver from end to end.
    Clean bright shiny, sharp lands and polished grooves.

    Pits will probably stay dark. I was lucky, there was a couple of good rifles under all the cosmolene and copper fouling.

  5. #5
    Boolit Master NoAngel's Avatar
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    Start paper patching.
    When dealing with islam one should always ask themselves: "What would Leonidas do?"

  6. #6
    Boolit Master
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    Easy, but it takes time; get them pretty clean, then one wet patch (Hoppe's #9), per month. A year or three later, done - the patches come out /clean/. Needless to say, this works better in my collectible milsurps rather than my 'shooters'.

  7. #7
    Boolit Buddy
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    Only one a K31. My Turk 38 will be a long time but is clean just dark in spots. Took a week on that one cleaning 2 times a day just to get all the crud out. Thought rifling was gone until fourth day.

  8. #8
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    Paper will take you down to bare metal, especially paper that has titanium dioxide and clay.
    usually around 20 rounds at full jacketed speeds will do the job.

  9. #9
    Boolit Master
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    I use foaming bore cleaner with the muzzle down, let sit a while, run a couple of patches through, and repeat until blue/black sludge stops dripping out. Takes a bit of time, but very little effort.
    Back in the land of boolits.

  10. #10
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    Except for Swedish Mausers and Swiss K31s- No. If they didn't shoot after an overnight soak with Hoppe's and scrubbing, they got rebarreled or sold if they were matching/unaltered.
    I don't like scrubbing barrels.
    Best, Thomas.

  11. #11
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    The paper-patching truly does work. I had a filthy, pitted Mosin Nagant that I got tired of scrubbing on, and the paper patching cleaned it right up. I took it one step further by dabbing a little JB Bore on a few of the patches. Bright & shiny and smoothed it out some...but still pitted It shoots great with Hornady 312 150gr J-Bullets.

  12. #12
    Boolit Master gnostic's Avatar
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    I mop them with Sweet's 7.62 and that gets down to bare metal. The dark spots are from muriatic primers and doesn't come out...

  13. #13
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    +10. If is fouling Sweets will get it ALL out. If it's rust, lapping is the only way.

  14. #14
    Boolit Grand Master


    Larry Gibson's Avatar
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    Milsurps with unpitted bores; yes.

    Milsurps with pitted bores; no.
    Larry Gibson

    “Deficient observation is merely a form of ignorance and responsible for the many morbid notions and foolish ideas prevailing.”
    ― Nikola Tesla

  15. #15
    Boolit Grand Master Outpost75's Avatar
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    Pitted barrels which have been chemically cleaned to remove all prior metal fouling and corrosion, and then well cleaned with Kroil and JB, when necessary using a lead lap with AA Clover to remove tight spots, will shoot cast bullets just fine if the bullets FIT and are well lubricated.

    One of my best shooting cast bullet rifles is a Sako M28/30 Civil Guard's rifle dated 1932 which I got for free because it had a "dark but strong" bore and the fellow who paid $39.95 for it thought he got robbed.

    I cleaned it well, lapped it and a few weeks later proceeded to clean his clock in a CBA military cast bullet match with it. Richard Hoch told me years ago that "clean, pitted bores hold the lube better" and I thought he was smoking dope, until I tried it.

    I shoot NOE clone of #314299 cast of wheelweights, lubed with 50-50 Alox Beeswax and I conditioned the bore by firing mild loads with #314299 as-cast, unsized, wheelweights, Lee Liquid Alox, 6 grains of Bullseye, no gascheck. Wiped bore with wet patches with Kroil or Ed's Red every 5 shots, then one dry patch and dry the chamber, repeated for the first 100 shots.

    After that I wet patched and dry patched every ten shots for the next 100. A

    After that I went back to my usual load with #314299 sized .314", 50-50 Alox-Beeswax, Hornady GC and 16 grs. of #2400. NEVER brushed the barrel again in the last 20 years, but always clean with wet Ed's Red patch then dry patch and dry chamber before shooting. When done shooting leave barrel wet, then before shooting again wet-patch, dry-patch, dry chamber and shoot.

    You look at the bore now and it is shiny. The pits are filled with lead. The rifle NEVER sees a jacketed bullet or a "hot" load. I shoot 6 grains of Bullseye at 100 yards and 16 grains of #2400 at 200 yards. Rifle routinely shoots 4-5 inch TEN-SHOT groups at 200 yards. with iron sights. As well as my M39 with new barrel. Who'd a thunk it!
    Last edited by Outpost75; 09-16-2017 at 03:26 PM.
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  16. #16
    Boolit Master




    Scharfschuetze's Avatar
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    Richard Hoch told me years ago that "clean, pitted bores hold the lube better" and I thought he was smoking dope, until I tried it.
    I always enjoyed visiting with Richard Hoch at his shop in Montrose. Dave Farmer bought his business and is still making his design of top pour molds.
    Keep your powder dry,

    Scharf

  17. #17
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    OP75 actually read what I said. He is correct although I prefer a professional fire lapping kit to valve grinding compound.

  18. #18
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    I was reminded of another tip during today's range trip. Clean it while it is hot. I have a Destroyer carbine that never cleaned up all that well. Shot a bunch of corrosive surplus ammo today and cleaned it right after while still hot on the bench, mostly to clean up the corrosive residue. Final cleaning this evening showed a shiny bore for the first time ever, and I thought it was frosted and dark in the grooves for years now.
    Back in the land of boolits.

  19. #19
    Boolit Grand Master



    M-Tecs's Avatar
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    With today's modern cleaners like Boretech Eliminator, Wipe Out and others you can remove just about every type of fouling reguardless of bore conditions.

  20. #20
    Boolit Buddy
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    I've found I need to alternate cleaning methods/cleaners, just because one is coming out clean the barrel isn't really clean.

    I'm currently working on a Arg 1909 Cavalry Carbine I've had for several years. When I bought it the bore looked black, a few Ed's Red patches and it looked spotless, cosmoline in the barrel was making it look worse than it was.

    Fast forward a few years and I decided to run Patch Out through all my milsurps to see how coppered they were. Patches in the 1909 came out dark blue, probably ran a dozen cycles of Patch Out soaking for an hour followed by tight patches on a jag. When that stopped coming out blue I cycled 12 hour Ed's Red soakings and jag until it came out just light grey. Then homemade mixture of 10% commercial cleaning ammonia, distilled water and dishwashing detergent, patches came out blue and black again. Another dozen one hour cycles of that until patches are clean, followed by Ed's Red again until patches are light grey. Thought it's finally clean but decided to run my EBC through it to be sure, first 1/2 hour cycle coated the rod with black, 2nd came out pretty clean. Maybe it's finally clean? Another pass with Ed's Red to remove any lingering ammonia and protect the bore, the patch came out the blackest I've ever seen from one of my gun's. Half a dozen Ed's Red passes later and it is finally getting light grey patches again. Probably do ammonia or another EBC cycle next, but I'm afraid it's going to expose another layer to clean out.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check