Black "Goo"

[mehavey]

I happened to luck into a NIB 40 caliber Green Mountain barrel assembly set up as a
Thompson Center/Hawken drop-in replacement. For who might ask, I knocked the
wedge out of my 28" factory 45 Hawken; pulled the barrel; dropped in the new 32" 40 cal
Green Mountain; and reinserted the wedge. Perfect fit.

Then I set out to clean it using simple BreakFree as a first-cut solvent.

Out came the blackest "stuff" I have ever seen -- and out came more black stuff,
and out came More black stuff,... and out came More black stuff..... 45 minutes
later (including acetone to try and cut through whatever was in there), I was still getting
dirty patches out of that barrel.

I have no doubt at all that the bore has been superbly protected/preserved from the GM
factory... because absolutely nothing could have gotten through whatever they coated it with.

Anybody got any ideas what they might have used?

[C. Latch]

That's weird. I have two GM barrels and both came with a very thin film of oil on them, and that was all.

[Desertbuck]

Sounds like old dried grease to me. You know like the kind you find on grandpa's OLD farm equipment. When it come time to repair the old hay baler the tractor or the hay stacker one of the things that you gotta do first was clean them off. That was my job. And no matter what I used all it did was smear.I could never get that old crud off completely its like it was never ending. WD 40 is the only stuff that I found to soften old dried grease for easier removal.

[Fly]

Hey try some auto brake cleaner in that bad boy.Cap the nipple & spray the brake cleaner
in to the bore & let it sit five min.Best stuff there is for bores that nasty.

Fly

[johnson1942]

fly, the guy who runs the auto parts store told me that auto brake cleaner was the same stuff that was sold as gun barrel cleaner, only the auto brake cleaner doesnt cost as much. i cant varify that but that is what i use when i need it to really clean a barrel. may be you just saved a lot of guys some money by posting that. thanks.

[fouronesix]

You can even go one step cheaper than brake cleaner- either naphtha or mineral spirits.

[country gent]

It used to be quite popular around this area to use Rig Grease for long term storage as it didnt run off, stayed put and did a great job of protecting from rust. Another one was to use bullet lube in the bore to protect it, some felt it also "seasoned" the bore over time. I have seen bores with a coating of bullet lube it took heat from a hair drier to softer and remove. I asked one old timer how to protect the bore on my muzzle loader, He said the same as I used for bullet lube which at the time was a beeswax oil crisco mix. I still use the lube to protect all mu black powder rifles bores. Work it into a patch and a loose fitting jag work it into the bore with 10 or so strokes.
I would drop the breech end of this barrel into a coffee can of mineral spirits and with a tight fitting jag "pump it up and thru the barrel scrubbing it until clean. A tight fitting patch and jag will act as a piston puming the mineral spirits up thru the nipple into the barrel and then push it back out . Just soaking and brushing may leave a plugged breech and nipple from the crud being pushed into it. By circulating the solvents like this the nipple breech is cleaned and stays clear.

[Janoosh]

+1 country gent. Cleaned a muzzle loader bore without soaking the breech and I clogged it good, or should I say bad!

[mehavey]

Got it out to the range today.
Time enough for 4 trials of 2 each Ball Diameter/patch-thickness combo's using one
baseline powder (FFFgGoEX), one charge (50gr_Volume), and one Lube ratio of
7:1 H20/Napa Cutting oil (drawing from my 54 and 45 experience)

I got to the third trial series in the cycle and quit for the day... ;)

http://i44.tinypic.com/352kitu.jpg



postscript: Ran Brake Cleaner through before 1st fire -- still streaks on the patch
After firing, `ran (literally) soapy boiling water down the barrel (I put a 8" piece of Tygon
tubing over the nipple to drain the water/soap pastaway from the stock -- my old N-SSA days trick)
Then Witch's Milk (Moose Milk fortified w/ Simple Green) and processed the whole barrel again

.....still get streaks -- but who cares? :D



post postscript: Yes, it's finished/left inside and out w/ BreakFree/WeaponShield after all that.

post post postscript: It's got a smaller diameter patent breech. That gets treated with a standard slotted cleaning rod and a 3" cleaning patch tru' the slot/folded over the tip. THAT gets down into/cleans out the Patent breech chamber. Afterwards, clean the nipple chamber AND run pipecleaners through the flash channel and into the breech chamber. Not doing that part of the cleaning guarantees ohsomany people a 1st shot failure to-fire-every time. Because of this cleaning regimen, rarely-if-ever do I have to pull the barrel.

[WallyM3]

You can even go one step cheaper than brake cleaner- either naphtha or mineral spirits.

I've mentioned this before somewhere, but Bridgeport (the milling machine people) recommended naphtha as the best cleaning agent (flush) for their spindles. I've found that it whips the h&ll out of that sealer in Nato cases as well.

[fouronesix]

That's a good group! Thanks for posting the follow up.

With most of the preservative out just shoot it as you've started doing, clean thoroughly with hot soapy water, hot rinse water, dry with paper towel patches then oil while warm with something like CLP or MPro7 for longer storage or light oil like WD for shorter times between shooting. I'd bet, over time, from normal shooting and cleaning, all that crud will disappear.

Sounds like you've got the cleaning and maintaining regimen down pat. I agree completely, failure to fire after cleaning or swabbing can usually be traced back to not cleaning the breech end correctly or leaving a bunch of oil or crud in there after cleaning or between-shot-swabbing-- namely, the flash channel, the breech area around flash channel, the patent breech around the flash channel, clean-out channel under the nipple and nipple.

I got a new GM drop in a few years ago and it only had the normal coat of light oil in the bore- nothing like what you described. Got to thinking about it and sounds like someone may have swabbed a bunch of moly grease in there for a preservative. Moly will linger like that and may leave those black streaks on patches for awhile. The good news is it shouldn't hurt a thing.