Cleaning MilSurp Barrels

[alamogunr]

I got out my three bolt action .30-06 Milsurps to get ready to develop cast loads for them. I have had them for awhile and decided to give the barrels a good cleaning. I used Patch Out and got lots of blue patches. I kept at it until the 03 and the 1917 Enfield were coming out pretty clean. The third, a Columbian Madsen, is still leaving patches blue. I admit I had never cleaned them with an ammonia cleaner until now. I am somewhat surprised that the Madsen is still showing copper fouling after many patches and brushings.

Should I continue until I get a clean patch? Any advice will be appreciated.

Edit! I'm brushing with a nylon brush. The blue is not from a brass brush.

[ShooterAZ]

I would try to get as much of the copper out as possible. JB Bore will usually make this chore easier.

[Adam Helmer]

I got out my three bolt action .30-06 Milsurps to get ready to develop cast loads for them. I have had them for awhile and decided to give the barrels a good cleaning. I used Patch Out and got lots of blue patches. I kept at it until the 03 and the 1917 Enfield were coming out pretty clean. The third, a Columbian Madsen, is still leaving patches blue. I admit I had never cleaned them with an ammonia cleaner until now. I am somewhat surprised that the Madsen is still showing copper fouling after many patches and brushings.

Should I continue until I get a clean patch? Any advice will be appreciated.

Edit! I'm brushing with a nylon brush. The blue is not from a brass brush.

Alamo,

''Proper bore cleaning" is a special subject I look at. Nylon brushes were NEVER included in the Old Army Manual and NEVER issued to GIs in WWII.

I would use copper bushes with a quality bore cleaner, What have your fired in those bores BEFORE you decided to do a Proper Bore CLEANING in the past?

Adam

[Gtek]

Bronze brushes and jags can have you chasing your tail wasting time and material with the aggressive new chemicals. Clean it until your happy and move on, I like pushing in a hot bore post string, nothing scientific to back but the idea of a wet contraction is soothing. I guess we should all be getting back to corrosive priming compounds and that really stinky bore cleaner also, and maybe a slug of Castor oil for good measure!

[CLAYPOOL]

Kerosene is good for you..MAW Good said so...

[Tripplebeards]

I used gunslick foaming bore cleaner on one of my enfields. Three days of scrubbing, soaking, and reapplying. I’d spray, let it sit for an hour, scrub the bore , clean, and reapply. Got to the point do just kept spraying foam in the barrel once every hour or so till it came out clean. Finally my barrel is copper free.

[georgerkahn]

]alamogunr -- I offer no advice at all ;). However, I will add MY perspective. I had a quite early manufactured Springfield 1903, and spent a fortune of my time, brushes, and assorted solvents to allllmost (mission never accomplished) get the barrel as what I hoped would be "from the factory, clean". After I got it as close as I reckoned I put the time/effort in, three quite notable phenomena occurred. To wit, #1 -- while leading was NOT a problem before my super-cleaning, I was now getting streaks -- SAME bullets, same loads -- which was not there before the cleaning. #2 -- my target scores dropped from "lousy" to "super-lousy" -- BUT, there was a slight improvement in concert with number of shots fired until the aforementioned leading reappeared indicating cleaning; and #3, I traded the '03 for a (Smith Corona) '03A3 with quite the gilt barrel, and it shot better than I did. Since, I "ignored" the build up of copper and what-not; shoot lead cast bullets in it; and use Butch's Bore Shine and/or Shooter's Choice, followed by a coat of Butch's Gun Oil (removed with dry patches at range immediately before shooting).
Not advice of any form "what to do" -- just, for good or bad, what *I* do :).
geo

[alamogunr]

Thanks to all for the responses. After several off and on days of cleaning, I still get a little blue on a patch. I've decided that it is time to start shooting cast. My first plan of action is to put about 10 rounds thru each rifle, then use a fired case from each(I plan to segregate the fired cases) to use in making a pound cast of each. Starting there I'll see what boolit fits each rifle.

georgerkahn: My 03A3 is a Smith Corona also. Right now that barrel looks pristine but my eyes are not that attuned to judging barrel condition.

Thanks again to all for the input.

[RED BEAR]

I can't add any help. But i have a couple of surplus rifles that i finally gave up on and decided they are as clean as they will ever get. Two shoot great one not so much.

[swheeler]

Get yourself a bottle of Remington 40x bore cleaner, a worn out 30 cal bronze brush and a bag of 2x2 patches. I like to push the brush through from the breech out muzzle, then wrap a patch around the brush and shake up the 40x really good and coat the patch, pull it into the barrel and scrub back and forth 20-30 strokes, remove at the muzzle. Use you ammonia based cleaner as usual and if still showing blue repeat the above 40x process, it'll get the copper out.

[Eddie2002]

I have a Mosin refurb that had an ugly bore. Ended up chambering a spent case wrapped in teflon tape and dumping household ammonia down the barrel. After three or four hours it looked like green coolaid when poured in a water bottle. After that I hit it with a bronze brush, patches and Hoppes till the patches came out clean. I ended up doing this four times till the ammonia wasn't very green anymore. It still can't hit anything shooting cast but is is on paper at 100 yds with condoms. It couldn't hit a barn when shot from the inside when I first got it. Don't know if I would go that aggressive with your rifles but sometimes you need to get radical.

[higgins]

I wore myself out in the past trying to get years of copper fouling out of military rifles foreign and domestic. If I were doing one today from scratch I would first use several applications of JB compound bore cleaner. After the bulk of the powder and copper fouling is removed with the JB compound, switch to Wipeout, allowing it to soak for several hours or overnight. It will probably take several applications of Wipeout.

Unless they were cleaned in a maintenance depot or armory with mercury or ammonia compounds, these rifles may never have been cleaned with an effective copper remover. I don't think the bore cleaner used by the troops was a particularly effective copper remover; as long as it removed powder fouling and the bore looked clean to whoever was inspecting it, it was OK.

[samari46]

Bought one of the Ruger American compac rifles in 7.62x39 and couldn't get the copper out of the barrel. Brushes,hoppe's, whatever. used my dwindiling supply of Butch's Bore Shine and after about an hour it was gone. Small town and no one here stocks it. Frank

[Fernando]

KG12 is the best I've come across - brush the carbon out and plug the bore and let soak for 24 or more hrs.
This stuff eats copper - do a search and read up on it - no blue tell tale though so I check after wards with sweets or such.
I used it on bench guns and was very impressed - It worked wonders on my 03's.

[458mag]

Electrolysis

[swheeler]

Electrolysis

244775 I built this one a decade ago for a couple of dollars, works perfectly. An unbelievable amount of fouling came out of a couple M95 and a 91-30, completely reversed how they shot cast especially the Russian, first couple inches of barrel infront of chamber was layer upon layer.

[Reverend Al]

I haven't tried it out yet, but I have one of the old, now out of production, Outers Foul Out II's. I was going to build one since there are detailed plans on the net on how to home-make electrolysis bore cleaners, but I bought this Outers unit at a gun show used for $10 so I couldn't turn it down. It didn't come with the chemicals though so I need to make up some of the copper and lead formulas for cleaning barrels, but those formulas are also easily found on the Net.

[slim1836]

244775 I built this one a decade ago for a couple of dollars, works perfectly. An unbelievable amount of fouling came out of a couple M95 and a 91-30, completely reversed how they shot cast especially the Russian, first couple inches of barrel infront of chamber was layer upon layer.


What solution do you use? For how long?

Slim

[TCLouis]

Is the resistance of the filament bulb required?
Does it get brighter as the barrel gets cleaner?

[Tripplebeards]

Im Going to gunslick foam my M1917 and 1907 Shtle mk*** tomorrow. I’ll see if they takes three days or longer like my long branch did.

[swheeler]

What solution do you use? For how long?

Slim

Just saw your post here, 1 part white vinegar, 1 part household ammonia, 2 parts distilled water. I would run it 30 minutes and if the light was still on would change out the solution and run it again, when clean it will be out or barely visible. Be sure red+ is hooked to the barrel and black- to the rod. I got this info off the internet quite a few years ago 10-15, built it and have used it on several of my milsurps and several friends, everyone satisfied. Google may find it for you?

[smoked turkey]

This information is so good. I sure hope I can find it when I need it later. It may not have what it takes to be a "Sticky", but it sure is good information. Thanks to all.

[Andy]

the electrolysis cleaner really works and you can make a low power (low risk of any damage) unit really simply off an old cell phone charger and a straight piece of metal rod with electrical tape spaced on it. It's still kind of a pain to set up though getting out the stuff and plugging barrel so I only bother with it when something is pitted enough to where I don't think a brush can make good contact with all surfaces in the barrel, otherwise a thorough brushing/patching seems quicker or at least easier.

The other thing is if you're using the copper fouling cleaner and following up with a brass/bronze brush you'll never stop getting a slightly blue patch from the copper solvent, every time you brush it it leaves enough residue from the brush in there (more if the bore is pitted) to make your patch blue the next pass and make you still think you're getting copper out of the barrel. Learned that the hard way. That's my experience at least with my brushes & sweets cleaner. The only reliable gauge I feel like I can really trust to know if the copper is out is to look in with a borescope or if you don't have one just take a close look at the end of the barrel by eye and once you can't see copper streaks there maybe do a few more sessions and you probably got most of it.

[smithnframe]

I plug the muzzle of the barrel and fill it with Kroil.......leave soak overnight and drain. Then use bronze brush and patches with Hoppes bench rest solvent.

[Geezer in NH]

Sweet's 7.62

[Eddie1971]

Sweet's 7.62

I second the Sweets use.