What is brand/name/purchase location of best lead bore cleaner?

[Tweaker]

What is brand/name/purchase location of best lead removing bore cleaner?

How does Hoppe's #9 compare, as it is all I know?

[BABore]

Get a 2-pk of copper "Chore Boy" scrubbies from the cleaning section of the local food store. Make sure they're the copper ones, not stainless steel. Cut the band holding it together and pull out a few long threads of the copper. Wrap them around an older bronze bore brush until you have a good, snug fit. Dip it in your favorite solvent and have at it. Even a severly leaded bore will clean up in a few strokes. I like to swab the bore with Kroil oil first and give it a few minutes to get under the fouling. Otherwise I use Ed's Red for most general cleaning and GM Top Engine Cleaner (same as Butch's Bore Shine) for everything else.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Hoppes. Good stuff, smells great. Also too expensive. I can make a gallon of Ed's Red for the price of 8 ounces of Hoppes. The smell will grow on you. Do a search on this site for the ER recipe.

[runfiverun]

or just make your boolits correctly and not have to clean.
i just did my yearly cast rifle cleaning of all 20 rifles[7-35 cal] i used three patches and a few drops of oil in all of them.
i am really dreading the pistols as they are in 4 different calibers.
and the 6 different lever actions is gonna break the bank using 3 different patches.
shooters choice does make a lead remover solvent though i hear

[waksupi]

I agree, it is much better to just load so you don't have leading in the first place. Bullet fit, and good lube.

Welcome aboard.

[EMC45]

Kroil is good for all kinds of cleaning, but like others said cast and load 'em right and there shouldn't be too many problems.

[Bret4207]

Get a 2-pk of copper "Chore Boy" scrubbies from the cleaning section of the local food store. Make sure they're the copper ones, not stainless steel. Cut the band holding it together and pull out a few long threads of the copper. Wrap them around an older bronze bore brush until you have a good, snug fit. Dip it in your favorite solvent and have at it. Even a severly leaded bore will clean up in a few strokes. I like to swab the bore with Kroil oil first and give it a few minutes to get under the fouling. Otherwise I use Ed's Red for most general cleaning and GM Top Engine Cleaner (same as Butch's Bore Shine) for everything else.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Hoppes. Good stuff, smells great. Also too expensive. I can make a gallon of Ed's Red for the price of 8 ounces of Hoppes. The smell will grow on you. Do a search on this site for the ER recipe.

Same thing only use 4/0 steel wool. Works just as well and is already in my shop.

[Sprue]

I remember those days. Well, just fyi.. there is a tool called the Lewis Lead Remover. It consists of little screen-like patches. I've never actually seen or used one. Theres a few different variations of actual lead remover liquids on the market i.e. Shooters Choice Lead Remover, J-B Bore cleaning compound. Also there is Lead Away patches made by Kleen Bore. I like those especially on my revolver cylinder faces. These were what I used to use the most with Chore Boy before I learned how to remedy leading. WARNING: do your homework ! Some of these products may harm your gun or guns finish. Nuff said!

Eds Red is what I've used as a cleaner for the last few years but it doesn't have any lead cutting capabilities. Depending on your level of leading you can try one of the above. Or, just use your favorite bore cleaner along with an old Bore Brush wrapped with a few strands of Chore Boy as mentioned along with a little elbow grease.

Sounds like you need to change your Boolit, Alloy, Lube, Sizing or a combination thereof.

[35remington]

Low velocity jacketed bullets.

[Firebricker]

shooters choice is pretty good solvent

[Flash]

I prefer Sweet's 7.62 or of you have a friend who is into HVAC, get some mercury switches. Liquid mercury will bond to the lead and the lead will come right out using a paper towel for a patch. It's the best thing I've ever seen for removing lead. I have a 5lb bottle of mercury and it's lasted me years.

[hunter64]

I have a lewis lead remover and it worked great when I used it. You put a big T-handle down the barrel and from the forcing cone side you screw on a rubber/metal piece that has a copper mesh screen on it. When you pull the handle out and the screen catches all the lead in one fell swoop, never had to do it twice. I figured out to size the bullets correctly and proper lube so it has sat on the bench for about 3 years now. Mercury works great but don't inhale it or drop it anywhere or tell anyone you are using it (lol), the enviro nazi's will be after you like you wouldn't believe.

A guy at work brought in 1/2 cup worth in a glass jar to dispose of and he dropped it in the parking lot on the gravel road. Holy crap you would have thought it was radio active. The shop foreman called the environment hazard response team and they were on site in about 15 minutes, just slightly slower than if he had called in a fire. Anyway to make a long story shot, they had to dig about 15 feet down into the dirt, remove it all and replace it with new dirt and I think the bill was just under $30,000.00 , what a joke.

[Shiloh]

Mercury works great but don't inhale it or drop it anywhere or tell anyone you are using it (lol), the enviro nazi's will be after you like you wouldn't believe.

Sage advice. Keep this too yourself. These are folks who can and will make your life miserable, and enjoy doing it. Mercury really is nasty stuff

Shiloh

[Bret4207]

I have a lewis lead remover and it worked great when I used it. You put a big T-handle down the barrel and from the forcing cone side you screw on a rubber/metal piece that has a copper mesh screen on it. When you pull the handle out and the screen catches all the lead in one fell swoop, never had to do it twice. I figured out to size the bullets correctly and proper lube so it has sat on the bench for about 3 years now. Mercury works great but don't inhale it or drop it anywhere or tell anyone you are using it (lol), the enviro nazi's will be after you like you wouldn't believe.

A guy at work brought in 1/2 cup worth in a glass jar to dispose of and he dropped it in the parking lot on the gravel road. Holy crap you would have thought it was radio active. The shop foreman called the environment hazard response team and they were on site in about 15 minutes, just slightly slower than if he had called in a fire. Anyway to make a long story shot, they had to dig about 15 feet down into the dirt, remove it all and replace it with new dirt and I think the bill was just under $30,000.00 , what a joke.

No, they didn't HAVE to do that, but they wouldn't have had a $30K bill if they just picked it up with a shovel and put it in a bucket......

[pdawg_shooter]

I paper patch so I have no idea how to remove lead. A neighbor had a .308 he was shooting lead through till you could barely see the rifling. Thirty rounds of paper patch and the bore looked like new.

[jcwit]

Mercury is really nasty stuff, probably, so is cocaine, meth, and many other drugs. How many people get killed by drunk drivers in a year compared to mercury poisoning. Wonder what those stats are? LOL

WE've created a socity thats scared of its own shadow.

Back to the leading issue, I believe most lead "removers" are nothing more than a fine pentrating oil that creeps between the steel barrel and the leading allowing it to be swabed out. Thats why Ed's Red works. Straight tranny oil also works, but I like the speed of Chore Boy.

[Randall]

Chore boy is the cheapest way to go. When I was a kid in school we used to play with mercury with our bare hands in science class,the teacher would tell us to make sure and get it all back in the container or she would have to order more.Somehow we all lived.

[Shiloh]

Ed's Red for general everyday cleaning. Sweets 7.62 for copper fouling. My bottle of sweets is ancient, almost gone, but works very well.

Shiloh

[hunter64]

Yup, I remember playing with mercury all the time in class and then playing lawn darts at lunch. Walking down the street with a fake m-16 to go to the "bushes" to play army with 30 other kids. Half the kids were Vietcong and the other half were marines. We would walk across a major 6 lane street with the M-16 on our back, a utility belt on with the .45 on our side and a canteen of water. No one batted any eye. Ah the good old days.

Bret I know what you mean, all they had to do was shovel the area and put it in the barrel for disposal. But no they had to call the idiots and when I drove past the spot what they had "excavated" it was at least 15 feet square and 15 feet down. I heard that they loaded it into special containers, took about 30 of them and from there they were loaded onto a flat bed truck and driven to the hazard waste facility which is about 3 hours drive from where I live. Hence the huge bill.