Got an 03 A3, surprise the barrel is lead fouled! Advice?

[MikeSSS]

I found an 03 A3 in excellent condition. It looked like the barrel had some cosmoline in it. The price was right and the rifle appeared 'new'. Wow.

At home I started brushing with CLP (all I had) and a nylon bristled 8mm or .30 brush. Got out lots of powder fouling.

The bore is very bright for about 6 inches in front of the throat, then there is hard fouling. Not much fouling in the last few inches behind the muzzle, most fouling is in the middle of the barrel. Looking into the muzzle carefully I see no copper.

No copper, but there was some bright silver stuff. Gentle scraping with a dental pick took it right off in little flakes. Hmmm, I've seen this before...yeah, .38 spl bullets cast from too soft lead leave this same kind of fouling. In the .38 it was not fun to remove. Hard cast bullets did not leave it, only real soft bullets did. When the .38 got fouled the rifling was hardly visable and accuracy went all to hell.

So, any advice on how to easily remove leading from a Springfield barrel would be more than welcome. The brush ain't fun.

Second thing, what is a good mold for a two groove Springfield barrel?

Thanks and have fun.

Mike S

[imashooter2]

The Outers Foul Out. Better living through chemistry!

Strands of a Chore Boy copper scrubber wrapped around an old bore brush will work, but it takes elbow grease.

[Buckshot]

.............A good slug for the 2 groove would be most any of the bore rider biased designs like the 311299, etc. Be sure to slug it.

...............Buckshot

[Billwnr]

I shoot an RCBS 180 FN with 16 grains of 2400. Shoots good and no lead fouling for me. Mine is a 2 groove barrel.

[wmitty]

Seat a condum bullet backward over five grains of 700x and shoot the lead out. (one use for a condum bullet).

[grumpy one]

I'll set out how I'd do it, which is not the only way and may not even be the best way. First, I'd prefer to get the hard carbon fouling out because it might cause problems to shoot over it, since you don't know how thick it is or what's under it. That means getting it wet with solvent - I use Ed's Red - and brushing. In your situation I'd use an old bronze brush with some copper turnings (i.e. a copper dish cleaning pad) wound around it. Wet the brush in solvent, push it back and forth five times, then put a wet patch through to see if you're getting the job done. Most likely you'll find the patch comes out seriously fouled and pushes out some blackened solvent ahead of it. Rinse the brush and repeat, five strokes only, followed by another wet patch. After you do that maybe four or five times you'll probably find two things. First, the patches won't be looking nearly as black, and second, you'll have stripped out most of the lead as well. Once the carbon fouling is gone and any thick build-up of loose lead, you can persist with the brush routine, or shoot out the rest of the lead. I use 20 grains of 4227 or 4759 (but a few grains less will work at least as well), with a PROPERLY FITTED gas check bullet. The issue is to get the bullet to fit before you've cleaned the barrel properly, because pushing a slug through it won't work when there's lead in the barrel. Hopefully you'll have a clean section back at the breech end that you can slug. It only takes about 3 shots to clear the barrel, with low velocity and a well-fitted bullet. The main things are first, don't shoot through a barrel with a thick layer of lead, second, keep the velocity low, and third, make the bullet fit because if it's undersized you'll end up with more lead than you started with.

When you have removed the carbon fouling you'll need to consider the possibility that there is copper fouling underneath it. If there is you can remove it with Sweet's of course. To get the job done you have to remove the carbon, remove the lead, and use Sweet's to either remove copper or prove there isn't any there.

Remember that you won't get all the carbon fouling out with the copper strips wound around the old brush, because it doesn't get into the corners of the rifling. The reasons to use it are first, it cuts through hard carbon very quickly, and second, it removes lead pretty effectively too. However to actually get the barrel clean you need either a properly-fitting bronze or a nylon brush with nothing wound around it.

[MikeSSS]

Last night I used CLP and a nylon brush, there was still a lot of fouling after 40 minutes of brushing and looking. I was hoping that the CLP would get under the fouling overnight.

Today I used an old brush with some Chore Boy copper wrapped around it and some CLP. I did about 20 brush strokes including some back and forth. Then I patched it and looked...the barrel was almost clean. I worked on it for 20 more min. and there were only a couple spots with fouling remaining, so I set it aside to let CLP work it's magic.

A couple hours later I wrapped some additional copper on the brush and went after it again. This time it got CLEAN. The third or fourth patch came out clean. After it sat for another 15 min I patched it again and got some color on the patch, the third or fourth patch was clean again.

The bore is brilliant. Wow, this rifle is in almost new condition. The barrel says 6-44, June 1944 I guess. The workmanship is fantastic, especially for a rifle made when the US was getting ready for D-day.

I sure hope it shoots as good as it looks. I'll slug the barrel this coming week.

My only problem is that the peep sight hole is a bit too small for my far-sighted eyes. I'll leave it alone though. To go bigger I'll get another sight to modify and just use the leaf.

CLP is the only thing that could stop the severe leading on the sub-chamber of my Colt 22lr conversion unit for the 1911. I tried everything I could think of and that thing would lead up so bad it would stop working. I'd have to dig the lead out with a screwdriver. CLP almost completely eliminated the problem. Lead just would not stick to the CLP coated steel. I love CLP.

[drinks]

Stick with it, I spent 2 weeks and likely 20 hours cleaning an old family heirloom 1894.
Not much left in the barrel, but what is there shoots better than I can see the 1900 sights.
Gad, people must have had eagle eyes 100 years ago!

[David R]

You can make an elelctric bore cleaner just like the outers, except your solution will not have the copper or lead ions. I did it to clean out my 1917 enfeild and 1891 mauser. I couldn't beleive the junk that came out of those barrels.

David

[dbldblu]

What I would do is soak a patch with the solvent of your choice. Sprinkle the patch with filings from a piece of aluminum that you just created with yor file. Push through the bore. This works better than anything else I have tried.

I wrote about this on another forum and a guy claimed I was creating aluminum oxide and I would quickly ruin my bore. Well there is more to making aluminim oxide than that but if it worries you, just use brass filings - works the same.

For light leading, Elmer Keith recommended just shooting a few jacketed bullets. That has always worked for me.