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Once with an old mauser, I discovered that to remove old dirt it was best to use different methods.
First I gave him two liters of boiling water, then a kind of cleaner, which I had lying around. Finally hoppes 9. Between each cleaner, a stainless steel brush, with very hard hairs, that I bought a long time ago on ebay, that was the best method.
Some friends leave the barrel one day with mercury inside.
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It took me a couple of weeks of scrubbing with hoppe's and wipe-out along with 7 8mm brushes but it finally came clean. Over night soakings then wire brushing finally did the job. That old Turk mauser has a moderately good barrel but it took an awful lot of work to uncover it.
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Wipe-out removes jacket fouling better than anything I've used. Just don't get it on the stock. Remember that many of these old military rifles were never cleaned with an effective jacket fouling solvent unless it was done with some mercury concoction by an armorer in a depot. I believe the bore cleaner issued to the troops was more of a powder and corrosive primer residue remover than it was a copper solvent.
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I don't think a brass brush will hurt your barrel. I use Ed's Red with conventional methods and it has worked well.
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Kroil, Ed's red, Sweets 7.62. Used cleaning surplus barrels in my shop. No foam, no bronze brushing till your arms hurt.
Wet bore with Kroil let sit a day and dry patch out. Wet bore with Ed's red let sit couple hours wipe out with patch. Sweets 7.62 wet bore well with a soaked mop. Let sit 1 hour wipe with Ed's red. Keep applying sweets for the rest of the day every hour. End of day soak with Kroil leave till next day.
Repeat with ed's red and 7.62 treatment. It never took more than 3 days of this for the worst barrel.
Sounds like a lot of work but I did 12 guns at a time. Fixed 8 out of twelve to great bore every time. The other 4 would sell at 20 bucks off.
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i have used borteck eliminator, wet patch, Wate 5 minuets or so, scrub with nylon bore bush, wet patch, dry patch, till dry< repeat, only thing i will use >> copper melts out, lead just falls out>>
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mates 6.5x55mm had a very dark bore,I blocked the muzzle with a rag and squirted crc 5.56 into bore till it was pretty much full and left it overnight..... it scrubbed up rather well afterwards,I figgure the crc had eaten into/dissolved all the oils etc that were in there and softened up anything else.
the old SMLE .303brits used corrosive primers so pouring boiling water down bores was an often done thing with them...Ive dont that a time or two with other rifles too..its amazing how much crud will come out,just be very careful not to get water into stock/bedding area and careful as metal work will get very hot very fast.
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jb bore paste and kroil. old school and works great. will get junk out even after the patch turns clean with other solvents.
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The best copper remover I've used is Wipe-Out foaming cleaner. It's good on powder fouling too, however, I believe something like a soak in Kroil followed with a bronze brush would speed up the process.
Remember some of the blue stain in the Wipe-out will be bronze brush residue. The last time I cleaned a neglected bore I used the Kroil overnight soak and brush first to get the loose stuff out of the way.
Then start the foam treatment for copper fouling. Alternate until it comes clean.