Removing lead from barrel - how to

[rogn]

Like CL mentioned, w/ moderate leading run a couple of patches wetw/ Kroil and let the gun soak for an hour. then run a tight fitting patch(flannel seems best) thru the bore and it'll remove 95% --- 100% of the leading. It seems to wet the steel and flow under the lead , floats it free. Chore
Boy on a used gun.

[finstr]

Tell me more about the mercury. Does it dissolve the lead? Do you have to scrub with a brush? How is it applied? Inquiring minds need to know!

[DougGuy]

Well, you can thank all the CRACKHEADS in this country for making chore boy nearly impossible to come by, seems that's what they stick in the crack pipe for a filter or whatever it does.

Be very careful and read the label closely to make sure you aren't getting copper plated STEEL scrubbing pads instead of solid copper mesh.

I found bronze wool at ACE hardware, it took me 7 stores one day to find solid copper equivalent of chore boy, never did find the real stuff, but you can ebay it and pay the shipping and still come out cheaper than the gas it took me to drive to those 7 stores...

Chore boy, wrapped over a plastic jag made for that caliber, works best for me, no solvent needed although it couldn't hurt.

[Bucking the Tiger]

Kano Kroil works really well for me. Get the barrel inside wet with it and let it sit a few minutes: it will cause the lead to fall out.

[afish4570]

Try Do my own pest control...co. as a source for the copper mesh, 20 ft. strip is 15.50 shipped. Should last a long time and solve your search for Chore Boy material...afish4570

[aspangler]

Try a brush wetted with ED'S RED (Google it. not hard to find.) Let stand for 5 min. then dry patches till they come out clean. Best is find a lube that keeps the fouling down to a min.

[Lloyd Smale]

been doing it in rifles and handguns for 30 years or more and ive never had one bit of pressure problem doing it. Trick is to do it every 50 or so rounds not wait till your bounds. I seldom clean barrels of guns that shoot cast. Never was one of those anal guys that insists every gun is cleaned right down to the steal after every time its used. Youll do more harm to a gun with those kinds of practices. Im not the only one that does this. Many very experienced handgunners do it and its not them that have problems with it. Its the beginner that like i said lets it go to far before he trys it. Another this is we are all handloaders. Nobody said you have to load that jacketed bullet up to 40000 psi. A mild load just hot enough to run your slide on that 40 will work just as well as ammo loaded to max pressures. I rarely load any semi auto handgun using cast up to max pressures anyway. Back off a hundred feet a second or even more and your cast bullet will kill just as well and it takes away the risks especially with guns with unsuported chambers.trick is to do it before the barrel is so full of lead you cant see the rifling. As to it not taking it all out, who cares. Most guns shoot well with a bit in them anyway and some even claim better after a few fouling rounds.

This actually doesn't work that well. It will push out heavier deposits but plates over the top of lighter deposits. Plus, doing thi sin a high pressure round, like a 40, could significantly increase pressure.

[finstr]

Well, you can thank all the CRACKHEADS in this country for making chore boy nearly impossible to come by, seems that's what they stick in the crack pipe for a filter or whatever it does.

Be very careful and read the label closely to make sure you aren't getting copper plated STEEL scrubbing pads instead of solid copper mesh.

I found bronze wool at ACE hardware, it took me 7 stores one day to find solid copper equivalent of chore boy, never did find the real stuff, but you can ebay it and pay the shipping and still come out cheaper than the gas it took me to drive to those 7 stores...

Chore boy, wrapped over a plastic jag made for that caliber, works best for me, no solvent needed although it couldn't hurt.

I think it may have more to do with the fact that copper prices have gone way up forcing the copper clad steel instead of solid copper. Like lead COWWs the copper chore boy is goin to become extinct. Jmo

[jonp]

Spray the barrel with balistol and let sit a few minutes. Wrap 0000 steel wool around a used brush and spray it with balistol, scrub and finish with patches. Seems to work well for me and a pkg of steel wool at Lowes is cheap and will last a long time.

[GunFun]

This series of tests was pretty informative. Ballistol came in the middle, but had almost no effect on lead. It doesn't do much to dissolve lead, but it could inhibit re-adhesion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdYWQfbC5Og (Part 3 shows the results about 20 minutes in. Part 2 includes a conversation with the owner of Ballistol talking about what the product is supposed to do, and reasonable expectations)

This one is less scientific, but still interesting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_ud2M1gGlU

I can say that 0000 Steel wool plus Hoppes No 9 (which was marginally more effective) is a labor intensive method, but will eventually work. It took me about 45 minutes of scrubbing with enough steel wool on my brush to make pushing the brush difficult. The pistol barrel actually got fairly warm from friction. On the upside, my bore shines now. My local wal-mart doesn't have chore boy. This may be the only option for some of us http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...A1RQOO67LVAPSA

[tengaugetx]

There used to be a flannel type cloth product sold for cleaning lead from barrels. One would cut patches to fit their bore from it and use on a jag. Don't recall if it was green or yellow colored cloth & I haven't seen it in years. It would remove the lead splatter from the front of a stainless steel revolver cylinder in short order as well as clean the lead from a barrel quickly. Seems I remember it was not recommended for external use on blued steel guns.

The choreboy strands work well too & cheaper than the cloth.

Klean Bore Lead Away cloth. They are yellow and work quite well. The package says it will remove blueing if rubbed hard. All the pistols I shoot regularly are stainless anyway. They also do a great job on the cylinder face of revolvers.
I can't find the chore boy at my local Walmarts. The only on I see there is the copper plated look alike.

[jonp]

This series of tests was pretty informative. Ballistol came in the middle, but had almost no effect on lead. It doesn't do much to dissolve lead, but it could inhibit re-adhesion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdYWQfbC5Og (Part 3 shows the results about 20 minutes in. Part 2 includes a conversation with the owner of Ballistol talking about what the product is supposed to do, and reasonable expectations)

This one is less scientific, but still interesting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_ud2M1gGlU

I can say that 0000 Steel wool plus Hoppes No 9 (which was marginally more effective) is a labor intensive method, but will eventually work. It took me about 45 minutes of scrubbing with enough steel wool on my brush to make pushing the brush difficult. The pistol barrel actually got fairly warm from friction. On the upside, my bore shines now. My local wal-mart doesn't have chore boy. This may be the only option for some of us http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...A1RQOO67LVAPSA

Thats interesting. I just know that it seems to work for me. Maybe if you start with a clean barrel it works better. I use 0000 wool on all kinds of stuff. If you have to scrub your bore for 45min to get it clean you might want to clean it more often

[GunFun]

I usually just clean it each time I return from the range. How much more often would you suggest?

And this is the first time I have gotten any leading at all. My normal recipe of .358" 50/50 PB/CLWW water dropped and 45/45/10 does the job. I just ran out of CLWW and have been experimenting with how little Lino spacers I can add to PB to aproximate the same alloy. 5 /1 should have done it unless my lino was already diluted.

[jonp]

I usually just clean it each time I return from the range. How much more often would you suggest?

And this is the first time I have gotten any leading at all. My normal recipe of .358" 50/50 PB/CLWW water dropped and 45/45/10 does the job. I just ran out of CLWW and have been experimenting with how little Lino spacers I can add to PB to aproximate the same alloy. 5 /1 should have done it unless my lino was already diluted.

Your lino may have been. The only gun I have ever had to scrub like yours was a milsurp mauser. A number of days with montana xtreme and jb bore paste cleaned it. Im intetested in what cause so much leading suddenly like that.

[detox]

Mild forcing cone leading can be removed using regular Hopp's solvent and oversized bronze bore brush.

[John L]

I have experienced some very rapid and heavy leading trying to find a light load that will push 135 grain LFN, BHN 15, bullets through my Marlin 336 30-30 and Savage 1899 Savage 300. Running without a chrono right now because my tripod is broken. But Bullseye, Unique, AA5744, BL-C-2, Trail Boss, 231 all create enough lead to weigh (=or> 2 grains from the cup after rinsing the brass bore brush in gasoline) in a single range session of less than 50 rounds. I am talking 5 gr BE or 231, 7 or 8 gr Unique, 8 gr Trail Boss, 15 to 20 gr 5744. And it does take hours, not minutes, to get it out. Barrels might have been dirty or had jackets through them at one time or another. But after several cleanings I do believe I am starting out with clean barrels. One Marlin is new and all of the barrels look clean and do not show blue patches after 30 minutes under Hoppes 9. So I don't know how it can be said that lead doesn't build up fast or that it won't if you start with a clean barrel. I have used all of the products mentioned, carefully following instructions and sometimes the recommendations on forums. Can somebody give me a hand on either the cleaning or the load that will reduce the cleaning effort because I am about to go back to j's?

[Ben]

John L

What is your lube that you're using ?

What diameter cast bullets are you shooting ?

Do you have a flare on the case mouth when you are seating the cast bullet ?

You say that you're shooting a 135 gr. bullet. Is this a plain base or a gas check bullet ?

Have you soaked your barrels overnight with Hoppes # 9 ? Sometimes 30 minutes won't tell you much about the copper in a barrel.

[GunFun]

Your lino may have been. The only gun I have ever had to scrub like yours was a milsurp mauser. A number of days with montana xtreme and jb bore paste cleaned it. Im intetested in what cause so much leading suddenly like that.

Two problems in my method with that batch. Normally I add ingots of aprox equal size. I know that doesn't accurately reflect weight due to alloy change, but it is fine as long as my alloy is harder than minimum. i.e. any tolerance is absorbed.

First problem: I didn't make my lino spacers into ingots first because it was so clean. so I estimated volume added by looking at changes in fill level to the pot. Not consistent enough, hard to trouble shoot.

2nd problem: If my estimations of volume were dead on, my alloy should have worked better but didn't. I'd gotten the recipe somewhere here, but now I ran the same thing into the excel lead alloy calculator someone made should have come to 11 BHN air cooled. The calculator doesn't project water dropped, but let's call it 13. My normal non-leading recipe calculates out to projected 10BHN as air cooled, and probable 11-12 BHN as water dropped from the mold. So I need to verify my Lino or better yet my final alloy. I also need to control my proportions more carefully.


Final comments:
These same weak bullets ran well with powder coat and no leading. Obviously there is some real promise to that system.

I will take the time to make ingots for all my ingredients, or mix my alloy completely before making any ingots. I will test some of my spacers with staedler method since a brinnel gauge is not in my immediate budget. I will sweeten as needed to get my desired alloy using the calculator. If I get a big batch of lead and a better way to smelt more efficiently, I will start with making a large batch of pistol ready alloy completely ready to go.

I have a large stock of copper chore boy in case of future mishaps, but I hope to never need it.

[John L]

Ben,
Taking your questions in order:

Lee liquid Alox bullet lubricant. Enough to give the bullets a golden glow. Looks like close to 0.001in thickness added.

0.309 bullets before lube.

Flared case mouth prior to loading powder.

Plain base from Badman Bullets, BHN 15

Have not soaked barrel overnight in Hoppes #9 but have cleaned three separate times since last use. Ran an ammonia soaked patch through immediately after running one through with Hoppes #9. Neither showed any blue after thirty minutes. However out here the patches were dry after thirty minutes. Barrel dripped solution before and after the patch exited the muzzle. I had tried this before and ran into the dry patch circumstance so I really soaked these patches using Tipton bore guide. Put the guns away once after last patch through with Hoppes and same with Ballistol, barrel down on blanket pad. Trying to get rid of all lead. Did try Chore Boy too. Still get five dry patches with good black (I believe lead) smudges, rifling edge shows cleanly.

[John L]

Ben,
Taking your questions in order:

Lee liquid Alox bullet lubricant. Enough to give the bullets a golden glow. Looks like close to 0.001in thickness added.

0.309 bullets before lube.

Flared case mouth prior to loading powder.

Plain base from Badman Bullets, BHN 15

Have not soaked barrel overnight in Hoppes #9 but have cleaned three separate times since last use. Ran an ammonia soaked patch through immediately after running one through with Hoppes #9. Neither showed any blue after thirty minutes. However out here the patches were dry after thirty minutes. Barrel dripped solution before and after the patch exited the muzzle. I had tried this before and ran into the dry patch circumstance so I really soaked these patches using Tipton bore guide. Put the guns away once after last patch through with Hoppes and same with Ballistol, barrel down on blanket pad. Trying to get rid of all lead. Did try Chore Boy too. Still get five dry patches with good black (I believe lead) smudges, rifling edge shows cleanly.

Have also used Kroil.

Going to mix some of Ed's Red and try that.