For better or worse, I’m the “other member” that now has it.
Prepping meat for the smoker, but plan to get the bore scope in it and then probably fill it with acetone for an overnight soak. Scrub it out once the meat starts cooking tomorrow. It really looks like a lot of lead fouling, but probably some layering of lead, plastic and carbon. I have a good selection of solvents and mercury if needed.
It just doesn't get any better (or more toxic) than lead and mercury! I would love to get ahold of enough mercury to use on rifle barrels. Any ideas on sources? Does mercury eventually become lead saturated or is it reusable indefinitely?
Mercury is used in gold mining, you can purchase it without difficulty, but it’s gotten expensive.Originally Posted by fjrdoc
You can distill mercury but it’s a specialized process, you don’t want to work it out by trial and error…you don’t get a lot of chances.
But about the barrel, I’ve tried chore-boy and frontier 45 both before and after soaking in acetone one night and then again in kroil one night. None of the usual bore cleaners touch the stuff, but that they come up clean and then later after scrubbing with a choreboy come up blue, making me think that the barrel is corroded. Polishing with bore polish had little if any effect.
Might try evapo-rust, being careful about the bluing of course.
Need to get the bore scope in there.
Plasti-Dip might be a decent bluing protector. Goes on like spray paint, but is very easy to remove/peel off. It's popular with some car boy crowds who spend time change up wheel and grill colors.
I’ll just cork the barrel, but interesting idea for sure! Might try it on a scrap barrel just to see if the liquid creeps under the coating.
I had a half gallon jug of HG until a few years ago. I sold it the scrap metal dealer for a lot of money. A whole lot of money. They were going to pay a hazardous waste company to take a bunch of stuff away when I was in college, I offered to take it for free. They took me up on it. I have about a pint that is in a separate container still. Gets the lead out, that’s for sure.
It was used in the manometers in the engineering lab and they hadn’t been used in a decade when they gave it to me.
My understanding is that Mercury can be separated from lead by a distillation process.
With gold recovered from black sand they used to hollow out a potato and bake it. Let it cool and the gold was in the cavity. Then mash the potato and pan it to recover the Mercury. Have never done it myself, but watched it done when I was a kid in Montana in the 1960s. I was a rather curious kid and asked a lot of questions. Probably more to it, but I remember that much.
I’m wondering if you could remove the sights, then heat the barrel with a propane torch and bounce the muzzle end on a wooden block.
“Shot out” .22 rifles can be made better by bouncing all that lead out- maybe it would work in this case as well.
Wear oven mitts!
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I’m not convinced whatever is in that barrel is lead. I thought about heating it up and dunking it in ice water and trying to shock it to break it loose.
I can’t figure out how that could work. The gold could be dissolve in the mercury, and the sand physically separated from the solution, but putting the solution in a potato and baking it won’t do anything below about 700F, and above that the potato is on fire and the mercury is boiling off. This would leave the gold behind, and it could then be panned from the ash, but it’s not exactly economical or environmentally sound.
I agree, the barrel looks frosted generally and the darker areas are not lead. I have some felt pads on the way, going to try polishing after evaporust. I don’t think it can be recovered, but I’m willing to keep trying for a while.
Does it shoot ok. The sights can be moved but does the results of shootig work for your taste?
Look twice, shoot once.
I have not shot it.
Will work on posting borescope pics tonight, I’m not very good at it. They show some hard carbon and some pitting, but the bigger problem is the grooves running across the rifling, it looks like someone tried to clean it with a steel brush in a drill. The muzzle is also damaged, kinda feels like the reeding on the edge of a US dime, and very uniform.
Given the damage I don’t think it’ll ever be useful. Even if it shoots, it’ll be nearly impossible to clean.
Given the damage I don’t think it’ll ever be useful. Even if it shoots, it’ll be nearly impossible to clean.
If the damage is only at or near the muzzle maybe it can be cut off and re crowned. An 18" Bbl. with good rifling would still be a good shooting gun. I have shortened several barrels for my Mossberg's and they all shoot well. However they were all in perfect condition before I cut them and all I did was shorten them and or add Choke Tubes, but if the worst of the goop stuck in that barrel was near the Muzzle Shortening it might work.
Certainly better than using it for a Tomato Stake.
Randy
"It's not how well you do what you know how to do,,,It's how well you do what you DON'T know how to do!"
www.buchananprecisionmachine.com
Just following along on this one. You guys got a handle on it. Just curious, if all else fails, can it be sleeved into a muzzle loader or smooth bore 12? Just thinking outside the box to find a way to keep it in the field.
Deplorable infidel
Damage is from chamber to muzzle with the worst being in the 10” in front of the chamber. Let’s see if I can post some pics.
If this barrel could speak the stories it’d tell would make us weep.
I knew it was bad. I’ve never been around a borescope before. Thanks for posting the pictures! I suppose it could be a good practice barrel for someone to try lengthening the forcing cone and back boring and make it a smooth bore.
It looks to me from the pics as though the lands are badly damaged but ther is etching in the grooves as well.
If it was mine I'd cast a lapping slug and hand lap the bore. It won't likely every be "good" again but it may be "good enough" to shoot okay and be cleanable if it is lapped by a thou or so. Is it worth the effort? Maybe not but it only costs time to try.
Fire lapping might work too and would be easier to try... and more fun because you would be shooting.
Since the grooves seem fairly smooth I have to wonder how that damage occured unless it was a poorly bored barrel blank with drill/reamer damage when it was made. I wouldn't expect that from Hastings though.
Longbow
The lines you see are chatter from the manufacturing process, either the drilling, reaming, or pulling the rifling button, the fact that the grooves show some of that but not as much as the lands makes me think it was the boring or reaming, and the rifling button smoothed them out. Yes the barrel is full of pitting, and the rust has only magnified the chatter.
If that was my barrel and wanted to keep it, , I would hand lap it but its so bad you would need to first lap it with a wine cork or stacked rubber washers and cork washers using valve grinding compound to get the super high spots off or else you'll be tearing up lead laps. When you get done with that use lead laps and work from the chamber end. Dont be fraid to use aggressive grit and dont go over 180gr
theres a few videos on YT showing the basics.
NRA High Master XTC
DR# 2125
And then after you do all of that, the front sight is still too short.
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