.308 in bad condition

[xd9]

i recently visited my mom and my uncle had given her one of my gandpas old .308's, but he had left it in a outside shed for years and now the barrel and bolt have alot of rust growing on it in spratic spots. the rust has started to eat past the bluing alitlle bit. i cleaned most of the rust off of the barrel and whiped it down with gun oil and recommended her to buy a new barrel. is there any other options and how safe is it to shoot in its current condition any info would be greatly appreciated thank you.

 

[rcmodel]

Surface rust can be cleaned off with 0000 extra fine steel wool & oil.
A rusty bolt can be repolished.

Unless the bore itself is rusted deep enough to leave pitting, there is no reason to replace the barrel.

If you want it looking new again, have the gun professionally re-blued.

rc

 

[highorder]

Unless the bore itself is rusted deep enough to leave pitting, there is no reason to replace the barrel.

Besides, against all odds, pitted barrels can shoot straight too.

Any details? Make, Model?

 

[xd9]

i believe it is a winchester not 100% sure though. i did try cleaning the out side of the barre with stee wool but the rust just shreded the wool so i used a exacto knie to get the large peices of rust of the used the steel wool from there. it has pitted the out side of the barrel but the inside seemed to be ok i ran a cleaning rod with peice of cloth and cleaning solution through the barrel until t came ot clean so i thin the inside i ok, and the bolt seems to function prolerly just was unsure if the rust on the outside of the barrel would have compromized the integrity of the barrel or not?

 

[highorder]

The outside rust would have to be very deep to compromise the integrity of the barrel.

Can we see pics, so we might see what you are working on?

 

[Ryan H]

I highly recommend trying electrolysis rust removal. I used a 5 gallon bucket, some old silverware, and an old cell phone charger to remove the rust off of a coworker's old Glenfield model 80 .22 rifle. It worked so good I now use it exclusively to remove rust on anything, and it didn't cost me a dime! I use powdered laundry detergent as the electrolyte.