cleaner than a newborns ........

[moooose102]

i know there are many products out there that disolve copper from barrels. but, is anything made that actually disolves lead? i just bough a new rifle, put 150 rounds through it today. a henry h001 .22. all straight lead bullets. at the end of my plinking, it felt like i was shooting higher pressure rounds. but they were all from the same brick, so i know that isn't the case. i am thinking that lead must have been starting to accumulate in there. don't ask me to look, i couldn't see lead or copper build up without cutting the bore open and looking at it with a microscope (my eyes are just getting old) . i did not notice accuracy dropping off, but that was probably because the last 45 shots were pretty much rapid fire plinking at cans. so if i missed a few, and i did, i just chalked it up to rapid fire. not aiming as good as i could have. most cleaning solvents say they remove copper, lead, and powder residue from a barrel, but is it going to be me scrubbing with a brush, or the solvent doing the work to actually remove the lead?

 

[JackOfAllTradesMasterAtNone]

http://www.birchwoodcasey.com/sport/index.html

Gun Scrubber and Bore Scrubber. Then use a .22cal brass brush followed by patches on a long rod. Cleaned from the breach. Keep the Gun Scrubber off of bluing, painted or plastics.

-Steve

 

[Claymore1500]

This is an old cure for lead fouling that my father had used, Admittedly in this day and age it maybe impractical, but it works.
Put a tight fitting plastic cap over the muzzle and fill the bore with mercury, Mercury dissolves lead rather quickly, After maybe an hour (allowing the merc. to creep in behind any other fouling) just pour the merc. back into the bottle and save it for the next time, then clean and lube the gun as normal.

 

[rcmodel]

Mercury is considered more hazardous then another Clinton in the whitehouse.

I'm not even sure you can still buy it anymore.

rcmodel

 

[ClarkEMyers]

Quite true that mercury is that hazardous. Mercury can be bought easily for use in manometers and such.

Outer's Foul Out and such are a better way to go.

The issue is not elemental mercury but mercury compounds and once in the environment compounds will be an issue - some of the most deadly and penetrating chemicals known among other problems.

Sort of like nitrogen which we might even think of as inert in the atmosphere but compounds from nitrogen and iodine scale up to nitrogen and the Murray Federal Building in Oklahoma.

Same thing with mercury - folks aren't going to die because they once coated a penny to look like a dime but see the current issues with compact fluorescent bulbs and other mercury contaminents in the home environment.

 

[Claymore1500]

I surely agree with the hazards of merc. I would no way recommend it for every cleaning, In fact the only time I ever saw my father use it was in a rifle that was so lead fouled that you could barely see the rifling.
After the merc. treatment the bbl. was very well preserved and the gun still shoots very well.

 

[wcb]

Best lead remover I've found is, http://secure.armorholdings.com/kleen-bore/chemicalcloths.html GC221 - Lead Away Gun Cloth or the patches for cleaning the bore.

 

[ZeSpectre]

I've found that a good application of Weaponshield and then 20-40 minutes of sit time seems to "get under" a lot of lead and loosen it up such that it comes right out with a bore brush.

Used to use Kroil for the same reason.
If your lead fouling is at it's worst, the lewis lead remover is a godsend!