Need help cleaning a mil-surplus barrel

[BSA1]

I have a MN 91/30 that I need advice about cleaning.

A little history. I have owned this gun for a long time but only shot it on a few occasions. I have never shot jacketed bullets through it and around 150 rounds of 200 gr. gas check lead bullets. The last time I shot was a couple of weeks for about 70 rounds total.

For the last couple of weeks I have been cleaning the barrel. I first cleaned the lead out with the Outters Foul Out system. I then started cleaning the copper with Shooters Choice letting the barrel soak overnight and following with the usual brass brush. The patches keep coming out blue.

I next switched to a product called Shooters Gel using the same wet patch and brass brush procedure. Now I am getting heavily fouled patches with dark gray/black residue and, interestingly, a brown residue. I am guessing I am slowly breaking through decades of military copper and powder fouling. For the record the barrel looks like it is in very good condition...no visible pits.

I now have switched back to Shooters Choice and letting the barrel soak again overnight.

I know that the cleaning solutions have been weakened by the EPA over the years. Are there more aggressive cleaning products or should I just continue with the time consuming procedure I am following now?

 

[Uncle Grinch]

I always start off with a pot of boiling hot water with a touch of dishwashing detergent. Prop your rifle muzzle down, bolt removed and with a small funnel, start pouring the soapy solution down the bore until the barrel is HOT. You are outside....right?

Run a patch with bore cleaner and see if it comes out any better. Continue with the hot water and patches until you are satisfied. Throughly clean and oil after the water treatment.

 

[morcey2]

First, I doubt you'll ever get a truly clean patch out of it.

The best I've found is foaming bore cleaner. I use Gunslick. It works great. I've used it to clean a couple of very nasty sewer-pipe-looking bores. None of them turned it a nice, shiny bore, but it works really well.

Matt

 

[BSA1]

What does hot water and dish soap do to copper fouling? I can see how it might breakup the powder fouling.

morcey2 why do you say you don't think I will ever get a truly clean patch? Is that just the nature of old mil-surplus rifle barrels?

 

[Comrade Mike]

Sweets 7.62. That stuff will literally rip copper out of a barrel. Just don't leave it in too long

 

[morcey2]

What does hot water and dish soap do to copper fouling? I can see how it might breakup the powder fouling.

morcey2 why do you say you don't think I will ever get a truly clean patch? Is that just the nature of old mil-surplus rifle barrels?

I think the hot water was recommended for any corrosive salts that might still be in there. Normal cleaning solvents won't get it out. If you've got layers of powder, copper, and lead fouling, you'll probably have corrosive salts trapped under it.

If the gun was shot with corrosive ammo throughout it's life and had some corrosion damage happen, you'll continually get a little bit of black or grey on dry patches no matter how clean you get it. I've got a mauser with frosted grooves, but nice sharp rifling that will always leave grey streaks on a patch no matter what I do. It gives consistent 1" 5-shot groups so I'm not worried about it. I have a few mosins that have the same cleaning issue. One mosin has a pristine bore and it will clean up all the way.

Matt

 

[adelbridge]

second the gunslick foaming bore cleaner, I have used ammonia based coppper solvents and patches until the patches came out clean than used gunslick foaming bore cleaner to see what was still in there and it came out inky blue after an hour sit.

 

[BCRider]

I had a helluva time getting a clean patch out of my Mosins. I finally pushed a few patches dabbed down with automotive rubbing compound through them to mimic the JB bore paste I can't seem to find anywhere up here. Some back and forth "lapping" with the compounded patches on a firm fitting jag repeated a couple of times followed by a good cleaning finally produced some clean patches.

Then I shot about 20 rounds of surplus through one of them and it looks like I'm right back to square one with heavy copper fouling and patches that at best come out light grey.

The other is "in reserve" until I get some home made 7.62x54R ammo loaded up.

The good news is that even with the surplus ammo shot through I then found that the darn thing shot GREAT GROUPS when we shot a box of Privi ammo through it. Even the plain iron sights were giving us 3'ish inch groups at 100 and holding the shots within about 5 inches at 200. For a guy with eyes that are intent on getting older faster than I think they should be and for shooting the basic iron sights I was ecstatic!

So given that the Privi was shot over top of the residue from the corrosive milsurp stuff it would appear that a pristinely clean patch isn't a iron clad requirement.

 

[BSA1]

I cleaned some more on the barrel yesterday and let the barrel soak overnight with Shooters Choice. When I ran a dry patch through the barrel this morning it was bright blue. Again!

BCRider, are you sure you an don't own the same gun? ;-) I am going to try your suggestion with JB bore paste as I have it on hand. Depending on the results my next step will be buying some foaming bore cleaner.

P.S. I totally forgot about Sweets. Thank you for the suggestion.

P.S.S. BC are your groups with or without the bayonet?

 

[Uncle Grinch]

Hot water and soap will remove all the corrosive salts and powder fouling. These rifles have a history of firing that old corrosive ammo and it you want to really clean it, you need to get all the corrosive crud out.

Than you can use Sweets or any of the other copper cleaners.

 

[BSA1]

I'm not quite following what you are trying to tell me. If my patches are coming out blue aren't I past the crud, at least until I break through the current layer of copper?

 

[itsa pain]

I cleaned some more on the barrel yesterday and let the barrel soak overnight with Shooters Choice. When I ran a dry patch through the barrel this morning it was bright blue. Again!

BCRider, are you sure you an don't own the same gun? ;-) I am going to try your suggestion with JB bore paste as I have it on hand. Depending on the results my next step will be buying some foaming bore cleaner.

P.S. I totally forgot about Sweets. Thank you for the suggestion.

P.S.S. BC are your groups with or without the bayonet?

use the foaming bore cleaner. I used it on an old mauser and blue / green paint came out the barrel. and how did lead get in your barrel I wonder