Shooting out a boresnake brush?

[GW Staar]

The overwhelming majority suggest driving it out with a brass rod.

I believe burning away as much of the snake as possible would be important as....to take an extreme example, 3m of tightly packed rope in a barrel will never be driven out the other end as it will only compact upon itself. So I think the snake would have to be burnt out as much as possible prior to attempting to drive it out with a rod/brute force.

I will have to go to the hardware store after work tomorrow and get the necessary supplies. In the mean time I will soak it in Ballistol.

My gut tells me this brush will fold in on itself once I start to try beat it out given as 243winxb's photo illustrates there is a long way to go.....I get the feeling I will soon end up with a large paper weight.

I can see I was wrong about the brass brush's center, (never cut one apart) but having a twisted wire in the middle, like a regular brass bristle brush, is even better, to prevent the material from compacting upon itself. The diameter of the twisted wire center can't be that much smaller than the bore....therefore how in heaven is it going to fold anywhere....it may move from side to side a couple of mm's but so what.(and I even doubt that...you got bristles interwoven in nylon all around it.)

In my opinion, burning is not going to do much unless it is hot enough to melt the brass. I'm betting that it's the brass bristles that's holding the thing in there, not 3m of rope....but you could maybe hook the rope with a #22-#24 fish hook and alternately push and pull to keep it from bunching up any more.

Best of luck to you. BTW, if all else fails a gunsmith could run a .17 caliber bore drill through it.....paper weight....never.

 

[JohnM]

It ain't like the OP is the first person to ever stick a brush or something else in a tight bore before.
There's several of us here who have had to remove such stuff before, it's no big deal.

 

[higgite]

The overwhelming majority suggest driving it out with a brass rod.....

I get the feeling I will soon end up with a large paper weight.

It's already a large paperweight as is. Get the brass rod as suggested and turn it back into a rifle.

 

[Robert101]

"It's already a large paperweight as is. Get the brass rod as suggested and turn it back into a rifle."
Best statement I've heard today. Oh the genius of what he said.

 

[Jim K]

Would it surprise anyone to know I have shot out several obstructions like that and still have all my bits and pieces and no damage to the rifles or handguns?

Use a standard factory round, pull the bullet, dump out about half the powder and stick a fluff of cotton in the case to keep the powder from spilling out. DO NOT PUT THE BULLET BACK IN! Fire the cartridge. (With .22 LR, you can use the full powder charge, instead of half.)

That's it, folks, no bulged barrel, no explosion, no scratches in the barrel that weren't there before, no pieces of rifle scattered over four counties. Just a sort of "poof."

Now what not to do. DON'T try it with a bullet in the case; you WILL bulge or burst the barrel. DON'T use a factory blank cartridge; the powder burns too fast. With a revolver with the bullet stuck in the forcing cone, you will have drive the bullet back into the cylinder so the cylinder can be opened, and the bullet will either come out with the case or just fall out.

Jim

 

[Lost Sheep]

Not a wooden dowel

Do NOT use a wooden dowel. If the end splits, the splinters are very likely to wedge between the bore and the original obstruction and make matters worse.

Lost Sheep

 

[Sun Tzu warrior]

Are boresnakes made of cotton?
Seems to me, in my younger years, I rotted a lot of holes in my trousers, carrying car batteries. Maybe some battery acid (sulfuric acid)
will dissolve the cloth material portion, Perhaps a call to Hoppes would be in order, surely they have encountered this problen before, if not they could at least tell you the material from which they are made.

 

[Trent]

Sulfuric acid will corrode stainless steel.

 

[JohnM]

Are boresnakes made of cotton?
Seems to me, in my younger years, I rotted a lot of holes in my trousers, carrying car batteries. Maybe some battery acid (sulfuric acid)
will dissolve the cloth material portion, Perhaps a call to Hoppes would be in order, surely they have encountered this problen before, if not they could at least tell you the material from which they are made.

Oh puleeze! Pour sulfuric acid, even at battery strength, into a gun barrel!?!
Why not tell the guy to take it to a welding shop and have them cut out the plugged section and weld it back together?

 

[lykoris]

I am having a nightmare of a time trying to burn out the boresnake from the chamber area, whatever a hoppes boresnake is made of they are extremely resilient against a red hot closehanger from a propane torch.

I don't see any point in hammering a brass rod through the chamber area until I have cleared as much of a path as possible to the brush. I don't see how that would work anyway as the force of the strike would dissipate long before it reached the brush.

I will put up some photos tomorrow and they will still be crappy cell photos as the camera took my wife on holidays

JimK it was no doubt your thread I came across, I think a .22lr rifle is one thing, as is a handgun with a significantly shorter barrel....althought I am still contemplating it as an option.

I am also thinking I might just call up Swiss Arms and see if they could resolve it and get the gunsmith/distributor here to just ship it back to them.

I will never again use a boresnake, ironically I had read threads here a month ago and thought....yeah, never going to happen to me but as a precaution bought a bunch of new ones which I will now be shooting the crap out of down range.

my poor sig 550....there is never a crying smiley when you need one

 

[Lucifer_Sam]

The only successful bore snake removals I've read about have been by backing it out with alot of force, or putting a screw on a rod, screwing that into the snake, then pulling it out. I think the running a wire through the snake suggestions in this thread might work, too.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=705806

He actually got his out by pulling it out backwards. But that wrong caliber thing might mean you're in a world of pain.

And definitely don't use wooden dowels. Once one of those split in the barrel you're off to the gunsmith for sure.

 

[Sun Tzu warrior]

Yeah, I guess you guys are right, battery acid will surely rot steel quicker than cotton!
Be that as it may, a call to Hoppes may still provide a solution.
Anyway good luck Lykoris, hope it all ends well for you!

 

[45_auto]

Do you know anyone with access to liquid nitrogen?

Freeze the thing piece by piece and work your way up the barrel chipping it out as you freeze it.

As a side benefit, you'll be cryo-treating your barrel which people would charge you big bucks for anyway!

 

[Dave Bulla]

Seems to me the main issue is that the bore between the brush and the chamber is packed full of synthetic rope and that's the end he'd need to use the brass rod from to pound it out.

The idea of burning it out seems poor too as all it would do would be to melt into plastic and then set up like hot glue on steroids.

Honestly, I'm a bit stumped. Have you verified that it was in fact the 30 cal brush? I bought a 22 boresnake and did ONE pass down the barrel of a Marlin 39A and it was literally ALL I could do to pull the danged thing through the barrel. It was so tight that the steel core in the brush broke while I was pulling. Just saying, it wouldn't surprise me any if it was actually the 22 bore snake that got stuck.

If it is the 30 caliber one, I think you might be in a real bad fix.

I kinda like the idea of the copper solvent but the only problem is most of those solvents caution against leaving it in the bore longer than about 15 minutes. If you put it in and it doesn't do the job it will still soak way down into the bore snake fibers and will likely cause damage anyway.

As insane as it sounds after a lifetime of being preached to about barrel obstructions and how dangerous they are, I keep coming back to the shoot it out method of Jim K as possibly the least harmful way to get it out. As he said, with no projectile, there "should" be less danger. I'd probably dump ALL of the powder and add back 3 to 5 grains of Unique powder since it's been proven a fabulous (and safe) reduced load powder. Problem is you may not have access to it there. When it goes off, it's almost sure to push the obstruction out. I just can't safely recommend it to you because there is no guarantee.

If it was my rifle though, at this point I'd probably give it a try and hope for the best.

 

[X-Rap]

Did the rope break at the muzzle? Can you find a rod (brass) that just clears the lands?
Have you tried some sort of brass hooks on a rod chucked in a drill and tried forward/reverse to shread the rope?
If the rod is just small enough to fit in the bore you should be able to compress every thing and drive the brush out, rope and all. You may need to have a short piece 4-6 inches turned to fit exactly and then a smaller diameter rod or rods to finish driving it through. Multiple driving rods may need to be used so you minimize the chance to bow the portion of the rod outside the bore.

 

[JohnM]

I am having a nightmare of a time trying to burn out the boresnake from the chamber area, whatever a hoppes boresnake is made of they are extremely resilient against a red hot closehanger from a propane torch.

Unbelievable

 

[lykoris]

Unbelievable indeed, I meant to say clothes hanger

the bore between the brush and the chamber is packed full of synthetic rope and that's the end he'd need to use the brass rod from to pound it out

Exactly the current state of affairs. Will post some photos after work.

 

[frankenstein406]

Can you thread the end of a rod and try to pull the rope part out while pounding from the other end?

 

[JohnM]

If you had driven a brass rod through as many of us have told you, you'd be done now and have your rifle back together and shooting.
Since you've insisted on poking a STEEL coat hanger, heated glowing red?, in and out of your bore for days now, I wonder if you'll even have a barrel left worth saving.

 

[backbencher]

Since you've insisted on poking a STEEL coat hanger, heated glowing red?, in and out of your bore for days now, I wonder if you'll even have a barrel left worth saving.

How is a soft steel coat hanger, not any hotter than burning powder, going to do damage to a hardened steel barrel?

 

[JohnM]

Take a piece of an old coat hanger and ram it in and out of a (preferably junked) barrel for a while, then go in with a bore scope and tell me you see no damage caused to the bore.

 

[lykoris]

it has always been encased in a brass sleeve which is visible from the photo I originally posted....the idea was originally from a guy that successfully removed a stuck boresnake doing this then tapping it out.

Any blow currently will be dissipated by all the material at the throat of the barrel all the way up - I could pound until eternity and it will not move the brush.

 

[JohnM]

Any blow currently will be dissipated by all the material at the throat of the barrel all the way up -

No it won't. A 3/16-5mm brass rod can't get past the steel wire core of the brush, once whatever the end of the rod picks up on it's way to the brush will get compacted by the blows of a hammer on the rod till it can't get compressed any more and the jammed brush will start to move.
Once it starts moving it'll drag whatever else is in there along with it till the whole mess comes out the muzzle!

 

[X-Rap]

Don't try to cut and use one piece of rod to do the whole job, use pieces that will allow the maximum of 4" to be exposed outside the bore. You might have to cut the peened end off before it enters the muzzle but you can use much harder strikes on a shorter rod.

 

[JohnM]

+ As above