What is your procedure for dark bore rifles?

[jsalcedo]

I have a couple of milsurps with dark bores.

They shoot fairly well but I was thinking that with some added clean up
they might shoot better.

Right now I can bronze brush with shooters choice, JD abrasive paste bore cleaner, hoppes, soap and water, crud cutter spray for hours on end and patches still come out black when I swab out the bore.

I've tried firing until the barrel is hot then scrubbing it down still with no noticable effect.

Should I leave them alone and just keep them maintained or use some other method?

 

[telewinz]

I've scrubbed the bore with a solution of ammonia (Windex) and then polished with a good metal polish paste.

 

[444]

I just leave it alone. I am more worried about how the rifle shoots rather than how the bore looks. I figured that if I shot the rifle a lot, I would be cleaning it a lot and eventually all that black stuff would come out. So far, it hasn't. If I run a brush through the bore, I get black patches no matter how many times I clean it. It seems futile and counterproductive to worry about it.

 

[MonkeyMan]

I picked up a Turk Mauser in a trade that had a real sewer pipe for a bore. RB-17 was the first cleaner I tried that helped it. All the usual suspects were an exercise for the arm but not much else. In all seriousness, if it shoots well I wouldn't mess with it too much. The Turk wasn't much of a shooter and as I didn't have too many $$$ invested in it I figured it would be a good test bed for cleaners. Now with a decent looking bore it still doesn't shoot much better but that probably has more to do with the overall condition of the rifle than the bore condition. Of course, YMMV

Stay safe.

 

[Joe Demko]

Have you tried plugging the muzzle, filling the bore with solvent, and letting it "marinate" for several hours (even overnight)? Since the solvents depend on chemical action, as well as mechanical scrubbing, maybe you should give that chemical action an extended opportunity.

 

[Steve Smith]

Don't even worry about it. Surely you have something better to do with your time, such as load ammo, court women, or clip your toenails.

 

[Mike Irwin]

Clean them and shoot them.

 

[rayra]

My Blue Sky Garand had a horribly ugly bore, which produced an endless supply of dirty patches - still does, for that matter - but it's very accurate, so ultimately I could care less. And I certainly wouldn't be going overboard with abrasive cleaning products...

 

[Preacherman]

One of the best ways to clean up a really cruddy bore is to firelap it. You can buy kits of already-prepared bullets, or prepare your own. I've seen several WWII milsurps that were firelapped, both before and after the lapping, and the difference was truly astounding. It also helped accuracy in most cases, IIRC.

 

[cookie]

For my old M48s: shoot, Windex, clean.

 

[Poodleshooter]

Persistence and a good copper cleaner work for me.
I ran about 30-40 patches of Butch's Bore Shine through my CMP Garand before I shot it. I quit when they weren't dirty anymore.
Bronze brushes and strong ammonia solvents such as Sweets or Butch's will just deposit more crap in the bore as the brush breaks down in the solvent. Brushes tend to hold all kinds of dirty gunk no matter how well you wash them, so I try to avoid them except for initial passes when the rifle is heavily fouled.

 

[rayra]

30-40 patches?? I'm all for keeping a 'clean' weapon, but what good is a shiny bore in your ancient battle rifle, if your removing all the fouling and copper plating enlarges your (already worn out) bore-size until accuracy is lost?
That's pretty much why I haven't been retentive about cleaning that particular arm.

 

[Dr.Rob]

Ed's Red does wonders. Even more when you let it soak.

Did a nice job on my 1903 A3.