Lead removal!

[Nath]

Gents I don't know if this is of any use to any one here but I have for a long time noticed how very hot water lifts lead from my shotgun barrels!

Could it work on your pistols and rifles if you have a bad leading situation I wonder?

N.

[Chuck 100 yd]

Nath , Yes,it does help but I think what is going on there is the hot water is removing
the lube/fouling and helping your patches to grab that lead and pull it out.
A tight fitting patch in a dry,oil free, bore is the best I have found short of the
Chore Boy and brush treatment.

[C. Cash]

Would you worry about flash rusting with the hot water Nath? I use the old soak with Ballistol(used to use Hoppes) and the bronze bore brush. If it stops coming out I give it more soaking and brush again, using great care not to scrape or ding the bore.

[Buck Elliott]

Birchwood-Casey Gun Scrubber, or spray carbeutrator cleaner, or brake cleaner, combined with a very tight patch have always worked for me.. You know you're getting the lead out when you hear the barrel "squeal..." If the barrel is badly leaded, the lead will come out in strips or "strings.."

[piller]

Though I am not the one who asked the question, I can use the answers provided. Thanks.

[Sixgun]

Lewis lead removal tool for handguns, brush for rifles and a copper mesh screen (a tool made back in the thirties) for shotguns. or..........

fire some jacketed rounds after the lead or...............

load your ammo properly and you won't have no (or very little) leading. Took me thirty years to master the last one.-----------Sixgun

[zzr7ky]

Hi -

After some serious leading I got serious with an old NM Blackhawk .357 . I polished the forcing cone, lapped the bore constriction out from where it threaded into the frame, then polished a bit with JB Bore Paste... No more leading issues.

Lately I'm a tad lazy so I've been shooting several hundred jacketed bullets out of new single actions, then switching to lead after they a slicked up. A bit of JB is still handy.

Proper sized bullets and decent lube help lots.

Mike P

[Don McDowell]

There really is nothing any better or simpler to find and use to remove leading as a cotton patch soaked with puregumspirits of turpentine, pushed thru the bore on a jag.
I'ld be concerned about flash rusting in a shotgun barrel when using just straight water. Not as big of a concern when cleaning blackpowder rifles etc as the lube residue will hold that flash rust off until the bore is wiped dry and oiled.

[Mescalero]

Thanks,
I have a .358 Winchester Savage 99 that someone went way overboard with.

[Sixgun]

Thanks,
I have a .358 Winchester Savage 99 that someone went way overboard with.

Mes,
Shoot a couple of dozen jacketed pistol bullets out of it. I shot 60 rounds of fairly warm 250 grainers (lead--gas check--sized at .360) out of my 358 the other day and got no leading that I could see.------------Sixgun

[Don McDowell]

If you want to permanently iron that lead into the grooves do the jacketed bullet thing... But if you want to remove that lead, there are better ways.
Think about it for a moment, if there was anything on a jacketed bullet sharp enough to lift lead from the lands and grooves, if the pressures didn't take the gun apart to start with, then the same roughness in the bore that peeled the lead from the bullet is also going to turn your barrel into a copper lined tube....

[Charles]

Boiling hot water has been used for many generations to clean rifle and handgun barrels. It will remove all sorts of stuff and loosen lead which can be brushed out with ease. The British Army even issued angle funnels to do such a thing in their Lee Enfield bolt guns.

When I get a new mil-surp firearm, the first thing I do is run a gallon of boiling water down the barrel from the breech end. I do remove it from the wood.

For 50 years, I have removed the barrels from my 1911 pistols, placed them in a pan of water on the kitchen range, put in a little dish soap and boil it for a minute or two. I then remove it with tongs and run hot tap water through it from the chamber end. I blow through it which drys it instantly. Whatever is left brushes out with ease.

I do give the barrels a light coat of oil when all is done, but the heat generated by all of this boiling water will throughly dry them. I have never had any rust when doing this, but you do need to watch what you are doing. There are easier methods to get lead out if that is the only concern.

I avoid spray cleaners like Gun Scrubber, carb and brake cleaners like the plague and won't have them in my shop. They are highly toxic and you can't control where they go. I poisoned a cat doing with this stuff. He survived thanks to a good vet but my lesson was learned. Last month my SIL was cleaning his Colt Delta Elite with Gun Scrubbed and it melted his plastic recoil spring guide. There are to many downsides to these products to warrant their use, for whatever benefits they being.

[Griff]

For the last 25 years of using BP in my shotguns for Cowboy Action matches I've simply removed the barrels from the action and run hot water thru them in the deep sink. My last outing I actually did my cleaning out in the driveway with cold water. No difference... all the BP fouling, the plastic crud when using plastic wads and any/all lead fouling when using the brass hulls and fiber wads was easily removed. Same with my 1851s and 1873 rifle. The pistols use pure lead balls, and I've yet to find lead fouling in the bores; and, all I use in them are the prelubed WonderWads™ and real BP (Goex). The rifle has been fed all manner of lead alloys, generally a mix of 6:1 (wheelweight:linotype). Again, have yet to find lead fouling in it. Even my .30-30 using that same formula for alloy and a gas-check with smokeless, running across the chrono @ 2190 doesn't get any lead fouling.

I immediately run a couple of dry patches, followed by a couple of lubed patches. No flash rust, no pits, no problems. I have more problems from the fingerprints I sometimes find after a few weeks sitting in the same... where "someone" has put their paws on them after I put them away.

[williamranks]

I used Blue Wonder on a 100 year old Winnie. The barrel was put on in 1929.
When I started the rifling looked very shallow. After 2 treatments the rifling was deep and clean. I could even see the fine scratches on the lands from someone using steel cleaning rods.
Use it outdoors, lots of black goop drips out of the muzzle.

[Nath]

Boiling hot water has been used for many generations to clean rifle and handgun barrels. It will remove all sorts of stuff and loosen lead which can be brushed out with ease. The British Army even issued angle funnels to do such a thing in their Lee Enfield bolt guns.

When I get a new mil-surp firearm, the first thing I do is run a gallon of boiling water down the barrel from the breech end. I do remove it from the wood.

For 50 years, I have removed the barrels from my 1911 pistols, placed them in a pan of water on the kitchen range, put in a little dish soap and boil it for a minute or two. I then remove it with tongs and run hot tap water through it from the chamber end. I blow through it which drys it instantly. Whatever is left brushes out with ease.

I do give the barrels a light coat of oil when all is done, but the heat generated by all of this boiling water will throughly dry them. I have never had any rust when doing this, but you do need to watch what you are doing. There are easier methods to get lead out if that is the only concern.

I avoid spray cleaners like Gun Scrubber, carb and brake cleaners like the plague and won't have them in my shop. They are highly toxic and you can't control where they go. I poisoned a cat doing with this stuff. He survived thanks to a good vet but my lesson was learned. Last month my SIL was cleaning his Colt Delta Elite with Gun Scrubbed and it melted his plastic recoil spring guide. There are to many downsides to these products to warrant their use, for whatever benefits they being.

Excellent

N.

[rogn]

Theres a popular multipurpose product-Kroil. Its prime purpose is to loosen frozen fasteners, on which it does an excellent job. Kroil is short for creeping oil. Its much in favor with bench rest shooters currently, as a bore cleaner/ solvent. It does work well. Ive found if I swab a leaded bore with it and let it sit overnite, then follow with a tight cotton patch, I seem to get most or all of the lead out, as well as the powder fouling and carbon. I think the Kroils surface affinity is so great that it not only dissolves old lube , but penetrates the space between the leading and the barrel steel. Its on my shelf and works well for me...

[Mescalero]

I'd really like to know jacketed bullet after lead truth, but so far it seems to be anecdotal, not scientific.

[Borregos]

I went lead mining in an old Marlin 38-55 recently and used Dons turpentine method, it worked a treat

[Mescalero]

Borregos,
Cool, thanks

[Griff]

I'd really like to know jacketed bullet after lead truth, but so far it seems to be anecdotal, not scientific.

Don has the right of it. Coincides with my experience in a couple of my rifles.

[Mescalero]

Somehow logic led me in that direction.

[Don McDowell]

Borregos that turpentine deal just sort a makes you scratch your head when you feel that patch grabbing at all that lead doesn't it? I was pretty skeptical the first time I tried it,and then I used it on a barrel that was clean,and there shouldn't of been any lead left in it..... I'm a believer.