Deltahunter,

I guess this is one of those "your mileage may vary" sort of things. It's worked perfectly for me; a video borescope showed nothing upon a visit to a gunsmith-- he's nuts about clean bores being the cause of most accuracy problems. Claimed he'd never had a customer bring in a bore that clean before. I just smirked.

Not brushing, and not using foul-smelling solvents is a miracle for me! Sorry to hear that it's not that effective for everyone.

Bwana-be - Let�s look at it this way, you would need to seriously screw up in order to pit your barrel with traditional solvents. However, it takes very little to do it through electrolysis. Why do you think that Outers has come out with so many versions of their system? It was not because the first two were totally safe. Folks were frosting their bores very quickly with the system.

I have a Hawkeye bore scope and I have inspected two barrels which were thought to be clean, but were actually frosted due to electrolysis cleaners. One barrel was a factory barrel and no great loss, the other was a beautiful double square bridge Mauser with an irreplaceable barrel.

It takes almost no voltage and amperage to begin to pit metal in an electrolyte solution. It can be done with millivolts. So to say that a 1.5 volt battery is safe because it�s low voltage is incorrect.

Having seen the aftermath of these types of cleaners and the cost associated with rebarreling a rifle, my opinion is to forget electrolysis cleaners.

I hope you're joking...

Nothing to Joke about. According to you a manufacturer is producing a product that destroys an "irreplaceable" barrel. Flom what you've related it'd be a slam dunk in court.

Bwana-be: Before you actually try the thing out, I would urge you to do a search on this forum and others such as BenchRest Central. I made one of these using a 6 volt battery charger and used it on an old military 98/22 Mauser that I just couldn't get clean with a bronze brush and solvent. I changed the fluid and cleaned off the rod several times over a total period of several hours and eventually the foaming stopped, but there was a section in the middle of the barrel that was so rough that it would tear patches. I wound up using 0000 steel wool on a brush driven by a variable speed drill and eventually got the rust out and the bore actually had a little shine to it, but the rifling looked kind of ragged. I used the bullet-in-the-muzzle test and the bullet went in a little bit farther than in a new barrel.

I asked about it on this site (not sure which forum) and someone responded that it would cause damage to the bore if not used according to the directions from Outers, who sell a commercial version. In my case, I don't know if the device caused damage, or whether it just exposed rust that was covered by powder fouling and other material.

HTH, Brady

Bwana-be - I was simply attempting to warn you that electrolysis is not totally safe. Brady told you that he almost ruined a barrel using it, I have inspected two bores ruined by it, there are many other folks who will attest to the same.

Now, if you or anyone else wishes to ignore the warnings because you think you can do it safely, then by all means, have at it...

Oh, good grief, Zero Drift, that's a bit overboard, wouldn't you say?
Too much ammonia, too much voltage, too long in the barrel, yes you can pit the steel.
But 1/3 ammonia and 1/3 vinegar, and you have a basically neutral ph, which is further diluted by 1/3 water. 1.5v for 15-20 ea seems waaaaay on the safe side.

Is this really just a 1.5 volt battery from a flashlight? I seem to remember from another thread on internet DIY plans for similar devices but have misplaced the article. Anyone have a reference?

Here's a link to a DIY electronic bore cleaner. I've tried it and I guess it did something, the rod came out covered in some kind of black gunk. This was in a barrel that I had already cleaned using my normal routine.



http://members.rogers.com/snidey/borecleaner.html



I substituted O rings about every 5 or 6 inches for the heat shrink tubing, but I think the O rings needed to be smaller. The air bubbles caused by the electro-chemical reaction got trapped under the O rings and prevented the liquid from flowing down past them to the bottom of the barrel. It fools you into thinking your barrel is still topped off. Actually, the barrel was only partially full of liquid between each O ring about 5 minutes into this process. I found this out when I lifted the rod out of the barrel and put it back in. When I put it back in, the liquid did not come back up to the top. I think the shrink tubing might work better.



Anyway, when I got done and ran a patch through the barrel with my regular solvent, the patch came out rusty colored. This sort of concerned me, so I don't know if I'll try this again. I haven't shot my rifles since, so I don't know if it was beneficial or not. Guess I'll find out soon enough.