i lent my remington custom shop 375 hh to a friend to go brown bear hunting, it came back in great shape on the outside, i made the mistake and assumed the inside was good also. well i just pulled it out to clean another gun. and looked at it and the rust is clear at the end of the barrel in spots with about 60% covered. i cant see down the rest of the barrel to tell. any advice? bummed

I suggest you get some Corrosion X (www.corrosionx.com) in the barrel ASAP to stop the rust from further damaging the barrel. Then get a Wheeler Engineering bore lapping kit from Midway (www.midwayusa.com) to clean up the bore.

That's the reason why I never did or will lend one of my guns to anybody. When returning from a hunt, my taking care priorities go to :
1. dog
2. gun
3. myself,
in that order.

I'd start simple first. If you have a little surface rust, you might be able to clean it out and only end up with minor etching that won't hurt anything. Well your feelings will still be hurt, but....

Get Four Ought Steel wool. That is steel wool in 0000 size. You can get that in a hardware store. Take a small piece and wrap it around brass brush. Oil the brush and run it up and down you bore. At this point don't scrub, just run it up and down the bore a couple of times. Dry your bore and see what you have.

If the the rust is gone. Great, Oil your bore and store you rifle. You may have to do this several time to get it all.

If you have etching you may see some dull spots in an otherwise shiney bore. Although this is not great it's not really that bad. Those dull spots may polish out with shooting. Or they may stay. They might copper foul a little during shooting and require an little extra effort to clean.

If you have pitting, you may want to go to the extreme measures. But first shoot your rifle and see if it's affected. If it still shoots okay I wouldn't bother with doing anything else. You may get more fouling in the area and again that will require extra effort to clean. If you brought this rifle to my shop this what I would do first to see how much damage if any there was.

Now if you just have to get rid of those ugly pits you can use the extreme measures like lapping kits. But just remember, in order to clean up pits you have to remove metal. You may get rid of the pitting and get back a nice shiney bore. But you also have a nice buckbed depression where the pits were.

Do this step by step, do the simple less extreme first and test the results by shooting. Be gentle.

Shooting after you get the rust out is often all the polishing you need.

DD

[ 12-09-2002, 02:18: Message edited by: Double D ]

Take it to a gunsmith and let him see how much damage there is. If it can be cleaned, have him clean it up. If not, have him re-barrel it with the a good, match-quality tube. Then send the bill to your friend! If he's a stand-up guy, he wouldn't have it any other way.

thanks guys for the input. i ran a wire brush through with solvent (before that a pad and let it soak). cleaned until the pads came out clear, there are a definitly spots or areas that are now discolored at the end of the barrel till where are i cant see anymore. i dont know if its pitted cant tell. the bore looks very shiny all the way down but ill never be able to get the angle on it to see. im going to shoot it next weekend and see, thats the tell all. luckily its not a sniping gun just a close range .375. ill let you know how it shoots. i feel kind of bad telling the guy about it i know hed feel awful if i did im sure hed buck up. thanks again for the advice

never a borrower nor a lender be

Why should you feel guilty telling this guy who let your rifle bore rust. He is the guilty one for being so inconsiderate and letting a borrowed rifle bore rust while in his care. I would tell him he will never ever use one of my rifles again and he owes you a new barrel period. I would have seen to it that he saw the rifle before the clean up job you did. Amazing you are to meek to call him on his inconsiderate actions. I don't even lend my rifles to my son unless he is prepared to buy it if he damages it. Also if your reluctant about telling him your rifle bore rusted while in his care then are you telling the truth about this borrowed rifle.

I never loan guns, tools or money without assuming I will either never get it back or it will come back in poor shape. I don't expect anyone to be as picky as I am about my toys. So I have a couple loaner rifles. Is your friend experienced enough to know how to take care of the rifle correctly? Did you discuss potential damage before hand? You also stated you assumed it was clean and put it away. For how long? Could the damage have been prevented by simply cleaning and oiling it before you put it away? Are you 100% sure the rust hadn't already started. I see potential strain on the relationship no matter how you proceed. I doubt that you will see an impact on the rifles accuracy. I would file it as a lesson learned. Good Friends are hard to find. Toys can be fixed or replaced.

RAMROD SPEAKS WISELY!!!!!!!!!!!
I couldn't add a word better than he already wrote!!

Loaned rifle came back in bad shape?

Tell the buddy what it is, and see what he does.

If he is unconcerned, well, Jeffe would not have that person as a buddy anymore

If he's concerned about you being mad at him... well...

if he offers to fix it, replace it, send to 'smith, etc, there's a buddy.

as for FIXIN it.. scrub the bore, ensure it's not a crawfish hole, and go shot it. Yep, it's diminished, and yep it was avoidable. It's now time to work around it, inho.

Sorry your gun got crawfished.
jeffe