Hello, I've been a member for a few weeks, and my first post is in fact a new thread. At the risk of sounding like a huge rookie, I want to share a rather solid method of cleaning out a military surplus rifle bore. I must admit that this idea is not entire mine, it was inspired by a neighbor's advice. This man is known around here as "Bartsche" and he introduced me to this forum.

What is involved is a mixture of a house hold cleaner, such as a less abrasive stainless steel and/or copper cleaner, and a typical gun cleaning solvent. Bartsche uses 'Bon Ami' I use 'Clean King' (Or, Kleen King, I forget how they spell it). What one does is choose a de-greaser, or bore cleaner like Hoppe's No.9. I use 'Gumout' Carbourator/Fuel injector cleaner. Mix a bit of the powder stainless steel/copper cleaner into about 2 tablespoons of the solvent. Create a watery paste. Pour that carefully onto your favorite brand of cotton patch and insert into your barrel. You might want to separate the barrel from the stock just to make clean up easier. Scrub that back and fourth a few times all the way down the bore and remove the patch. Repeat this about 2 or 3 times.

It shouldn't result in any damage to the bore, and it will really do a number on the carbon build up. I put this through a Yugoslavian M24/47 and Swiss K31 with bores that I thought I had cleaned to perfection, and still found a patch that was black as pitch on the other end. It was suprising because after a thorough cleaning, my K31 bore looked like a mirror, but this method made me feel like a 19th century chimney sweep after I looked at the carbon in that "pristine" Swiss bore. I strongly recomend doing this with a rifle that you just bought.

Just trying to help, let me know if this proves effective or if all of you already know about this and I am just joining a club that has millions of members.

Eduardo, check this one out, it works very well.

http://www.surplusrifle.com/reviews/copperout/index.asp

Yeah, I saw that one a while back. I'm a big fan of surplusrifle.com. Too bad they had to transfer it over to a new owner. Not to be pessimistic but I doubt that the new incarnation will be even a fraction as good as the original. Anyway, that looks pretty good but it seems really involved. Not that I am lazy, but I say why have such an elaborate set up for something that can be achived with a simpler one? But thanks. By the way, does any one else use the method that I posted?

That method was recommended over on the old shooters.com rifle boards back in the mid '90s. Supposedly Bon Ami works because the abrasive in it is feldspar and won't scratch steel.

I've never tried it.

I think clean enough is clean enough. I'm not obsessed with getting every trace of carbon or metal out of my bores. If the bore looks good and shoots well after you clean it, and doesn't rust, it's clean enough. You're going to shoot it and dirty it right up again, aren't you?

In fact, I currently have several milsurp rifles sitting uncleaned that I don't plan to clean. I've been shooting them with lubricated cast bullets that don't lead the bore, and "season" the bore surface with a mixture of bullet lube and powder/primer soot, leaving a waxy black bore. Clean that out and you have to start over. Rifle won't settle down and shoot right till it builds up again. May need cleaning if you notice accuracy starting to fall off, but it can stay at an equilibrium for a long time. The lubes I use were originally designed as antirust coatings for metal, anyway.

It's a different matter entirely with corrosive primed milsurp ammo, of course. And there your oily based cleaners are a poor choice. Need to start with a water-based solution to dissolve the corrosive salt, and make sure it's completely flushed out.

Good points, I perhaps should have mentioned that the method I described was primarily useful for the initial cleanings when a "new" military surplus rifle enters your possession, afterward, of course there is not as much need to really go at it like that. Its funny, but when I bought my K31's the bores were shiny, they looked nearly unfired, but then I put a few patches of Kleen King/Gumout down there and it looked like an EXXon-Valdez tanker had run afoul of my rifling while the driver was being fed whiskey through and IV. For my peace of mind, I just want to get it as pristine as I can before I fire anything through it myself.

Yeah, the Swiss method of cleaning was to run a pull through with metal mesh on it, lubricated with grease, about 4 times as I recall from the manual. Those GP-11 bullets have steel jackets coated with an alloy of 20% nickel, 80% copper. Over the years there will be some layering of that stuff with powder fouling. Fortunately, ammonia is good at corroding and dissolving (by chemically complexing with) both nickel and copper, and is essentially noncorrosive to the steel. My main technique for breaking this gunk loose is to cap the muzzle with the rubber tip for a quad cane (available at any drug store), after swabbing the bore with a patch wet with soapy water, stand it on the rubber tip on the muzzle and pour it full of aqueous ammonia to the chamber and leave it standing for an hour, then drain and clean normally. Go shoot and repeat. Doesn't take long with that regimen to get down to a nice clean bore. And I'm not worried about the effect of abrasives on my bore.

Darwinmauser; I built a similar cleaner and have used it on my 96 swede and 1917 enfield. Have to admit, I was impressed. Used it one time on each just to get it clean to start with. Swede will clover leaf the 129's and 140's using handloads. Have yet to find the best load for the Enfield. Have a 29 Persian but did no use the bore cleaner on it. Didn't look like it had more than a few rounds thru it and has more stain on the stock from being in a rack than dings.

I think I'm the biggest sucker in the world for trying different solvents and rifle barrel cleaning gadgets. This all came to an end when I discovered foaming bore cleaners. I really like to clean a rifle barrel being a competetive rifle shooter. I used some of the Outer's foaming bore cleaner in a barrel I "knew" was clean, NOT! The foam comes out white, no smell, I left it in one hour, and it came out a beautiful deep blue! Copper! I shined a flash light down the muzzle of the unloaded rifles and could see traces of copper in the rifling. I foamed the barrels and now I truely have clean rifle barrels. No brushes, just patches. No smell, no scrubbing. Give it a try. I use it with corrosive ammo, but only let it sit for 10 minutes, punch the bore, then re-foam the bore to get out the copper and carbon.

Yep wipe out foam cleaner is the way to go. EASY