Cleaning a Mil Surp Barrel

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tkcomer

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I have a K-98 mil surp gun that I just can’t seem to get the barrel clean. And I’ve been at it for several days. I first used 30 caliber brushes and they weren’t big enough. I got 8MM brushes and have already worn one of those out. I’m on my second brass brush and can tell it too is wearing out. The black crap is still coming out of this barrel. I’ve tried the foaming bore cleaners and letting it soak. When I patch that stuff, it looks like black goo. I was wondering if I used a 50-50 mix of diesel fuel and tranny fluid , filled the barrel and let it set a few days in my shop, if that would be a good idea. I hate using a brass brush this much on a barrel. Just trying to come up with a way to dissolve this stuff. Any ideas?
 
Is it Turkish? I've had some of those old dogs before. Eventually I started to think the rifling was cut into the fouling. One school of thought is not to clean too deep because you're just exposing pitting. I don't really buy into that though.

I've resorted to taking the action out and using extremely hot water. It's the method for getting the really bad fouling out of black powder rifles. But elbow grease is the ultimate solution.

I like the M-pro bore gel, but honestly I've never found any product that will strip out the fouling without the aid of a ton of elbow grease.
 
It's a Russian capture gun. All this brass bush scrubbing can't be good for it. Figure I'd try soaking the bore to loosen things up. Would filling the barrel up with Kroil and letting it soak for a few days be better? The shop gets pretty hot if left closed up. Figured the heat would be even better.
 
Brass brush is softer than the steel barrel, just try not to bang the steel rod attached to the brush into the bore or crown too much. Also, remember that the troops cleaned these with either a metal-chain pull-through, or connected three rods together to run that steel rod down the bore.

Now, you may be getting gunk from the chamber area on your bore "pulls."
With 8mm, grab a .45 colt brush and get one piece of sectional rod, and use that to give the chamber a good scrub. This is a handy place to use US miltary rod sections with the T handle. Alternating with a .45colt mop will help, too. Might be a good idea to pick up a couple extra of those, they are likely to look bad.

While soaking will get some, the answer is still going to be elbow grease. Then some more elbow grease. Probably followed by a bit more after that--especially if there was anything even remotely like cosmoline in there. But, it's an excuse to put good tunes on the player and be away from the MSM for a while, which will help a person's BP no end.
 
Im with CapnMac, 'cept Id try scrubbing it right after firing a few rounds through it. Boiling water and soap go along way with cleaning out the salts found in corrosivly primed milsurp ammo. Even strokes from the breech end of the barrel to push out the gunk and a chamber scrub. The heat of the water will make the steel "self drying" in seconds, so theres no worry about rust, just use a small funnel, tinfoil if you need.

Are you firing corrosive ammo? Shooting laquer'd milsurp? That stuff and old dry cosmoline will build up in your chamber and shine like clean steel in there. Been melted, and reformed under some serious pressure.
Like CapnMac said, The .45 brush with a solvent (dipped is gasoline is fine) will get that chamber clean.
 
Kroil has been known to do bad things, like loosen 100years of crud and show just how bad the bore really is. So if you use it, be prepared.
 
The bore itself is shiny. This stuff is coming out of the grooves. And I have shot it a few times with my reloads. Just low power loads though. I thought it came clean with the 30 caliber brush, but the tighter fitting 8MM brushes showed me just how wrong I was.
 
Pick a solvent you can let soak and leave the barrel wet or even filled. Scrub some and rewet every once in a while.

Take cleaning gear to the range and clean the barrel while it is warm from shooting and the fouling still soft.
 
Well, it's in the shop filled with Kroil. Now to start in on the other Mil Surp. Swiss K-31. It's in the kitchen full of that foaming bore cleaner. I hope it's not as bad as the K-98. Funny how the bores can look shiny and be so full of crud.
 
That Swiss will be a walk in the park. Doubt it even needs a cleaning. They were the first nation to use non-corrosive primers I believe and their sergeants had an almost obsessive compulsive fixation on clean bores.

Would filling the barrel up with Kroil and letting it soak for a few days be better?
Click to expand...

I haven't tried this, but I've had enough experience with Kroil to say keep it well away from any air you're breathing. And forget about relying on some wad of cotton to plug the other end of the barrel. And keep any wood well, well away from it.

Let us know how it goes! I'm betting you end up with a smoothbore musket ;-)
 
This is timely, just posted this on another site.

To each their own I guess, but last night I tried PB Blaster on the bore of my Mosin Nagant. I have to say after a couple hours saturation and a good scrub, I could not believe the copper fouling and crud that came out. After a few swipes with tight dry patches, the final ones remained clean, before they were always dirty no matter what. That bore is now clean and shiny as I have ever seen it, and that was the real surprise, just how good the bore looked after cleaned up.

Con, that stuff does stink.
 
Just to touch base on the Swiss, half hour soak with the foaming bore cleaner, 5 quick swipes with a brush, and nowhere near the crap in it. First patch was black, second patch was'nt that bad. This one will be a snap.
 
I tried a brass brush and foaming bore cleaner on a .308 conversion Israeli Mauser. The foam originally came out blue green but eventually turned black. I noticed the force required to pass the brush became less the more I scrubbed. I decided the bore cleaner was dissolving the brass brush. I switched to a nylon brush and started getting the blue green foam again.
 
I worked endlessly on a couple of 91/30s and found a huge improvement using a homemade electrolytic setup. There are instructions all over the web for making one with a couple of D cells or a small AC power supply.

Here's one link...
http://www.sksboards.com/smf/index.php?topic=31740.0

It took a substantial amount of gunk out for me, the bores still look like a mile of bad road but that's a fair amount of stuff I don't have to brush out.
/Bryan
 
A steamer

After I run out of ideas and trying almost anything cleaning my mosin nagant, I decided to purchase a small steamer
41aGlAdAM%2BL._SL500_AA300_.jpg 7034__33181_zoom.gif I paid about US$90.00 and it was incredible how the steam melted the goo away, you'll need patience and a couple of loads of steam, and after that you can use it to clean about anything metal.
You'll have to pull the whole rifle apart, irons from woods that is and apply steam to every seam and crack you find and the stuff just melts away.
Like I said , it takes patience since old cosmoline is like old varnish:cuss:

However noting is perfect and I still had to use cooper brush and the Winchester gun cleaner to clean the chamber because I was suffering the sticky bolt syndrome, since most rounds have some kind of varnish and the barrel gets so hot, it has to be done every once in while anyways her a pic of my rifle's rear night sights
P1010095.jpg
mosin%20sightsight2.jpg
 
I wouldn't worry about it to much. As long as it shoots straight the crap will work itself out as you shoot it and clean it normaly.

That Swiss will be a walk in the park. Doubt it even needs a cleaning. They were the first nation to use non-corrosive primers I believe and their sergeants had an almost obsessive compulsive fixation on clean bores.
Click to expand...

They greased their bores when they were warm after shooting. The fouling never got much of a chance to settle in.
 
Plus one on the JB Bore Paste. Cleans out the crud and shines afterwards.
 
Try KG Industries KG12 for copper fouling.
http://www.kgcoatings.com/index.php?p=product&id=5&parent=4

Brownells sells it. I think you will be impressed. It does not turn blue so it is a good idea to run a patch of a conventional ammonia cleaner through after the KG12 to test for complete copper removal.

I use a stiff nylon brush and after ten strokes let it sit for 10-20 minutes and then patch. KG12 will rapidly eat anything made of brass.

For general crud removal I have had good results with Bore Tech Eliminator. It is also a good general duty copper remover. While better than most copper removers, it is not in the same league as KG12 for removing heavy copper fouling.
http://www.boretech.com/products/eliminator.shtml

Last I checked Brownells and Midway sold Bore Tech products.

JB Bore paste can do a very good job of removing copper fouling without losing the barrel's "seasoning" (copper in the pits and irregularities). This type of cleaning can be desirable on a proven barrel for routine maintenance. JB cannot however remove all of the copper in the barrel's imperfections.
 
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