Scrubbing lead from the bore

[Beartracker]

When scrubbing the bore of my black powder guns I use Flitz and it works great but does anyone know of anything that may work better? I'm not one to keep up with new products for that kind of stuff but thought maybe some of you would know what's best. Years ago it was hard to beat any of Hop's products but I know there are better products on the market today.Thanks, Mike

 

[Manyirons]

Me, i'm so old fashioned i still use mercury! For light leading, Butches Bore Shine with a brass screen (like the old lewis lead remover).

 

[Car Knocker]

I've found that part of a copper Chore Boy scouring pad wrapped around a brush works well.

 

[Beartracker]

Manyirons, I have been at this for a long time but never heard of using mercury to get rid of lead. How does it work and where can you get it? I thought they took the stuff off the market because it was so bad for you? No one told me that when I was a kid making mecury dimes Mike

Thanks for a great idea on the brush Car Knocker! My wifes has some of them in the kitchen, now if I can just sneak one out to my shop....

 

[mec]

I've had some caked on fouling but never any leading problems with black powder revolvers. My usual field cleaning solvent is spit. For thorough clean up at home, I use the oil soap/alcohol/peroxide mixture but belive that any dish soap will loosen the powder residue just as well.

Mercury does amalgamate with lead and takes it off very quickly. At one time, people were pretty well swimming in mercury. they discovered the locaton of the dumpers in the Lewis and Clark pacific campsite by finding deposits of mercury defecated there by members of the expedition. At that time, no medical nostrum was considered at all worthwhile unless it contained either mercury, opium or alcohol and preferably all three. Heavy metals like mercury and arsenic were used to cure syphilis and it apparently worked very well- except when the patients died, of course.

 

[Manyirons]

Manyirons, I have been at this for a long time but never heard of using mercury to get rid of lead. How does it work and where can you get it? I thought they took the stuff off the market because it was so bad for you? No one told me that when I was a kid making mecury dimes Mike

Thanks for a great idea on the brush Car Knocker! My wifes has some of them in the kitchen, now if I can just sneak one out to my shop....

Mec is quite right, mercury combines with lead, gold, silver etc to create amalgums, cold forming alloys.

In this case one merely plugs the bore and pours enough mercury in to fill the bore, wait overnight and lead-free bore!!

Any science supply house has it, been so long i don't remember which one is best, i will look them up tomorrow and advise-you!

 

[Beartracker]

Thanks guy's, as for cleaning I quit using water and soap a long time ago. I can strip my gun and set everything in a plastic tray and start cleaning with Dollar store Window cleaner. It cuts BP and the subs like it was nothing and it leaves a film on the metal. I can leave it for a couple hours and no rust will show up. For the bore I clean in the normal way with flitz patches and wire brush and when I'm done it looks like a mirror inside. No hot water to mess with or soap and oil mixes. When done cleaning with the window cleaner I use my compressor to blow it off and then use WD-40 and dry it well. Lube all the internal parts as I put it back togeather, works fast and easy and a spotless gun.
The reason I was asking about a better lead cleaner was to see if there was something out there that you all have tried and like. So much stuff on the market today it's hard to tell what's just junk and what works.
Thanks for all the info on the mercury, I learn something new every day on here Mike

 

[mainmech48]

As an alternative to mercury that isn't nearly as hazardous, try Shooter's Choice Lead Remover. It works great on the moderate-to-heavy leading that I sometimes get when I push cast bullets a bit too hard in my .357s or use swaged ones in my .45 ACPs.

The Lewis or Hoppe's caliber-specific kits with the brass screens work well, too. IME they take more time and effort than the Shooter's Choice, but they get it done.

Personally, I've never run into this sort of problem in any of my C&B revolvers and I shoot them with swaged pure lead balls and conicals almost exclusively these days.

If you aren't using either a treated felt wad under the ball or grease (Crisco is cheap and works well) over it, your problem may well just go away if you try one or the other.

 

[gmatov]

I don't even know if you can buy Mercury, today. I know that in the standard 76 pound flask, it is probably near 500 bucks, so about a 8.50 a pound, and since it is so dense, might take a pound to do a barrel.

Not to be sneezed at, nor absorbed through the skin, either, though I wouldn't worry too much about that, it is in a child's early development that it does it's worst, Mad Hatters, aside.

Ah, well, do as you wish.

Cheers,

George

 

[Manyirons]

I don't even know if you can buy Mercury, today. I know that in the standard 76 pound flask, it is probably near 500 bucks, so about a 8.50 a pound, and since it is so dense, might take a pound to do a barrel.

Not to be sneezed at, nor absorbed through the skin, either, though I wouldn't worry too much about that, it is in a child's early development that it does it's worst, Mad Hatters, aside.

Ah, well, do as you wish.

Cheers,

George

About 200 grams for a barrel, less should you shake it about. Going to highest priced company, Sigma-Aldrich, lesser grades go about $20.00 to 100 grams. As it never wears out, its a lifetime supply!

Not really dangerous unless one absolutely insists upon ingesting or bathing in with open cuts. Normal precautions apply, what did in the old miners and 'mad hatters' was ingestion/absorbtion of mercury in non metallic form; i.e. vapor (In case of miners boiling mercury out of the gold/mercury amalgum, breathing vapor) Or hatters, absorbtion via solution.