Nagant barrel; it's never going to come clean is it?

[Ron3]

Took apart a family members M38 carbine to clean it up.

I used Murphy's oil on the stock, which worked great.

The barrel/reciever, bolt, and magazine assembly were cleaned /scrubbed with heavy-duty parts wash cleaner, then sprayed down with brake cleaner, and finally oiled. All this went down the bore too.

Later I used Hoppes 9 with patches, and a copper brush on the bore. I did this routine with the hoppes on patches and then the brush over and over and over. I counted about 500 strokes with brush (down and back = one) After scrubbing patches would come out black. After a few patches they'd come out looking fairly clean. After more scrubbing with the brush they'd come out black again.

Like I said this went on and on. I gave up. I could scrub it again right now, and a soaked patch would come out black.

I guess this rifle isn't going to do any better than the one I had. 6-inch groups at 50yds.

Any ideas? It's just done isn't it?

[m2hmghb]

Wipe Out foaming bore cleaner, watch the stock it will destroy any finish. I got the accelerator, the combo works real well. I blocked the chamber then filled the bore with the foam and let it sit for a couple hours, when I came back I couldnt believe all the crud in there. Now instead of a sewer pipe I can see the rifling, how well it shoots I do not know yet, havent been to the range to test it.

[kf4zra]

if its got 6" groups at 50 yd, the crown must be messed up.

[jack19512]

What ammo are you shooting in the M38? I have four Mosins and none of them have had very good accuracy using the military surplus ammo.

I got into reloading recently and have greatly improved the accuracy of my Mosins. If the crown is messed up on any of my Mosins I can't tell it.

My M38 wasn't shooting accurately at all until I started reloading. Here is a pic of the last two groups I shot using my reloads. Notice group marked #1. These groups were shot from about 70 yards.

[Rick O'Shay]

I get good results from Sweets 7.62 solvent. Swab with it, then the brush, then swab, much as you describe with the Hoppes #9. I think Sweets gets the copper fouling out better.

I have two 91/30s that also shoot ~6" groups at 50 yards. One was far worse, but I put high-temp O-rings along the barrel and "floated" it. Much better than before, but not a tack driver.

But I also have a 91/59 that IS a tack driver.

[Ron3]

The 6-inch groups at 50yds were from a M44 I used to have.

I haven't fired the M38 yet.

Like with the M44, I'll be firing S&B 180gr JSP, Wolf 147gr FMJ, and some Hungarian 177gr FMJ yellow/silver tip.

I also ran some Greek silver tip through the M44.

I'll see how it shoots soon. It's not mine, but if shoots three inch groups at 50yds and six inch groups at 100yds I will buy it.

[kf4zra]

what part of FL are you in? if you are any where near tampa, i can give you some hollow core 54r to shoot thru that gun. big boom, little recoil. its great.

[Ron3]

Not near Tampa.

I've seen some practice ammo for sale before. Less than 100grs (77?) and goes way over 3000fps. Real corrosive. I would buy some if I saw it at a gunshow.

[kf4zra]

its 46gr stuff, very pleasant to shoot. i havent noticed it being any more corrosive than any other surplus ammo i have shot.

[jack19512]

I have a lot of the practice ammo in storage. In one of my 91/30's it has been the most accurate of all the military surplus ammo I have tried in it. For some reason it isn't all that accurate in any of the others.

[Rigormootis]

FWIW, you shouldn't pull your brushes back though...but instead take them off after they come out the end. I know this is apain, but when you see how the sharp edge of the crown gets smoothed by 100s - 1000s of brushes being forces back in the barrel, you will see what I mean.

YMMV

[49hudson]

Ron3 You may be puting in a layer of metal using the metal brush[probably bronze,not copper]and then taking it out with patches.

Try a nylon brush and solvent. Leave the solvent overnight, unless it contains a high percentage of ammonia. Then use the patches till they come out clean.
Hoppe's No9 is a very good solvent, but works slow.
With Hoppe's get as much fouling out as you can with a nylon brush, wipe out with patches till dry. Saturate a patch or mop with Hoppe's and run it through the bore one time, then let it set overnight. Next morning use dry patches till clean. If still not clean, repete the process again.

Oldtimers [older than my seventy years] used to say it takes three days to properly clean a gun with Hoppe's.
With the new Hoppe's Bench Rest copper solvent it only takes two days.
Don't get impatient; it took years to get the bore in the condition it is now. Don't expect to clean out all that crud in an hour.

[Ron3]

Good advice guys thanks!

I've been using copper brushes and alluminum rods.

I may fire it this week, but I'll clean it some more and give it another chance afterward.

[Ron3]

I'll fire the rifle next week.

This week I'm going to run two Hoppes 9 soaked patches down the bore and let the solvent sit for 24 hours. Then run the brush down a few times, then more soaked patches, then let it sit and so on. And do this for several days.

How's that?

[jack19512]

Posted by Ron3

"This week I'm going to run two Hoppes 9 soaked patches down the bore and let the solvent sit for 24 hours."






I am probably wrong but I seem to remember reading that you shouldn't let Hoppes 9 sit in the barrel for a long time.

I got mine out to read the instructions on the bottle but the instructions on my bottle were in such bad shape I couldn't read it.

I'm sure someone will correct me if I am wrong, you might check to see if there is such a warning on your bottle.

[Ron3]

Ok just checked, no such warnings, but thanks anyhow!

[Ron3]

After the hoppes sat in it for 20 hours of so, I got some blue stuff out of the barrel. Copper I guess, so I think thats good.

I scrubbed it and ran some more patches. They weren't black like before and bore even looks better.

I gave it more hoppes to let it soak more.

So blue coming out the bore is good, right?

[nognig]

I've got a couple surplus rifles that have the same problem, you clean and clean and clean, but the patches never seem to get lighter. I think patience is the key. Keeping doing what you're doing: instead of elbow grease, let the cleaner do the work.

One thing you might want to try is "Wipe-Out". It's a water based cleaner/copper remover. It's a foam that you fill the bore with. You can safely leave it on the barrel for a long time. I tried it on my XD-9 and it really helped remove the copper.

The other thing to try is to electrically clean the barrel. I've been meaning to give this a try, you just use a steel rod, some o-rings (to keep if from touching the barrel), a stopper and some batteries. People have reported good results with this method too.

NN

[NoGo]

I cleaned up 1 of the 2 M44's I just bought from Century.

Hoppes #9 & a couple wet patches, let sit for a while then scrubbed with bore brush. Several more wet patches until the storage grunge stopped coming out.

Switched to Sweet's 7.62, 2 wet patches, left to sit for about 1/2 hour, then dry patched. Repeated 3 times while I messed with the rest of the rifle. Bore clean but dark.

JB Bore Paste. 100 patches pushed through, finished off by using a brass round head screw in my cordless driver at slow RPM with JB paste to clean up the crown. Chased with wet, then dry patches. Bore now bright. Still need to run JB Bore Bright through it to polish it up.

Wasen't as bad as I'd expected. :)

[Ron3]

So there is hope!

How does it shoot, Nogo?

[Ron3]

Range report here:

http://www.glocktalk.com/newthread.php?s=&action=newthread&forumid=107

[sharpshooter]

If your bore never gets clean, you probably have some bad pitting in there, and you're going to have a hard time cleaning out those pits. Pitting doesn't ALWAYS mean poor accuracy, but it often does. 6" at 50 yards I'd quite wasting my time.

[jarrettclark]

I agree with the above post. Is this all really worth it on a $90 rifle?

Is there anything special about this particular rifle? Like is it a Tula?

[Ron3]

Originally posted by jarrettclark
I agree with the above post. Is this all really worth it on a $90 rifle?

Is there anything special about this particular rifle? Like is it a Tula?

Range report here:

http://glocktalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=525747


I hope to have another in a week or so.

R3

[Vic303]

Ron, link is bad to your range report. Takes you to a Reply screen instead.

[Ron3]

Fixed it. Thanks!

[roborules]

Got this idea from Surplusrifle.com (A fantastic site!) for cleaning the bore of my Yugo SKS.

It's an article for making a homemade electronic bore cleaner to electrochemically remove copper and/or lead fouling from your gunbore.

The Surplusrifle article:
http://www.surplusrifle.com/reviews/copperout/index.asp

(one of) the actual commercial elctronic bore cleaners:
http://www.brownells.com/aspx/ns/store/productdetail.aspx?p=9704

I basically used the ideas of the article to make mine, but as several other people identified, I modified it a bit. I used a tapered rubber stopper at the receiver end with a 1/8" hold drilled part way into the center of the narrow end (to hold the end of the steel rod).

I used a plain steel rod, and wrapped a few rounds of teflon tape around the rod neat the muzzle end to prevent shorting out the rod on the barrel.

Instead of batteries, I used an old AC to (9v) DC "AC adapter" from an old broken video game console (never throw anything away).

Used plain amonia as the electrolyte (works very well with copper, I think pretty good with lead too.)

Connected it up (negative to the rod) for about 45mins. Amonia bubbled out the bore (muzzle end up). Poured it out and got the same black crud that the pictures show (and I had cleaned the bore normally before I started with the electric rod.

Plus the steel rod had blue/green crusty crud all over it, which I believe to be copper fouling reverse electroplated from the bore to the steel rod. A littel scotch brite cleaned off the rod for the next time.

$.30 for the rubber stopper.
$2.39 for the 1/8" X 36" long steel rod
$1.69 for the alligator clips
$.99 for the amonia

All from the local hardware / grocery stores.

I think it worked beautifully

Good luck!