April 29, 2021, 12:51 PM
GCE61Cleaning a K98 barrel from corrosive ammo fouling
A hunting buddy of mine passed away a few years ago, and slowly I've been helping his wife get rid of his collection.
She's been very generous and gifted my sons and I a few nice pieces.
The last rifle is a "Sporterized" K98 Mauser he picked up over the years. It's an 8mm and there were a few extra partial boxes of moldy
shells which I'm guessing were military and corrosive.
So the bore has the rifling lands, but the grooves were literally thick with a dark mossy looking fouling.
I scrubbed with the usual Hoppes#9, Copper Solvent, etc, but after scrubbing until my arm was tired the improvement was negligible.
A steady stream of brownish solvent is being expelled, so I guess I'm making some progress.
For the past 4 days I've let it stand with Kano oil, and Gibbs (seems to be the same as Kano), and the progress seems a little better.
My question is, is there a product someon knows of for this particular type of fouling.... or am I wasting my time? Thanks.
April 29, 2021, 02:51 PM
RogueJSKOnce you get it as cleaned out as you can by hand, shooting it can help. (Use noncorrosive ammo this time.)
I've had some fairly cruddy milsurp bores that turned out fairly nicely after a few bouts of cleaning and then shooting a few rounds through them.
But depending on how badly corroded it was in the first place, it may not ever get back to a decent condition, even after cleaning or shooting.
April 29, 2021, 03:53 PM
GCE61Thanks Rogue, I do have some fresh factory (Privi) ammo on the way which is non corrosive.
I’ll keep scrubbing in the meantime.
April 29, 2021, 04:11 PM
RNshooterIf you can find someone that has one, an Outers Foul-Out can work wonders on dark pitted bores. It basically reverse electroplates a sacrificial anode in the bore with the lead and copper from the lands and grooves.
Bruce
April 30, 2021, 04:35 AM
sourdough44It’s already ‘sportorized’, then depending on how bad it is, rebarreling is an option.
We have a ‘Norwegian surrender’ K98 that was rebarreled & chambered in 30-06 by Norway in the 1950’s. Other than that it’s a common K98, in nice shape. In 30-06 ammo is easy.
I agree, the lower cost option is to scrub away, then try it out.
May 21, 2021, 09:34 PM
SgtGoldI was looking for a lead removal product and stumbled across the wipe Out family of products. I've used their products to clean badly fouled revolvers that had multiple layers of lead\carbon fouling. You'll need to wear rubber gloves because their products will suck the moisture\oils right out of your body.
https://sharpshootr.com/May 21, 2021, 10:05 PM
LoboGunLeatherI suggest an old worn bore brush wrapped with strands of 0000-grade steel wool. Use it dry, pushing through the bore about a dozen times. Then soak a cleaning patch with solvent (I like the old GI-surplus stuff) and swab the bore liberally and allow to sit overnight. Repeat the bore brush/steel wool, then clean as usual with solvent and patches.
For those who will order me hung for suggesting steel wool I will just say that this is a method I learned while cleaning heavily used small arms (US and foreign) at a major US Army post armory back in the 1960s. Lots of cruddy ammunition, lots of corrosive priming, and lots of use in familiarization training, so it took some work to keep many of those weapons functional.