Best barrel cleaning process for old military rifles

[wildcat284]

Greetings.

Brought a Mauser M95 7x57mm from an on line auction site at a very good price. Whilst the rifle shoots with pretty good accuracy, the barrel could do with a real good clean. The grooves of the barrel are very dark, with some pitting evident.

What is a good off the shelf cleaner for getting the barrel back to a shiny stage. Excuse my ignorance, how do the barrels of military rifles get so dark? Is it anything to do with corosive priming?

Cheers,

Michael.

 

[jb77]

Wildcat,I bought an old Mauser years ago and had the same thing barrel was cruddy but the rifle was pretty accurate. I scrubbed and cleaned on it till it was bright and shiny no copper or carbon left in the barrel. Found out the barrel was somewhat pitted.

The funny thing is accuracy went right out the window. But as the rifle got dirtier and dirtier the accuracy came back. I am just speculating but i think as the pitting was filled in by copper and crud that the barrel somewhat smoothed out.

For what it is worth i use the foaming type cleaners on really dirty guns and Butch's Bore Shine on everything else.

As far as what makes the bore dark I think it is probably carbon built up in the pores of the steel over a long time period.

Wildcat if you use the foams make sure you either remove the stock or plug the barrel. The foam is hell on the finish and will raise the grain of the wood like crazy.

 

[olympian]

wildcat,

There is a large group of competitive "classic" military rifle silhouette shooters at a local range. I am fortunate to have been very competitive there with my Swedish Mauser, so I will share with you what I have found. My bore originally looked good for an off the rack military rifle, but I figured I would clean it anyway. It shot OK during load development, nothing special. After a couple hundred rounds, I decided to clean it again with Sweet's after using Hoppe's. I was thorough and it took forever. It took about 40 plus round after this cleaning to get it to shoot back to what it did before the cleaning. If you want accuracy, my suggestion is clean the bore with any of the normal cleaners and do not try to get it spotless. Just get the grim out. Then shoot it and never clean the bore again, just keep it from getting corrosion.

 

[Spotcheck_Billy]

Shooters Choice Black Powder Gel,you heard it right) works wonders for removing the heavy carbon buildup found on old military rifles. It will also neutralize the corrosive primer salts that you get if you are firing many types of milsurp ammo and you won't need to pour hot water down the bore