Thread: Bore rust
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Old April 15, 2010, 08:59 PM   #2
bedbugbilly
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Join Date: November 19, 2009
Posts: 3,283
This is just a suggestion - If you can, remove the barrel from the stock. Plug the nipple carefully (possibly a round toothpick) and stand upright in a metal can or mason jar. Poor the bore full of something like penetrating oil - we used brake fluid in place of penetrating oil on the farm. Let it sit for a few days and then poor out. Use a cleaning rod with a bronze brush on it and work it up and down for quite a while. Then, using a jag, use cleaning patches and thoroughly dry it out and then check and see what your progress is. If the rust is heavy, you'll just have to repeat the process a number of times. If the rilfle is in this condition, it probably wasn't cleaned very well after use. I'm assuming that you'll need to replace the nipple so with a nipple wrench, carefully try to remove it. I've worked on a lot of rifles ofer the years but am not familiar with the one that you have so I don't know how easy it would be to remove the breechplug. Whenever I've run across a barrel in this condition, I have followed what I'm describing. I often have removed the breechplug and even used steel wool on the tip of a rod attached on a corkscrew jag to work up and down the bore to get into the grooves. You might not end up with a "perfect" bore, but unless it is deeply pitted, you can salvage it and it should shoot just fine. Trust me, I've seen plenty of originals that were in this state - most from the same cause - poor cleaning. One word of caution - before you start working on any muzzleloader - check to make sure it is not loaded. Take the ramrod, dowel or cleaning rod and lay it next to the barrel with the tip located where the end of the breechplug would be - approximately where the nipple is located. Mark the end of the barrel on the rod and then slide the rod into the barrel and see if it slides all the way down to where you have marked the rod. If the rod is say 3/4 or more above the end of the barrel, you can assume that it is loaded. Many muzzleloaders were put away loaded and then forgotten about. I'm not just talking about originals - I'm talking repros as well. I was once on the line at the Nationals at Friendship when a kid went to snap a cap (to make sure the nipple was open) before a match started. He pointed the muzzle to the gournd to make sure the grass moved when he snapped his cap and instead of that, his gun discharged with a boom akin to a twelve pound Napoleon. Needless to say, those of us near him were more than ****** as was the Range Officer. The kid's excuse was that he must have put it away loaded after he had used it for deer hunting the previous season. When the Range Officer chewed his ass out, the kid told him that it "only had 100 grains of powder in it" - it was a .50 Hawkin. All of us who were close to him moved away like the sea when Moses raised his arms. As they say, "sometimes you just can't fix stupic". At any rate, if your's wasn't cleaned good before being put away, before anything else, check and make sure it is unloaded - safety first always. Good luck with your project, you'll get it cleaned up just fine and I'm sure it will give you much enjoyment. Sincerely, bedbug I'm sure others will have different suggestions as well.
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If a pair of '51 Navies were good enough for Billy Hickok, then a single Navy on my right hip is good enough for me . . . besides . . . I'm probably only half as good as he was anyways. Hiram's Rangers Badge #63
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