A lead clogged .45 barrel fix

[Old Grump]

I wish I could bring myself to just throw the old bullets but I'm cheap!

No need, a honey ring in the plumbing dept of the nearest hardware store will last you just shy of forever and you can relube the bullets with the poor lube job. Lots of commercial stuff out there but I'm cheap too.

[jpdavis423]

I'd like to put in a plug for the previously mentioned "Lead-Out". Unlike bore paste's it is non abrasive and dissolves the lead chemically. I put a little in a shot glass and added a de-greased bullet. The No-Lead slowly dissolved it.
I had a Glock barrel that I shot some cast bullets through. A Lewis Lead Remover and Chore Boy got most of it. The No-Lead got the rest. It's not very fast, but it is 100% effective.

Jeff

[briandg]

I once had a badly leaded bore in a handgun. I chucked a cleaning rod into my drill press, added a brush, and turned the press to the lowest setting. VERY SLOW. I saturated that brush with solvent, greased the bore with a little lithium grease, and slowly ran the drill while I ran the brush up and down in the barrel.

afterwards, I used the brush as normal, scrubbing end to end. That cleaned off the heavy leading in just a few minutes.

It was kind of rough on the brush, but still, you can't dissolve lead with solvent. It takes mechanical action to scrape it out.

[briandg]

I'm going to look into this lead out.

Hoppes made the electric bore cleaner, it was an electrified rod and chemical bath set that would lift copper or lead off of barrel surfaces, and plate them to the rod.

All it was was a tiny electroplate set up. I heard it worked well, but was prohibitive in cost.

[Nnobby45]

I have an additional question to lead cleaning.
Can anyone tell me if an ultrasonic cleaning system is of any use in removing lead build up?
__________________

Don't know, but maybe the best ultrasound is to HUMM while you're using the highly effective copper scouring pads that have been mentioned numerous times on this thread.

[jpdavis423]

It was kind of rough on the brush, but still, you can't dissolve lead with solvent. It takes mechanical action to scrape it out.

Actually you can dissolve lead with No-Lead. I do it all the time and it works well. Probably not as fast as the brush in a drill.
But you are right, you can't dissolve lead with Hoppe's, or Ed's Red, or CLR or similar products.

Jeff

[dahermit]

you can't dissolve lead with solvent. It takes mechanical action to scrape it out.

You can however, "dissolve" lead using mercury. Albeit, it would have some health concerns. It amalgamates with the lead just as it does with gold. You cork the barrel and pour in the mercury and let it sit for an hour or two.

There is so much concern about mercury poisoning, you may have trouble finding mercury.

[Unclenick]

I used to use mercury back in the early 80's. It worked a treat, About 15 minutes or half an hour after filling the tube, the leading turned into the aforementioned amalgam, which has about the consistency of soft chalk. A brush breaks it right up. The problem is these little tiny beads of mercury that come out with it and scatter to the four corners of the room as the brush flicks them off on exit.

I'm not much concerned about metallic mercury as an immediate hazard. Like lead, you can deal with quite a bit of it (people used to swallow it to treat constipation and survived). The trouble starts when it oxidizes or otherwise changes form into something you can absorb in your stomach or inhale. Then, if a fetus or a child gets exposed, it can affect development. So, despite the fact they let us play with it in science class when I was a kid, I wouldn't really want to mess with it any more.

For those interested in Wipe-Out's No-lead, you can find it here and at Midway.

[Nnobby45]

you can't dissolve lead with solvent. It takes mechanical action to scrape it out.

Using both results in disolved powder residue while lead is being removed.
Method works fine. When removing lead from my shotgun bbl., after the barrel had already been cleaned, more solvent SEEMED to work better to remove the remaining lead.

[TXGunNut]

Properly lubed swaged lead bullets are not the enemy. I was one of many PPC shooters that fired many thousands of swaged lead HBWC bullets without ever cleaning the bore. An Oklahoma shooter discovered that the lead builds to a point and stops, when it stops the revolver is at its best accuracy-wise. We cleaned the cylinder and the face of the forcing cone after each match but almost never cleaned the bore.