So what was up with our forefathers? Tougher than us?
 

This is off topic maybe, but I shot my Citori skeet gun a few weeks back with brush loads and my God the lead fouling nearly killed me getting it out. Payne Gallway brushing, Shooters Choice solvent, Barnes solvent, then a Chore Boy around a brass brush on a drill. Then repeat above several times. I am not a "soak it and leave it until tomorrow" type of guy, way too hyper. Did our forefathers just leave lead in there forever?? I am perplexed how people 100 years ago got lead out without our current tools since I know they didn't use plastic wads. I think I'm done with brush wads, not worth it but I had to experiment. I assume it was powder more than lead that lead to so much pitting see in older guns (no pun intended). Thoughts? I find cleaning guns therapeutic but this was just BULLSH*T FYI it was Herco in a 20g Rio hull/Rio primer and BP brush wad.

I think those fellas in the golden age used a brass swage.
I use Big 45 Frontier pad wrapped around a brass bore brush on a rod and chucked up on a cordless drill.





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Hence my point Dean. They used muscle or just didn’t care. They didn’t have cordless drills. I have never worked so hard to clean a bore in my life. It was 100 rounds of magnum #9 shot at about 1290fps.

Maybe need a higher antimony lead with those wads…?





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No idea, Eagle magnum shot.

Anyone out there not bother to clean their bores, only run a fuzzy rod through the bore?

When was that Lewis Lead Remover marketed? It had expandable padded fingers faced with screen mesh and was available in the various gauges.

A friend of mine is an avid trap shooter. He NEVER cleans the bore of his shotgun. He shoots thousands of rounds a year, year after year. At one time Perrazi offered free gun cleaning at the Grand American shoot. He figured it's free, why not. The Italians were so disgusted that they passed the gun around in disbelief for an hour. It cleaned up well, no harm done.

I am not the best bore cleaning guy around, but this was unlike anything I've ever seen. As I have half a flat of these left to shoot up I will, and I'll try to post a photo if I'm able to take one. The only thing I've seen comparable was a friend who insisted on using lead bullets in his Glock 27, about 500 shots worth. Couldn't even see the rifling.

I reload waxed fiber wads and have never noticed unreasonable fouling. Is there any chance that it was smeared up plastic? If the old timers were as diligent as yourself maybe there would be less pitted barrels out there.

sonds like the plastic wadding is melting in the barrel ....I shot some plastic wads in some black powder loads it melted the plastic wad after 5 shots it just about clogged up the barrel....shot some regular smokeless shells thru it to help clean it up but lots of scrubing later some of it is still in there....charlie

The chore boy and Frontier pad left little shards of lead all over the bench so I'm positive it was lead. This was a brush wad and BP did say it leads to more lead fouling. Have some sporting 20g wads on the way, but this was all they had available a year ago when I started reloading.

Over the years i have bought a number of old shotguns from the pre plastic shot cup era as i am sure most of you have. Initially they clean up well but after a few days i see lead raising up in the barrels and clean again and again and again. I think it gets smeared on over and over again and does not come out easily so it accumulates over many years.
Have a soft spot for Stevens favorites and have a few that looked like smooth bores until lead remover and a brass screen was used over several days until a perfect bore emerged.
The worst was a .45 1911 that patterned not grouped and the barrel showing very faint rifling but after 4 days of cleaning and soaking in a pan of copper solvent it now groups well.

Shot about 150 rounds of cast bullets out of one of my 1911s years ago.....NEVER AGAIN. Spent hours getting the lead out. With shotguns, I have noticed some wads are much worse about leaving plastic residue in the barrels than others. Elbow grease appears to be the only answer to getting it out.

What you need is a tomlinson cleaner. Someone mentioned a lewis lead remover, a tomlinson is an older version for shotguns, they have the shotgun threads. They can be found at gun shows from someone that has old accessories. The cleaners are often used so the scrubbing pads are not the best. You can buy the brass screen in sheets from Grainger or MSC and with metal shears cut them to shape of an old one. The older ones had wooden paddles to hold the screens, later ones had metal paddles. Either one works good. Brownells used to have brand new ones that went for about $100.- Checking their web site they no longer have them although they do carry 12 and 20 gauge Lewis lead remover heads for about $30.-, however I think they are out of stock.

Jack

I am tempted to try fine (green) Scotch Brite pads. Anybody tried them?

Hoppe's Tornado brushes. Spiraled coils of stainless steel wire that will not damage or scare the bore but scrubs leading and powder residue.
Bob Jurewicz

Do NOT use any color/grit Scotch Brite pads. They have a very hard abrasive.





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Andy

don't your loads have plastic wads?

if so- the crap so hard to get out is plastic fouling, which is a PITA they did not have to deal with

Carb cleaner will take care of plastic fouling

thanks for that tip....charlie

I've got a couple of modern "working" guns I duck hunt in salt water with, use carb cleaner (same as gun scrub just 1/3 the price) on them all the time BUT beware of damage to your fine wood finishes!! Bad as Deep Woods Off.