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All Springer/NP/PCP Air Gun Discussion General > PCP/CO2/HPA Air Gun Gates "The Darkside"

Cleaning lead fouling?

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Greg_E:
Things were drifting more and more left, so I hope the poi comes back around.

I did contact Crosman to see if they will discount a barrel, I'm willing to take part of the blame, but not all of it since this is only 1 year old and not more than 250 rounds through it, a large percentage of those have been their Nosler bullets.

Either this was caused during boring, or during rifling from some chips getting caught and digging in. Going to take hours to try and polish the edges of the pits down so that this might stop, if I'm lucky. And it may always lead foul like this, that would turn me off to more Crosman products really fast! They already lost an Akela sale from problems trying to buy direct.

I'll have to get some pictures of the pits before I try to polish them.

Greg_E:
Went out yesterday and was stunned because my local Walmart actually had some decent cleaning supplies in stock. Bought a copper or bronze brush and so Hoppes solution. Tonight I spent about 2 hours going though the process. Brush a few strokes, swap until "clean". Brush more, swab more. Did this until the swabs came out sort of clean.

The I got out the J-B Bore Bright and polished a bit, think I could use something a little more aggressive.

Followed up with Ballistol then dry patches. Need to do one more clean on the o ring groove, and check down inside the transfer port to make sure it is clean.

I did run the camera down through after drying, it appears I was wrong, there aren't a large number of defects. But there are still a few places where the linen got pulled and a thread stuck, hopefully those shoot clean and smooth down. I'll be keeping a much closer eye on the inside of this barrel to see if and how fast lead builds up again. If this happened in only 200 rounds, it may need to be cleaned every 50 to try and keep the effort low.

subscriber:
The people with the most stubborn bore fouling have one thing in common: Not a preference for Dos Equis, but an addiction to using bore scopes.

If an airgun groups well and keeps grouping well, then the fact that there is some lead in the bore is not a detriment.  It may actually be what enables it to shoot consistently.

Other than a rough bore from the factory (that can be lapped to be smooth enough, using the right technique), the idea that the barrel must be "perfectly clean" to shoot well is a myth. 

The reason so few Amish actually got clinically sick with covid-19 is because they don't watch TV.   The flipside is the reason why your barrel might not ever stay clean enough - the ability to see something that is not actually a useful metric.

If you barrel won't group as well as you expect after trying a variety of projectiles and tunes; after checking for loose screws, drifting sights, parallax or the usual suspects; then there is a problem.  If the barrel shoots well for 50 shots, then starts throwing flyers, that could also be a problem.

The thing is, if you succeed in removing all the lead down to bare steel, it may take 50 shots before the system is stable enough to group well, and not have the group drift continuously.  So, you might have to torture yourself by shooting 100 or 200 shots as you access group stability, without bore scoping the barrel...

If, in your efforts to improve the barrel, you manage to polish a taper into the bore such that it flares towards the muzzle, no amount of cleaning or seasoning shots may ever get it to settle down and shoot to your expectations.  All this assumes you are using pellets that don't have a lot of variability in them; thus causing you to chase a barrel defect, when the root cause is a pellet defect.

If you are shooting Crosman pellets, these are made from a high antimony lead alloy and are known for producing stubborn leading in some platforms.  Then you may be better off with a pure lead pellet, such as JSB.  Or you might lube Crosman pellets to prevent lead from soldering to the bore.  Lots of posts about that on this forum...

subscriber:
The caliber, projectile type, alloy, brand, diameter, lube and velocity you are shooting at might also be useful details.  Have you slugged the barrel?  Have you measured the projectile diameters?   Is the bore choked?  Lead build-up at the choke is not uncommon.

By the way, there is a hint of brown near/under the lead streaks in your bore image.  I wonder if that brown is rust, with roughness from pitting.

subscriber:
If your Bulldog is a 9 mm or .357 caliber, tight fitting bullets with grease grooves, buttered generously with JB Compound and shot through the barrel may remove the fouling and smooth out the bore.  At the same time, doing so without risk of flaring the bore towards the muzzle. 

I recommend at least such fire lapping 5 shots, but not more than 10 before you patch out the bore and take a look.  If you don't achieve your cleaning or smoothing goal in 10 shots, repeat.  If that still won't cut it, use 5 shots with 360 grit fine valve grinding compound.  Then go back to JB Compound to smooth out the striations the 360 grit would have left behind.

Flip the rifle upside down (horizontally) when loading and shooting the gritty projectiles to prevent grit falling down the transfer port into the valve area.

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