Virginia Gun Owners Forum - VGOF

I have several old Surplus Rifles, one that just got had a cloudy bore when I looked before purchased. Got it home and the darn bore would not come clean, every swab I put through it came out black.
It's an 8mm Mauser 1942. I spent hours with brass brushes, bore cleaners, even tried the spring tornado brush but each time I ran patches through it, they came out black.

So I started to search the Net for a solution and I found this product called http://www.midwayusa.com/product/243419 ... ing-system Outers foul out bore cleaning system but at 110 bucks I passed up on it. then I thought about it for a bit and whats the difference between Electroplating steel with positive and negative leads, if you reverse them it should take the copper, brass and lead deposits from the positively charged electrode and attach to the negatively charged metal. in this case the barrel is + and my metal I want the deposits to attach to would be a stainless steel wire or rod, and since the Stainless will not accept the deposits they should float away.

So I tested this theory on my Mauser, here is the result..

The RIG..


the Catch Bucket for the cleaning solution of 1/2 water (distilled) 1/4 Vinegar and 1/4 ammonia ( or waterbased bore cleaner )
ass soon as I connect the wire to the rid and slide it into the barrel it's starts to foam


after 2 min it's turning black


5 Min


7 min


10 min


15 Min


20 Min


25 Min


35 Min ( had to add some more solution after 25 Min)


45 min


Removed the Rod and this was on it.


Ran a brush into the bore and it puked up this black sticky goo ( not magnetic so nor steal)


4.5 volt transformer and clips


Stainless steal rod with insulators to keep it from shorting out to the barrel

after testing the gunk with Magnets and a metal test kit ( from target) for water..
it showed very high levels of Copper, brass, lead. iron was at the bottom due to rust and pitting over the years using corrosive ammo.

I an trying to get pictures of the bore

Damn fine engineering Sir!

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MarcSpaz wrote:Damn fine engineering Sir!

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hey, you know me, I will try in engineer anything...

one thing for certain, what ever came out of that barrel was some nasty stuff, who knows what got in there during the war
but I hoped it encapsulated the steel where the salts from the primers did not eat away at the barrel over the decades..

What did you use to isolate the rod from contacting the barrel?

Is there any out-gassing during the process? I seem to remember that a similar rust removal process will create Hydrogen gas as a by-product.

OakRidgeStars wrote:What did you use to isolate the rod from contacting the barrel?

Is there any out-gassing during the process? I seem to remember that a similar rust removal process will create Hydrogen gas as a by-product.

shrink tubing. I had different sizes and I stacked them up on top of one another and applied heat.. it created a nice insulator.
one on the bottom, one 3/4 up and a rubber cap to seal up one end of the barrel and another to insulate up inside the receiver. in hind sight I should do the setup the other direction because of all the buildup that settled down blocked some of the electrolysis from working at the muzzle. thats all that black tar like substance in one picture.

Also It was hard to remove a copper stain that built up on the finish, so I scrubbed the outside of the barrel that I removed some bluing.
I will have to come up with a funnel of a way to catch the crap that bubbles out before it touches the blued finish.

Not that I know of but the combination of Vinegar and ammonia was strong and I had to open the windows. Next time I will do it in the Garage
because that crap that comes out is nasty and stains everything, even my hands... so wear gloves

That's right clever.

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WOW I have seen some other home made models and they were way more complex than your. Like how you took the time to put shrink tube on it and everything to make it look good. That's also a lot of gunk that came out that barrel. WOW....

cpttango30 wrote:WOW I have seen some other home made models and they were way more complex than your. Like how you took the time to put shrink tube on it and everything to make it look good. That's also a lot of gunk that came out that barrel. WOW....

Thanks

I did this to my Mosin Nagant and a little crud came but not like the K98,
by the Way I took the Mauser K98 to the range and it was like shooting a different rifle, it was accurate and stable
it was a pleasure cleaning it with only a couple swabs a quick brush and oil done

Working on a funnel option with a way to capture the nasty foam the come out.

That's incredible!!! The ingenuity and shared knowledge of folks on this forum is amazing. Well done sir!

Bill

I'm pretty sure Scott is a genius. Not joking either. A couple years ago I saw him engineer and assemble a Fog Laser Light Show for his Halloween Haunted House out of spare parts from and HP Laser Printer and a Wal-Mart fog machine.

Like some of us... he definitely falls into the "geeks with guns" category. LOL

MarcSpaz wrote:I'm pretty sure Scott is a genius. Not joking either.

Yep, that's what I was thinking too.

I rummaged around the humble ORS compound today and found a crusty old Yugo SKS that could use this process. Should be interesting to see if my results are as good as Scott. More to come.

Here's an article that I had squirreled away in the archives. I'm posting it only because of the safety issues addressed by the author. I don't know if the process here is similar or not, but the section on using stainless steel electrodes was very interesting indeed.

Please use all possible safety precautions when performing any type of electrolysis.

http://antique-engines.com/electrol.asp