Brass drill bit (for lead)

Make and model? A replacement part may be available cheap. Crosman and Daisy parts are silly cheap. This info can also be used to find a parts diagram of the airgun, to give you some idea as to it's disassembly.

If the barrel can be removed from the rest, use your brass rod as a drift,and knock the pellets out. If you feel the need, drill a hole through the mass, then drive the remainder out with a close fitting punch. Try it with the unit assembled, driving from the muzzle end of the obstruction. You would do well to check from the muzzle end by some means (drill, light,?) to ensure that your "client" has not already jammed anything in there in an attempt to clear it out. As someone seems to have attempted to load many projectiles into it, this may be worth checking, too.

You will waste a lot of time trying to get enough heat into the mass to melt lead, if you try to do it by heating a rod and pushing it down the barrel. You will waste even more, if you think you will be able to soak up any molten lead with steel wool. (hint: you will need to apply direct heat, and a fair bit of it, to melt the lead. The lead will pour out quite cleanly. It won't stick well without some form of flux. The amount of heat this requires WILL cause oxidation issues as well as melting plastic and ruining springs.)

Drilling is probably your best bet. Personally, I would not bother with brass for the drill. I have drilled obstructions fron barrels on old rimfires with no ill effect. U0se as close fitting a bit as you can find.

Cheers Trevor Jones

Don't put anything that's glowing red hot into that barrel. Knock out what you can with a brass rod, then get an ounce of mercury (you probably can find an industrial supplier in Thomas Register that will sell you a small quantity; I bought 4 oz. that way a few years ago). Cap one end of the barrel with a wooden plug; pour in the mercury to fill the barrel; wipe out the sludgy amalgam in a week or so.

If you don't whack it too hard, tapping on the end of a brass rod will do no damage. You may get lucky and all of the lead will come out just by tapping. The mercury is for stubborn cases. I used it to clean out 40 years of lead accumulation from the muzzle brake on my Hi-Standard Supermatic.

Ed Huntress

That's *very* handy - thanks!

I'll tell you all how I get on... it looks like there's multiple pellets in there, though, from the size of the obstructed region (I stuck one of my many brass rods in from each end and compared).

FYI, it bears the inscription:

THE GAT J.101 (letter F in a pentagon)

Made in England T.J.Harrington & Son Walton Surrey

ABS

If you have it available, then you might consider simply warming the barrel in an oven to 180C or so, then pouring solder down it. Also lead will soften greatly at this temp, so you may just be able to push it out.

I'll bet you can drift it out with a brass rod, unless there's something else jammed in the middle. You might try soaking it in one of the strong bore cleaners that claim to loosen lead deposits (I think they contain ammonia) before drifting out the lead. But beware: I soaked the barrel of one of my pistols it in some of that stuff made by Hoppe's (not Number 9) for a few days, and the bluing wound up being half stripped off. It was a classy old pistol, too. d8-(

Ed Huntress

You didn't mention a lathe. But anyway here goes. I would make a bushing to guide a regular hss drill. Just pick a drill slightly smaller than the barrel id. Use it in the lathe to drill into a bit of copper or brass that is bigger than the barrel id and then turn that bit to the barrel id so you have a bushing that will keep the drill centered. I would turn the drill by hand maybe using a drill chuck to provide a better handle on the drill. After it is drilled the rest can probably be pushed out with a brass rod and a paper wad in front of the rod.

You could make the bushing on a drill press using a file to reduce the outside diameter and the drill as the arbor.

I would not use any heat.

Dan

I would make a bushing to center a drill a lot smaller than the bore, and drill thru. Then go thru with drills of increasing size, relying on the previous drilled holes to keep things centered. When you get really close, chances are you will get a broken thin lead sheet out, and you're done. If you have to clean out the last little bit of lead, I think pouring in hot solder is a good idea. It will alloy with the lead and flush it out.

If the barrel is indeed steel, Simply put a bit of rag at the ass end, and pour a bit of mercury down the barrel. It will sublimate the lead out in short order. Tipping the barrel forwards and backwards with both ends so plugged with do the job.

Lead softens at 575 F. A spade bit or even a regular drill bit brazed to the end of a rod works pretty well, I like to spin the sides of the bit a bit on a soft wheel, to dull the sides of the flutes.

Gunner

"Anyone who cannot cope with firearms is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not make messes in the house." With appologies to RAH..

Sounds like a GAT to me? If that the case, you won't damage it by sledging out the pellets if you like!! There's no rifling to worry about & no accuracy to lose either. GAT has at some stage been filled with sand wadded by mud, small stones, pins pushed through bits of cork, nails sealed with wool, rolled up bits of paper etc etc. Some of these have actually been discharged as well, none within a yard of the aiming point, & certainly at less velocity than a peashooter. In short, however you clear the "barrel" you are unlikely to worsen its shooting characteristics.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- snipped-for-privacy@boltblue.com John Lloyd - Cymru/Wales

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And lo, it came about, that on Mon, 22 Sep 2003 20:29:51 GMT in rec.crafts.metalworking , Gunner was inspired to utter:

Question from the peanut gallery: would this be a Good Idea to do when you get a "new" gun which is 'way old". Like say, a 1943 manufacture Army rifle sold surplus? I'm thinking in terms of "It couldn't hurt" more than anything else.

tschus pyotr

No. There should be no lead fouling in a Garand. Only jacketed bullets were used. You might have some copper fouling, but that's removed with ammonia. The other problem might be chloride residuals from corrosive primers. Boiling water removes that.

Use of mercury is something you want to approach with some care. Not only is mercury itself toxic, it also attacks brass and makes it brittle. So you want to make sure any mercury is cleaned out before using brass cartridges, and it is difficult to remove every trace of mercury from a chamber and barrel.

Gary

And lo, it came about, that on Mon, 29 Sep 2003 06:36:59 GMT in rec.crafts.metalworking , Gunner was inspired to utter:

Turkish Mauser 98. Got it for a number of "emotional" reasons: cost, it's a mauser, I lived in Turkey, I'd driven a long ways (a lot longer than I'd estimated) to check out a gunstore and felt like I could not go home empty handed, and they were on sale. The usual.

pyotr

While they are a decent and able arm, have the headspace checked with the proper 8mm headspace gage. Ive seen a few that were mix and match, and the headspacing was a bit long, long enough to back out the primers. The 8mm cartridge was loaded with corrosive primers in nearly every country, so if you are shooting milsurp ammo, be sure to scrub out the barrel with some soapy water after every shooting.

A trick to determine if your ammo is corrosive primed. Clean a steel plate down to bare metal, and pull the bullet and powder from a cartridge. Hold the barrel in contact with the plate and fire the primer. Watch the plate for a week, and if the primer was corrosive, you will see a rust patch growing on the plate where the primer particulates were deposited.

I shoot a lot of corrosive primed ammo, and its no big deal, but you do have to clean the stuff out before putting it away. If you can find some of the old white, milky looking GI bore cleaner, (very poisonous btw), its good for swabbing the bore out after shooting. It neutralizes the primer residue.

Here is a link you may enjoy:

Enjoy, they are fun to shoot.

Gunner

"Anyone who cannot cope with firearms is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not make messes in the house." With appologies to RAH..

And lo, it came about, that on Mon, 29 Sep 2003 17:41:55 GMT in rec.crafts.metalworking , Gunner was inspired to utter:

I have heard that ammonia will do a good job of this. I do know the patches come out a copper green the first few swabbings.

Will check it out. Thanks.

That they are. Once I remembered to put the sights back where they belonged. Could't hit the target at 50 yards, I was hitting so low! Arrg!

I've found shooters choice works much better. Use it all the time (I'm a gunsmith). Just scrub it with a very "wet" brush and leave it in for a day or

1. repeat if necessary. If it's jacket material, it will get it out. If someone has shot cast bullets and leaded the barrel, it will need more mechanical meas of removal (& JB Bore paste) Greg Sefton

Yeah, I've compared Hoppe's copper-removal formula (the heavy-duty version of No. 9) and Shooter's Choice, and the latter worked better for me on copper fouling.

Ed Huntress

Quite true, but Shooters Choice is a bit harder to find, and many gunshops charge up the yingyang for it. Hoppes is available at Kmart.

I use Sweets 7.62 personally, but...you dont find it at Kmart.

Gunner

"People are more violently opposed to fur than leather, because it is easier to harrass rich women than it is motorcycle gangs." - Bumper Sticker

Read last as NH4OH, "ammonium" hydroxide, not as "sodium" hydroxize. Damn, oldtimers is really catching on here!

Mike Eberle> Barnes CR-10 puts tears in your eyes if you sniff it on a patch. About 10%