corey012778

I was cleaning my usak getting ready to go to the range on sat. and saw the tell tail sign of rust on my patches, ran 4 patches with rust duck, 4 dry and I don't if I should did it a patch of bore butter (I mainly use rem oil). shined a pin light down the berral and saw some pitting. I only paid $40 for the gun, and I need to last me 2 maybe 3 season. any ideas?

sabotloader

corey012778

On occasions it is possible to get a reddish looking looking patch from a barrel. The are a few products out there that will cause old powder residue to leach out of the pores or powder that is caught behind the riflelings to dissolve and in combination with the barrel lube will appear to be rust...

One way to get this residue out of the pores or rifleings is to clean with a boiling water bath once in awhile - especially when you plan to store the barrel for a length of time...

gleason.chapman

My son left his Knight Disc one whole season uncleaned, I took the barrel off the stock and soaked it in brake cleaner and cleaned the barrel of rust with the brake cleaner and got the breech plug off---it was frozen on. I cleaned the gun up and shot it, and it was still accurate, not quite as accurate as before, but acceptable for hunting. As long as the rifleing is in good shape without a lot of pits in it, your OK. Shoot it at 50 then 100 yards and see if it holds a group. Chap Gleason

bronko22000

corey if it is minor pitting and you got it clean and the rifle is shooting well, I'd say don't worry about it. One problem you may have is it will be harder to load.
If you are having accuracy trouble or finding it difficult to load, you can make your own bore plug and lap your bore. I've done it before on an old T/C .45 hawken barrel that a friend gave me that was pitted pretty good.
To make a bore plug, put a couple of patches in the bore about 4 - 6" from the muzzle,slide anew, fluxed upbronze brush of the right caliber into the bore leaving the threaded end sticking out then pour molten lead all around it. When the lead solidifies, screw on your cleaning rod and pull it out. The lead will not adhere to the steel in the barrel and will come out when you remove the patches with a worm.
Apply a lapping compound like J-Bs to the plug and line it up with the rifling of you barrel and work it back and forth to polish your bore. One thing, this plug will only be specific to this rifle. And don't over do it. You want the edges of the lands to remain sharp.

lemoyne

If you have an accuracy problem and need to use it any way,try putting 20 gr by vol. of corn meal over the top of the powder and under the bullet or sabot. Lee

cayugad

If you have a brass bore brushsome solvent, along with some J-B Bore Paste you can fix that and get the barrel back to shine like new. First thing you need to do is remove the barrel from the stock and take the striker, trigger assemblyand breech plug off, so you can look through the pipe/barrel. Pay special attention to the threads where the breech plug screws into. This is not an area of any rifle you ever want rust to start forming. You rust them threads, and you could damage the integrity of the ability of the breech plug to with stand pressures when firing. Using the brass brush dip that in solvent and then Look through that barrel towards a light. Do you see any rust?

Now put your brass bore brush on a strong range rod if you have one, or put an extension T on your rifle's (the need for range and cleaning rods is essential in taking care of muzzleloaders as far as I am concerned) so you can push all the way through that rifle. With the solvent on the brass brush do about fifteen long strokes letting the brass brush spin with the rifling if it wants to. This will help clean out the rifling and it protects the life of your brass brush. The brass brush will also clean between the threads of the breech area as well. Normally the breech threads do not rust because they are coated most of the time with a anti seize which also help to reduce the amount of oxygen able to reach the metal. No oxygen to metal, no rust normally.

After that put a cleaning jag on the ramrod and push a couple solvent patches through the rifle. Sometimes this alone will fix the rusting problem or at least stop it where it started. If the barrel still looks bad, then push two dry patches through the barrel and finally one patch with gun oil on it.

Now that the barrel is oiled, your next patch, smear some J-B Bore paste on it. Make sure the patch fits reasonably tight. A stroke is down and back. Do fifteen strokes with the J-B Bore Paste. Now change from that filthy black patch to another one. This time put less then before Bore paste on it, and give it another fifteen strokes. The way I like to run the ramrod is I sit in a chair and lock the T on the ramrod, under my feet. So the ramrod basically stick up in the air like a pole. Then I take the barrel and force that over the ramrod because as the patch nears where the threads of the breech plug are, I can see or feel that with my finger. I stop before that area and then reverse directions with the patch. I do not ever scrub the breech plug threads with any bore paste. Normally the 30 strokes is enough to clean that barrel back to shine. If your barrel is really bad, there are more drastic measures.

After that I like to take and fill a large bucket with hotwater and some dish soap. You need to give the barrel a bath because alot of bore paste is water soluble and the best and fastest way to get it all out of your barrel is with a hot water bath. So dip your patch in the water, make sure the breech of the rifle is under the water level, and start to pump that patch up and down the barrel. This creates a syphon of course and forces the water to scrub the barrel as you work the patch. Anyonewho stole gas from the old man's car understands this principle. After about three or fourpatches, workingsoapy water up through the barrel, the majority of the bore paste should be gone.

Now run a couple more solvent patches through the barrel again. And finally some dry patches to make sure everything is removed and that the barrel is good and dry. It is very important that after all of this, you apply a quality gun oil to the inside of that rifle bore. The brush and bore paste has taken that barrel somewhat back to metal and removed anything that could protect it from rust. The oil should be put on thick. Let the barrel stand with the muzzle on a piece of cotton cloth or paper towel for an hour or so. This allows excess oil to naturally flow out the barrel on its own. Then run a dry patch through the barrel. If you look through the barrel now it should shine. The pitting is still there, but you have stopped the rust if there was any in the first place.

You can now wipe the barrel down with that cotton cloth it was sitting on and put the gun back together. If you are protecting the rifle with bore butter, you may want to rethink how you are applying that bore butter or change over to a gun oil. I used to get them rust patches also when I used bore butter.

corey012778

I was at work, I am a meat cutter, that is stuck in a 10 X 5 room, so I get a lot of time to think. I started to think, the first time I cleaned it and could not check bore I lost my bore light (pin light), I remembered seeing a little bet of rust. I was going save some money buy a new shotgun and/or an new gun of some type, but I think I will put it in to a NEW muzzleloader, and keep this one just to shoot for fun. And fix all the rust problem in it. thanks for all the help, I will work on the gun, and get the damn ben-gay smelling bore butter out of it, I don't use it ragulerly, and it is going to be a one time thing.[:'(]

corey012778

update on this issue:

I cleaned it one more time to get the ben_g umm.. bore butter out, on the last dry patch there was very little rust color. I put some per soaked ben allen gun oil patches. I could not find my harps 9 any where, took a better look at the barrel the pitting was mainly scatered, and little worse at the top close to the muzzle. I am a little scared to mass with the scope, I am close to getting the scope tighted up and scared to loss what zero I do have. also I don't have the driver I need for it, everything is too small.

eldeguello

Once a ML barrel becomes pitted to any extent, it is KAPUT! and must be replaced.......

corey012778

I went to the range today, the pitting is not hurting the rifling, when I got it home and cleaned it up real good, brass brash with rusty duck, 2 rusty duck patches used both sides, one windex (thought I would try that) both sides, 2 dry then a oil patch. I did not see any rust by the time I ran the other side of the oil patch.