The Leaded Bore From Hell...

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Kevin, you are one impatient fella. I'd have waited for Rich, acted confused, and had a cold beer while HE cleaned my rifle.

Ed's Red is great for powder fouling and general gunge. Ed Harris recommend Dexron for the mixture. It doesn't have anything in it to particularly help with lead or copper.

If I recall correctly, the Lewis Lead Removal is basically steel (or brass?) wool that you push through your barrel. Suppose it would work, but the Foul Out is so much more elegant.

Mercury is getting to be a bear to use, especially now that th EPA considers it hazardous waste. Ordinary metallic mercury is not particularly bad, but organomercuric compounds are remarkably toxic (ask those Japanese fishing villages). Even hospitals are getting rid of mercury thermometers because of the incredible hassles dealing with a broken tube. Kind of a shame. I loved playing with it back in high school. Course, maybe that's why the kids have twelve fingers?

Really, the Foul Out is the way to go. My only concern was whether or not the electroplating might damage the steel of the barrel. When my buddy with the Ph.D. in chemical synthesis told me that he had a Foul Out, had tested the unit, and wouldn't be without it, I bought one and haven't looked back. Just change the solution frequently and wipe with a brush inbetween if you have a badly fouled barrel.

George, I LOVE the lawn-mowing idea. I can tell that you're a professional. I've been giving it away for free! :D
 
$200/lb for a Mercury? You'd have to be crazy!

.......................................... BOOM!
........................ :D
 
sensop, I'm not sure if you and Art are calling me crazy or the person who would consider buying it. Check the price for standard tech grade mercury. It is about 15 times more expensive than it was in "our day".
 
Mal, I think sensop was talking about Mercury, not Hg... you know, paying $500,000 for a Cougar? ;)

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"If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance."
-- Samuel Johnson
 
Sorry to reveal my ignorance, but what is Outer's Foul-Out? I gather it can be obtained anywhere you can get other Outer's stuff, but what makes it work?
 
Coinneach - Oh! (Picture me slapping my forehead.)

T-Rex, the Foul Out system is simply a device to supply a trickle current from the barrel to a central rod through an acetate solution. It causes the metal to transfer from the barrel to the rod depending on the solution used. It has sensitive circuitry to determine when the current is flowing. When the current reaches a low threshold, it signals that the cleaning is done.
 
Mercury can certainly be bad news if not handled correctly.

All of this talk about mercury reminds me of an old gold miners tale (when I used to pan for gold in CO).

Mercury can be used to pick up the fine gold dust left in your pan that was too small to pick out by hand.

After the mercury was saturated with gold dust, it was placed in a small hollowed out cavity in a common potato and placed in the campfire.

As the potato cooked, the mercury leached into the potato leaving the pure gold behind. Then the potato was fed to the gold miner’s unfortunate partner.

Skyhawk
 
Skyhawk, I've heard that one, also. It's supposed to be why those who survived were a bit "off", as the saying went.

As far as getting the gold, yeah, it would work. I imagine the potato would be too hard and leathery to eat, though...

:-), Art
 
Mal H: A buddy of mine gave me about six or so pounds of mercury, from some he'd smelted from one of the old mines at Terlingua. The last time I looked it up--three or five years back?--the NY Spot price was around $200 or thereabouts for a 74- or 76-pound standard flask.

I'd guess the insurance premium for handling the stuff from wholesaler to retailer to one-pound customer is a doozy!

:-), Art
 
Although we are straying further afield, topicwise, this is interesting.
The term "mad as a hatter" is also derived from the mercury poisoned antics of the tanners and hatters of Victorian England that used mercuric solutions in their processes.

We used to drill out the tip cavities and load hollow point varmint bullets with mercury and then cap them with wax just prior to firing them, so as to give the mercury as little time as possible to soak into the lead. The result was a dramatic increase in expansion and terminal effect due to the mercury vaporizing on impact.
We got the idea from the old movie, "Day of the Jackal".
Later on, we found that grease would do about the same thing, and was not nearly as much a pain in the butt to handle.
 
MadDog,

We use to coat the inside of the cavity with a thin layer of hot wax to prevent the absorption of the Hg into the Pb, then cap with a 2mm plug of lead-based solder. The solder tended to retard the release more than other less durable plugs, thereby increasing the dynamic effect of the mercury striking the forward confines of the compartment.
 
Maddog,
The easiest way to remove the lead from a bore is with bronze wool and Shooters Choice or Ed's Red (my choice-its cheap). Wrap the bronze woll around a jag of the proper size and scrub away. You can find bronze wool at your supermarket (pot scrubbers and don't get the kind with the soap in it) or order it from Brownells. I've used this method alot with no problems.
Jake.
 
We tried the wax liner too, but it would melt in our pockets in the hot desert sun, then we would have mercury in our pockets.
That is why we went to loading them as we used them, rather than pre-dosing them.

This was all long ago, before we had things like portable solar powered thermoelectric ammunition coolers to keep our rounds all at a nice uniform temperature year round...

(Knowing Rich Lucibella, he will be looking all over the web for one of these by now.
Don't bother, I just made it up.)

...Come to think of it, somebody is making portable battery powered thermoelectric coolers, and you probably could do a 12 volt solar hookup...
Hmmm.
Might be just the thing for those summer varmint hunts.

Vaseline disolve to the Gentlemen varmint hunters....

"Jeeves, get the 22-250s from the cooler, and pour me another dry martini, I believe that the beaters have flushed another ground squirrel. Can't have the hands shaking at a time like this, can we? Last time I was shooting sober, we lost nearly all of the beaters, Ha Ha, What?"

"Yes sir. Will there be anything else?
Pardon me sir, but I am having trouble getting the White Star and the Bombay into the cooler with all of the ammunition. Do you have a preference for which you want chilled sir?"

"Yes, Jeeves, I want all of it chilled. Pop over to the cooler mart in the helicopter and get another one right away. After all, we can't be expected to continue under these damnably oppressive conditions, under equipped as we are... and while you're out, find a masseuse, my shoulders are a little tight from all of this shooting."
 
Mad Dog, Given your established level of patience ( :D)I think you're on the way to making the first ever 1903 Springfield smoothbore in 35 Whelen! :D :D :D

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"Keep shootin till they quit floppin"
The Wife 2/2000
 
Mr Dog-
I wasn't even close to taking that bait...at least not after an hour spent searching the web on the phrases "portable solar powered thermoelectric ammunition coolers", "mad dog's secret recipe" and "he who has the most toys wins".

Actually, I remember Mykl's experiments as dealing with mercury fulminate? I do remember the samples I received being quite "effective" some three years later.
Rich
 
Rich, are you trying to tell us that Mykl kept his old chemistry books? With the lab experiments to make Potassium tri-??????

"Better living through chemistry" ain't necessarily controlled substances...

:), Art
 
Alright! Who's got the key to the AV room? The last time I saw it, it was pinned to Mykl's pocket protector. Who has it now?
 
Rich came with his Foul Out system.
It is defective. Evidently there is a short in it, or some other problem. measurements taken with volt/ammeters showed that the battery powered device was not delivering much if any voltage to the weapon.

It was completely ineffective on lead removal, and only moderately effective on some very light copper fouling.

In the meantime, we scrubbed a lot more, and managed to get down to the late Miocene lead layer. Carbon 14 dating proved the lead to be older than the rifle!
We found wooly mammoth hair and bone fragments in the weapon as well.
There is still a buttload of lead in the barrel. I estimate that we need to dig at least 65 million years of lead deposits out before it is finally a clean bore. It is now clear that this weapon was used by a time traveler and spent many eons in service shooting the only available bullet material prior to the advent of copper jackets in the late 19th century. :(On the other hand, if we dig long enough, we may strike oil.

On a brighter note, the LURCR is working perfectly, and has a new set of Pachmayr flush mount hammer head swivels that I installed in record time on Sunday, just after Rich had pitched a snit about the perfectly usable sling swivels that were already installed on the weapon.
Immediately after they were PERMANENTLY installed and tested by His Supreme Lucibellaness, Rich realized that they were not as fast or as easy to use as the ones I had just removed.... ARRRGGGHHH!
Sheesh. Some people's kids

On an even brighter note, Rich Lucibella has started the Gunsite Rifle course today, and out of the blackness of my vindictive little heart I have arranged with the instructors to have him receive some very "special" treatment.
Heh heh heh...
It is pouring rain here as well, and I plan on taking my nice new Goretex suit that I loaned him away tonight.
After all, if I had known it was going to rain, I wouldn't have loaned it to him...
Bwahahahahaha!
 
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