Lead removal tool

G

Greg Walley

Member
About thirty years ago, I saw a tool for removing lead from barrels that looked like a stylists round hair brush with the bristles cut off so they were only sticking out about 0.025 - 0.050" from the body. This "brush" was made of hard plastic and screwed onto the end of a cleaning rod. The plastic "nubs" sticking out from the body were very stiff (not flexible like a nylon bore brush).

After each swipe through the bore, the lead was removed from the plastic brush with a pick, and each successive swipe removed the remaining deposited lead. It was a very effective tool for removing lead from barrels without using solvent.

Does anybody have an idea where these brushes can be found? Maybe they aren't manufactured anymore - which is why I can't find them anywhere.
 
i do not have your answer, but i can tell you how to not lead your bore.
try doing a search on "cast boolits". it is not a .com but a sub forum of a bigger
site.
there is a tool that pulls a brass screen thru the bore to remove lead.
 
I may be wrong but that, largely, was a waste of money.
Lewis lead remover, IOSSO, and recently, Wipe Out-no lead which seems to have decent results, just oedered some from Midway.
 
THE LEWIS LEAD REMOVER is the tool i mentioned,
but again it is much better to not lead the bbl than to spend time and money removing lead.
fix the problem, not the symptom.
bullet size, bullet hardness and bullet lube.
bullet has to fit the bore. about .001 over.
correct hardness for the velocity.
lube must make it to the muzzle.
 
tim said:
I may be wrong but that, largely, was a waste of money.
Lewis lead remover, Wipe Out-no lead which seems to have decent results, just ordered some from Midway.
Click to expand...
I was using NO Lead...then ran into a vid on M-Pro 7. Both are good...I cast my own...Lee NO-OX lube....I shoot more plates than groups...
Tim B.
 
Lead removal
I saw a gun at a local match that was leaded up pretty good.
A very good shooter there recommended shooting 6 shots of 1000FPS+
jacketed bullets fast . Don't know if it is good for gun but it made
a believer out of me. I had to do this just once. stopped loading
anything over 800 FPS after that. Pistol bullets seem cheap to
make. Cheers !
 
I see a lot of the Cowboy Action Shooters at our Club use the Lewis Lead Remover, which features that Screen that is held firmly against the bore by an expandable rubber grommet.

It does work. Brownells carries them.
 
i just sold my 7.5" 44 super redhawk in 44 rem mag.
the load i was shooting for the last 10 years or so was a
290 gr lead/lyno alloy that was water dropped to harden.
ran aprox 1200 fps with NO LEADING.
again, fix the problem, not the symptoms.

dnal said:
Lead removal
I saw a gun at a local match that was leaded up pretty good.
A very good shooter there recommended shooting 6 shots of 1000FPS+
jacketed bullets fast . Don't know if it is good for gun but it made
a believer out of me. I had to do this just once. stopped loading
anything over 800 FPS after that. Pistol bullets seem cheap to
make. Cheers !
Click to expand...
 
Greg Walley said:
About thirty years ago, I saw a tool for removing lead from barrels that looked like a stylists round hair brush with the bristles cut off so they were only sticking out about 0.025 - 0.050" from the body. This "brush" was made of hard plastic and screwed onto the end of a cleaning rod. The plastic "nubs" sticking out from the body were very stiff (not flexible like a nylon bore brush).

After each swipe through the bore, the lead was removed from the plastic brush with a pick, and each successive swipe removed the remaining deposited lead. It was a very effective tool for removing lead from barrels without using solvent.

Does anybody have an idea where these brushes can be found? Maybe they aren't manufactured anymore - which is why I can't find them anywhere.
Click to expand...

Greg, if you find them and it isn't here in this thread, pls give me a headsup :) I want some....
 
I have a pretty nice air rifle that my Grandson stacked 4=5 pellets in the bore. I removed them, but also need to clean it also.
 
In the 10 year period I shot Big Bore Handgun Silhouette I shot tens of thousands of cast bullets. The Lewis lead remover worked best for larger bores. For smaller bores, 6mm and 22's a bronze bristle brush wrapped with brass wool worked best.

I've never had a barrel I could randomly switch between cast and jacketed bullets. Just will not work.

Chemical lead removers never seemed to get the job done, but that was 35 years ago.

.
 
Greg.
Call Matt Dardas. He's a really good guy.....And a really good BR shooter. He has a lot of info on his web site. And has done very good in the shooting sports....His bullets are the best. So call Matt. He will get you going on the right size bullet. He has his own mix of lead alloys and his own formula of lube. And that will reduce your leading issues....

http://dardascastbullets.com/
 
I asked about lead removal on another site & was given a good tip.Get a used bronze brush & rap a couple stands of "Chore Boy" pot scrubbing pad around the brush . I put a wet patch of Hoppes through it first & ran brush through & all lead was removed.Verified results with my Hawkeye borescope. Be sure to buy only Chore Boy brand as it is made from solid copper strands & won't harm the barrel. A lot of other brands are only copper coated & may harm barrel.
 
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Chore Boy works very well.

Another method...Some years back , the editor of THE FOULING SHOT (Cast Bullet Ass'n. magazine) mentioned that he had excellent results removing leading using Shooters Choice, without brushing. He further commented that this was the only solvent he had tried for lead removal that required no brushing. I will assume this was in reference to light leading. Of course, that information is quite dated. I've never tried it, but it may work well.
 
OK, just to be clear to folks following this thread....I'm not arguing but I've been dealing with pure lead and it's been a learning experience indeed. A lot of the "fixes" here include changing the bullets.....obviously WE ALL KNOW THAT! But some of us have reason to approach the actual problem, not avoid it.

Soft lead is a pita....It's wicked sticky. I can peel it with my thumbnail. But my thumbs don't fit.

But it expands at subsonic (suppressed) velocity.

Chore Boy does not work for me. Lewis Lead Remover didn't work for my situation. None of the common solutions worked for me and yes, I even fired some jacketed bullets thru a 700.00 barrel.

I get mine out easily with Baquacil now but am definitely excited about hooking it out with stiff bristles. And it sounds like a solution has been available in the past......

I'm still interested in Greg's product.
 
A bore brush and Chore Boy.

Make sure it is solid copper Chore Boy.
Some is copper plated steel.

Test with a magnet first.

It is strictly a mechanical removal method.

The stands of Chore Boy wrapped on the bore brush scrape the copper out.

Vinegar and hydrogen peroxide also works.


Just be VERY careful with the liquid after use.

It is a very concentrated solution of lead.

Multiple layers of nitrile gloves.


Mercury is not that hard to get in small amounts but is expensive.

It is also very hard to get rid of.
 
Here's the problem as I see it. We want our bullets to go as fast as possible and often live with some stuff that the higher velocity causes. Leading is not something to live with. What happens is we load more and more powder and suddenly we have lead in the barrel. That should happen only once given the same bullet and the same powder.

The right way to go is to shoot lead bullets at velocities where it (pure lead) doesn't lead the barrel and be happy. This, as I remember, is an almost exact velocity. It's been 40+ years since I loaded lead and I may not remember (understatement). Sure, there are alloys that allow a little more velocity without leading the barrel but if you go faster then consider a jacketed bullet. I remember shooting a 44mag, using bullets I cast, at amazing speeds with no leading. I bought another can of powder and it leaded horribly. Cleaning the lead out was quite a bit more difficult given that the "formula" I used to make the bullets was quite hard. I didn't do that again!!!

40+ years ago, using self cast 38 cal bullets, and 3 grains of something (Bullseye I think it was) I could load a hundred for about a dollar. 3 grains was pushing it...2.7 was the most accurate but like I mentioned before, I wanted to get through that paper target as fast as I could. Myself and a friend shot a 10 inch cedar tree until it fell over. We didn't do it on purpose nor did we think about it at all. We hung targets on it and one morning it was just layin' there.....shot to pieces. I did get enough lead out of it to make several hundred more bullets!

OOPS! Got carried away again....sorry...
 
CMaier said:
mercury works, if you can get any.
Click to expand...

Yes, I can get the mercury.....I HAVE a few pounds.......but no one can tell me how to use it. I've been researching amalgamation for several yrs, spent a few hrs just two wks ago with a friend from Nome who described "scraping the sludge off copper plates using a putty knife" after which it's collected and "boiled off" leaving the metals and reclaiming the mercury but here's where things sputter to a halt. NOBODY has ever done this, and perty much everybody opines that "this is the dan'rous part"....I've watched youtube videos, even reread 'Roughing It' just last week, everybody is in agreement up to the part where you actually reclaim the mercury. I know of people "retorting," boiling and even one guy who "boils using dish soap" but I'm very cloudy about HOW....and I'm not interested in just sloshing mercury through the bore and pouring it into a jar permeated with lead...

Several folks I've spaken with have actually used it (or had rings destroyed by it)and describe how it permeates gold, silver and lead things turning to "a paste" and at some point "being saturated" but nobody actually understands the process. Having blown up lots of stuff from rocks to guns to cars and having handled all sorts of dangerous chem's, safely, I MUST understand a thing to attempt it....I understand that most "dangerous" things are the result of ignorance. I am IGNORANT of how to handle mercury.

So at this point mercury is off the table.
 
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