I normally don't do a lot of scrubbing with a brush any more. I coat the bore with Hoppes, let it sit about 20 minutes or so, then swab it dry and oil it.

 

Youngs on the back of the tin suggest 1 - 3 of water to make up what they call aquaoil.

 

I've used JB paste in the past with good results. Don't over do it though, since the steel of the Enfield barrels is not so wear resistent as the steel of modern rifle barrels, and the heat of Cordite can cause changes in the bore surface which leaves the surface covered in microscopic checking fractures that can result in the bore surface flaking away.

This "alligator checking" also makes the bore surface hold onto hard baked carbon and jacket metal deposits making these very difficult to remove.

 

The old manuals say that one should not attempt to achieve a bright shiny bore. So long as patches come out reasonably clear the appearance of the bore is secondary.

The same is advised for the later hammerforged bores. These will always have a dusty look no matter how clean to get them.

Some modern day barrel makers have even taken to producing a textured bore surface to reduce friction and discourage metal fouling, on the same principle as the "seasoned" bore of Black Powder era target rifles.

Sometimes a bright polished bore is not the best thing to have.

The chamber plug was made by using a .45 ACP cartridge case with sharpened case mouth like a cookie cutter to cut plugs from a large rubber eraser.

When filling the bore to let solvents work overnight one should stretch a length of rubber tubing over the muzzle so theres no tideline where the bore surface is exposed to both air and solvent fumes, otherwise the surface can become etched in a ring.

When filling the bore only 1/3 to 1/2 its length I placed a steel cleaning rod with patch in the bore down to the chamber, then filled around it.

I've used dacron hair pad patches in the loop, and sometimes wrapped these with 0000 steel wool. One shouldn't scrubb a bore with steel wool, that goes without saying, but 0000 steel wool is not hard enough to cut bore steel, its often recommended for removing lead deposits.

The steel wool won't do much against jacket metal fouling either, not by itself that is.

 

What I'd do was to draw the patch up the bore slowly then push back down the bore even more carefully. Repeating every hour or so to be sure the bore never got dry.

The steel wool will cut away metal fouling softened by the solvent, exposing more of the fouling to the solvent with each stroke.

This also kept the bore wet with solvent so no tide line could form.

Bronze wool is often recommended for polishing away metal fouling, but would be eaten up by strong solvents even more quickly than the fouling.

 

After this sort of intensive cleaning, the expended solvent pours out looking as black and thick as burnt crankcase oil.

 

As A square 10 suggests the best method is to fire a few rounds then clean throughly, then fire a few more rounds and clean.

The reason so many of these bores are so deeply coated with fouling is that troops in the field seldom had an opportunity to clean the bore throughly. Just pouring water through the bore and dragging a pull through up the bore staved off rust from corrosive primers, but did nothing to remove metal fouling and hard baked carbon fouling.

After each world war the military establishments had serious manpower shortages and millions of rifles that had to be dealt with before being placed in storage.

 

Many the SMLE straight from the importer that I've cleaned up and found the barrels to be choked with fouling under the cosomline. Even the extra deep Enfield grooves were packed with fouling even with the lands.

You could wear out a hundred brushes and barely touch that sort of age cured hard fouling.

 

I've considered building one of the electrode type cleaning outfits, these work like electroplating in reverse, the non ferrous metal fouling being drawn away from the bore to plate the electrode rod placed in the bore. This breaks up carbon deposits as well.

 

Very often a heavily fouled bore will look pitted, but after through cleaning it turns out that what looked like pits was actually voids in a thick layer of metal fouling. Carbon particles embedded in the metal fouling having been dissolved by solvents during previous attemps at cleaning.

 

I'm pleased to say that at this point in time I have managed to get the bores of all my firearms as clean as a whistle, without causing any damage to the bores.

 

For regular cleaning I now use balistol. Balistol is as non toxic as a bore cleaner solvent can get. Its even recommended for cleaning restaurant met cutting machinery, and cleaning and disinfecting wounds and sores on horses and dogs.

This solvent is also good for protecting the bore, and while no oxygen can get past a film of balistol to promote rust the solvent remains active so long as its in the bore. It continues to dissolve stubborn deposits while acting as a preservative.

 

That's what happened with my No.4 Mk.2. I thought I had a pitted bore, but after cleaning out all the "stuff" the bore looks almost new. The rifle is a tackdriver now as well.

Ed

Ed