Big Boy Cleaning

[RanchRoper]

...so assuming all the black stuff on the Winchesters I shot today will have lined my barrel as well, I'll spend Sunday morning having quality time with Henry and a patch kit. Thanks for all the info, I'll be very thorough.

[Squatch]

I think PT7 covered it pretty well. I'll just add get a couple of brass brushes and occasionally run a brush through to get rid of any copper or lead fouling. Run a wet patch through to soak the barrel. Then dip the brush in Hoppes and run it through a few times, Follow with another wet patch then dry patches till clean. Repeat if needed.

[RanchRoper]

I think PT7 covered it pretty well. I'll just add get a couple of brass brushes and occasionally run a brush through to get rid of any copper or lead fouling. Run a wet patch through to soak the barrel. Then dip the brush in Hoppes and run it through a few times, Follow with another wet patch then dry patches till clean. Repeat if needed.

Done! thks

[clovishound]

I was doing just the boresnake thing on my Savage bolt action in .223. Only jacketed bullets. Looked good down the barrel. After a while I started noticing way too many fliers. I ran some Hoppes and a brush down the bore and started getting lots of copper fouling out. After a good cleaning, the accuracy was back. I now run Hoppes, a brush and some patches through it every couple of range trips.

[clovishound]

Update: between this thread, and the recent experience installing the LLL on my H001, I decided to go ahead and disassemble and clean my .357 Big Boy Steel. I went to the Henry site and started the video playing on my tablet that I took out to the workbench. I had to pause it several times to catch up on the procedure. The only trouble I had was the trigger assembly screw. There is a thin spring steel yoke that will keep the screw from seating all the way. It stops where the threads transition to smooth rod. In the video playing with the trigger is how he got past this. I paused the video before I got to that point. I took the lever/trigger assembly back out and put the screw through the mechanism to see where the hang up was. I then wiggled the reset assembly with a small tool to get past the bottleneck. Playing with the trigger would probably work, and is much easier.

It was surprisingly clean after over 2,000 rounds, almost all my reloads. Probably took about an hour, but I went slow. The hour included the obligatory searching for a tool, and finding the screw I dropped that rolled up into some wood shavings on the shop floor. I could probably do it in 20 minutes to a half hour now. Might go back up to an hour by the time I do it again. Wasn't sure what lube to use, ended up using Rem oil and choke grease. There were a couple places that obviously had grease as the original lube. Tried not to overdo the lube, but wanted to make sure it had enough.

Can't believe I have run that many rounds through it already. I bought it last summer. I'm almost out of the second 1K brick of magnum primers. I've also run a couple boxes of factory through it, as well as some .38s from time to time.

This is not a procedure for someone that has no mechanical sense. For those who aren't afraid to dig into things, and exercise due care, it isn't too bad. I would recommend getting a set of gunsmithing screwdrivers for this, if you don't already have them. The basic Weaver set worked just fine. I believe they are available on Amazon for under $20. Not saying they are the ones to get, just that was the set I had and they worked well.

[RanchRoper]

I'm not that adventuresome; yet. 2,000 rounds seems like a lot of shooting! I'm at the range again tomorrow night and will put another 20 rounds through it. That makes 80 rounds since the last cleaning, so I'll run a patch or two thru it this weekend and see what it looks like. After awhile I guess you get to know your rifle pretty well and how often to clean it. I'm shooting only lead, so may need it more than some other type of ammo. Thanks for the tips.

[clovishound]

When it is time to pull it down, the videos are an excellent resource. I would not have known what needed to be pulled, and in what order. The videos made everything clear.

[RanchRoper]

Just gave it a thorough cleaning including Hoppe's copper solvent. Next to nothing copper-wise as I've only shot less than a hundred rounds of JSP. Mostly shoot lead. She's a clean machine now!

Then the heart stopping moment; I lean it against the wall for a second while I start to put lids back on cleaner, and THUMP! It falls over on the floor. No marks on it and everything works fine but wow does that ever get your attention! Never again. I assume hunting rifles get banged around sometimes and work fine so I'll put some rounds through it this week again.