Getting all BoreButter residue out of barrels?

[Forager]

After years of using this yellow stuff, I’m fairly certain that it is part of my fouling and my “why is this barrel still not clean” problem.  Never-ending, slightly brown patches.  How did I confirm it?  By shooting a bunch of the yellow stuff in a stainless barrel, and getting slightly brown patches; and, by pouring the carbon steel barrels full of a mild solvent (1:1:1 Murphy’s, peroxide, 91% iso), and getting slightly brown to very brown patches immediately.  Taking a very close look at the bores, I can see faint yellow/brown irregular spotting that I can only assume to be areas of the wax-based yellow stuff still in there.

So, any suggestions as to how get ALL of this stuff completely out of the bores?  Short of reboring (though...).

Also, new patch lube will be bear oil/grease.  Yep.  I rendered down about 11 pints from about 22 pounds of fat from last fall’s bear.

[Fyrstyk]

If you can remove the barrel, I would suggest heating the barrel up, in the oven or on a grill, at low heat but hot enough that you can't hold the barrel in your bare hand.  This should melt the residue from the "yellow stuff" so that it can be swabbed out with patches on a jag or bronze brush.  Then I would completely de-grease the barrel with alcohol or brake cleaner. then oil with your new gun preservative.

[Ohio Joe]

I would think over time with the use of your new lube, the bore butter would simply be shot out and your new lube would take over. Just my thinking...  Maybe a trip to the Range with your new lube, an do this; shoot 5 shots - clean the bore - shoot 5 more shots - clean the bore, and maybe repeat this a couple more times then see where you're at after 20 shots.

I've never had a problem with the bore butter - but I usually only use it for a hunting lube while the rest of my shooting is with a spit patch.

Good luck! 

[Uncle Russ]

Forager, I have done a few barrels for the exact same reason you're stating.
After many failed attempts in an effort to get this stuff out, using chemicals I shouldn't have, I settled on "Fire Lapping" with JB Bore Paste (Compound)

Saturating a patch, that I could easily start by hand, not a thick patch, but maybe a little thinner by just a few thousandths under the size that you normally use, then after a dozen or so shots, clean it, dry it well, and check for that dreaded ugly brown.
If it's there, do it all over again....that should do it!

My son in New Mexico did his barrels, all of them, with Valve Grinding Compound first, then followed up with a half-dozen Fire Lapping shots using JB Bore Paste. He told me those barrels had never been so clean, and he never got the brown anymore!
I haven't talked to him in years about this as we both just considered it "a given", but I will ask him, once I remember it.
Mine are all fine, along with other folk's barrels that I have helped them with so there has been no reason to think his barrels would be any different.

Something you may find interesting;
Once you do this, and I have heard several say this same thing, you can use Bore Butter again, just not regularly, and not get that dreaded ugly brown patch back......all this tells me, and it's just a theory among myself and a few others, that we, collectively, just don't do a good enough job cleaning/scrubbing that barrel when it is brand new, before we shoot it the very first time.

As for myself, I will still use Bore Butter on occasion, and after a good cleaning, it is never as bad again as it once was many years ago. Sometimes a little stubborn maybe, but it comes out with just a little extra effort.

Now, I must say that there is a group that believes you can do the same thing, and get the exact same results, by Hand Lapping with a saturated bore Mop. I have no problem whatsoever with that.
There is also a group that believes strongly that you can "season" a bore using Bore Butter. I have met and talked to a few and I would never condemn, or even try to change their thinking.....but, who knows? Perhaps they are innocently confusing brown patches with a seasoned bore.


 

[prairie dog]

My Lyman GPR would not group at all until I cleaned out all the bore butter.  To get it all out I used very hot water, followed with Shooters Choice solvent, followed with hand lapping with copious amounts of the red JB bore paste, followed with a through hot water scrubbing, dry patching then a good coating of CLP. 

That rifle will not shoot well with any grease based lube but it shoots tiny groups now with moose milk or Ballistol lube.  And clean up is easy with the last patches coming out as clean as they went in. 

Everyone has different expectations, standards, and opinions; I'm only sharing what has worked for me.   

[waksupi]

This is one of the few times  I would recommend boiling water in a barrel. What you are trying to remove is beeswax, the base for Bore Butter. Get it melted, and swab immediately. A few rounds of that should take care of the majority of it, and then regular shooting will take care of the rest.

Regardless of claims, it does not season a barrel. Modern steel doesn't season, and I have my doubts of what it would do in an old barrel. Probably create the same fouling mess as it does with modern steel. I sure wouldn't ever season my dutch oven with beeswax. 

[blackpowderbill]

 
Chapstick article on my blog.

https://blackpowderbill.blogspot.com/2019/07/tired-of-typing-this-story-and-found-it.html

[Idaholewis]

Hand held Steam Cleaner is pretty hard to beat in my opinion, Boiling water works fine, But i find my little Steam cleaner easier to use. I rarely use it Through a Barrel, only to THOROUGHLY Strip Clean a New, or New to me Rifle. Then i go to regular Tap Water in a Bucket