Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire cleaning laquer out of a chamber

I have been shooting a fair bit of Wolf and other old laquered ammo and a couple of rifles are having sticky extraction. They work well shortly after cleaning but quickly gum up as I don't think they get truly clean when using the common cleaning solvents.

The worst culprit is an M1 Carbine as it won't cleanly run a single magazine through it, even right after cleaning. The extractor seems to pull off the rim leaving the case in the chamber. It ejects brass case ammo just fine but I have a 50 caliber ammo box full of steel case ammo I would like to use up.

I would like to try getting the chamber well cleaned before replacing the extractor and other sundry parts as it would be cheaper and have a longer lasting result. If there is a solvent that works better than Hoppes or other such solvents, I would appreciate someone pointing me in the right direction. I would also welcome a lead in finding a chamber brush like used in the Garand/M14 if there is one. The use of those two items would probably go far in solving my gun problems.

Thanks in advance.

laquer thinner also works great on plastic fouling

Acetone.
I think you can use a rubber plug and it won't go to heck on you. But pour the acetone on the plug FIRST to see if it "eats."

Rubber ?

"see if it "eats."

Crap sakes use a CORK,....acetone, LT, or MEK.

THAN

Wax that garbage ammo with CAR WAX,....it's formulated to withstand heat,....just rolling the stuff around on a towel soaked in the stuff will see your equipment functioning a little more reliably.

edit to add,...if you use furniture wax, you're on your own.

GTC

With a shotgun having extraction issue due to PLASTIC fouling, a little acetone scrub and then a brush wrapped with little 0000 steel wool chucked in a drill via short length of scrap rod works wonders. Low speed. Gunsmith taught me that. Never needed to do that with a rifle chamber, but shiild think if take barrel off, scrub out chamber w laquer thinner, and if needed still then would hit it carefully with the 0000 trick. If that makes you nervous, use pure copper wool instead (brownells, and specific chore boy pads). Obviously, dont be jamming that sucker into the barrel throat. Now am just a guy, not a gunsmith, but thats what i'd try.

Thanks all for the suggestions. I have tried acetone with no better success but maybe I need to let it sit longer as well as run more patches through there. It is kind of tough getting to the chamber from the rear as the receiver is in the way. running a rod from the muzzle to the rear and using a slotted jag for applying solvents doesn't seem to apply solvents very well. I'll have to give this a try with steel wool as running a brush from the muzzle doesn't seem to work as well as from the breech.

Maybe I'm dealing with a polymer rather than lacquer which is more resistant to solvents or acetone? These are the older greenish colored cases rather than the metal looking ones which I believe signify lacquer coating. I would trade them off but I have a 50 cal ammo box full of loose rounds which would be nice to plink with at the cabin or house where loosing reloadable casings would be undesirable.

The other possibility is the extractor is worn enough that the added friction of steel cases is causing the problem. Replacing that part would probably fix the issue but I hate paying as much for shipping as for the part. Reason says buy the part and shipping be danged; the cheap side of me cringes at the thought.

Perhaps there is a local gun shop or smith, that will order your extractor along with their next order from Brownell's and save you the shipping.

Ed's Red with an extra hit of Acetone would be my choice. That, plus time. The nice thing about Ed's Red is that it keeps working the longer you leave it.

I use old hunting socks a lot in my gun cleaning. Given this problem, I would slice off a bit of an old wool sock, put some Ed's Red on it and then jam it in there good and leave it for a week, then I would put a rod down the bore, and attach a slightly oversize copper brush and bring it up into the chamber and twirl it a bit.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

I had that problem with an SKS. I took a fired case, drilled out the primer hole and screwed in an old aluminum cleaning rod then chucked in a drill. I coated the case with Wheeler 600 grit polishing compound I had got in a bore lapping kit and ran at slow speed in and out of the chamber till all was clean and polished. No more extraction issues.