Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing bore snake stuck

A local pawn and gun has a Carl Gustaf 6.55 in a with a bore snake broke off in the barrel. How would you get it out?

I ask because I can grab it for 150.00 and wonder if there is a easy fix.

pull rope came off the snake , so the whole snake is in there.

about 3" from the chamber and 6" (pounded in with a dowel) from the muzzle.

New barrel time..


That's exactly why I caution customers to use those things on shotguns, not rifles...

You can go to Home Depot, buy bags of hardwood dowels, cut to lengths of about 1 inch. Buy the dowels that are slightly smaller in diameter than the actual bore size, and drive dowels one by one, down the bore from the muzzle.

Use a rubber mallet, and just add dowels as needed until bore snake drops out of the bbl. I find it much easier to have my son steady the weapon until the dowels drop through.

The hardwood dowels are short & hard enough that they won't break/snap off while driving into bbl.

This is a safe method that won't mar the bbl, and is used to slug bbls with lead plugs.

Good luck,

Richard

I once saw my dad straighten and heat a coat hanger to burn a pull through cleaner out of a Savage 99 barrel. He took his time, heated it quite a few times never leaving it in the bore very long. Finally burned through enough for the pull through to be driven out and it didn't seem to damage the bore. It was in the 50s so it could have been a brazing rod, I can't remember for sure.

Good luck is right... I hope we find out if that worked or not.. It sure didn't with the Marlin I had last fall - and the factory gave up on it also so he got a nice, expensive new barrel...

Ill pass on the suggestion of the short hard wood dowels. I dont think Ill tie myself into this one.

If the price was $50, I'd go for it,but if it is a sportorized M96 or 38, it isn't worth it.I have seen them, even, lately for $250.
I like the heating up a rod idea.Might work. Can't see hammering on dowel and packing it tighter will do much good.

I worked in a gunshop for a little time. and a guy brought in a rifle with a oversized bullet stuck in it. the owner broke off a wooden dowl trying to get it out and it only got tighter, the smith took a steel rod that fit tight in the barrel and drove it out with a 5 lb hammer , it was ok. do not put wood in it.

Classic solution (close fitting polished steel rod) but the fabric part maybe would wedge tighter, don't know. My first thought would be to make up something like an old corkscrew-type patch puller and see what I could snag. Pretty small bore though.

Heat the barrel? push out the gue,, clean clean clean......

Having removed more than my share of bore obstructions, I seriously doubt this will do anything other than compound the problem. You are assuming the jammed boresnake is able to move. The problem is, by the time someone seeks the services of a professional, it is usually screwed up beyond repair, or, damn close to it.

If this problem made it's way to my shop, I would probably look to see what the fabric was made of and then search for something that might dissolve the fabric enough, without attacking the bore, to perhaps free the obstruction. For instance, I know acetone can attack some man made materials given time. I might start there. I might also consider flooding the bore from both ends with a good penetrating lubricant like Kroil and let it sit. Whatever I did, I would consider alternate plan B's potential affect on alternate plan C, and so on before doing anything.

Sometimes applying heat to the barrel can cause the bore to expand enough to allow the obstruction to move, though probably not in this case. One things for sure, if I was going to apply force, it would be in the direction the object was headed when it became stuck. Attempting to reverse direction usually only serves to further cement the object in place.

On the real tough obstructions, where some clown hasn't tried beating the hell out of it with cleaning rods and jamming fishing poles (Another story) in the bore in an attempt to fix their problem, I have machined hardened guides to slip down the bore that would allow me to drill the center of the obstruction thereby releasing pressure on the sides and freeing the object.

In the end you may have no choice but to give it up and scrap the barrel, but there are things you can try so long as you consider one's impact on the next.

FWIW, having removed many feet of broken and jammed dowels, pieces of dowel and other foreign objects from the bores of rifles, I would put that idea down and slowly back away from it. For now anyway.

I like the cork screw idea. I think that's how they get stuck balls out of muzzle loaders. kwg

The heated coat hanger will work, but a straight steel rod about 1/8 to 3/16 inches in diameter would be better.

Heat it red hot at the tip and stick it into the barrel. You will have to do this several times, but it will work.

Even red hot, the steel rod will not hold it's heat long enough to harm the barrel.

The only problem that I can see is that the bore snake might be made out of some material that is fire resistant.

Put the bolt in it, chamber a round, then shoot it. "I just kidding!"

We where joking about that in the shop.

A fellow once told me how he removed a broken off pull-through from his rifle. He pulled the bullet from one of his friend's 243 cartridges and dumped out about half the powder. He then tied his rifle to a log, chambered the 243 "blank", lined the barrels up carefully with the muzzles touching, and fired! He claimed it blew that thing right out. I can't recommend this method.
I have used heat many times. Enough heat to burn the patch won't affect the barrel.
I've rebarreled several rifles with broken off fishing rods, etc. One of the worst had nails stacked up in the bore. When the owner hit the top nail, they all just slipped past one another and the barrel was done. GD

Hatcher wrote about that (the cartridge with NO bullet thing) in Hatcher's Notebook. He thought that he was onto something for removing stuck patches and broken pull-throughs but after a series of experiments he decided that it wasn't such a good idea. Traditional methods were more reliable and safer if not as fast and handy.

E-mail the manufacturer of the boresnake and ask if they know what will soften/dissolve their product. Of course if it dissolves, can you get the goop out?

If there is any nylon or other man made fiber the hot wire will melt it and stick it to the barrel and never will get it out.

the hot wire only works for cotton.

So who is still a big fan of the boresnake after reading this?

Imagine your beloved Kreiger or some other high dollar custom tube ruined by a pos cleaning rope! $600-$700 down the drain!

Worse yet what if you were on an elk hunt in the backcountry with a limited entry tag that took you many years, dollars and luck to draw??

Seems this is a fairly common issue with boresnakes: Google results

I remember a fella on here advocating the boresnake for in the field cleaning, claimed he carried one on his hip....

MtnHtr