Guys,

I acquired about 150 of these barrels in a trade a few years ago. They were military armory pulls from back in the day. The barrels are dark and have some surface rust. Some are WW2 and most are Korean War era barrels. They are just sitting around and I have a few weeks to waste.

What I would like to know is what could I do to them to clean them and get them ready to offer for sale. What would be the best way to clean these barrels up? I have gauged and handful and some are within spec and some are not. But I hate to see them just sit and degrade. Any ideas? I have tried to scrub them but most still show signs of a lot of gunk in the rifling.

I think I would start with a brass brush and some mineral spirits. You could use Hoppes but a gallon of mineral spirits costs less. I know a guy who is always looking for barrels to cut down and make Mini Garands. I would email him if you are interested.

kwg

Boil the lot in a 55 gallon drum would be my thoughts

If it was me, I'd gauge them all before bothering to clean. Toss the junked ones and clean up the good ones. Pay some kid $5 a barrel to scrub them and dry them.

You have 2 excellent answers just above this.

You claim to have the time so do as Verylargeboots suggests and gauge them all and separate the scrap. High grade rifle steel will go for triple what uncleaned scrap does at a recycling yard so do that with the bad ones.

ClayBelt's suggestion is spot on. Boiling will both convert the rust into blackoxide and melt and clear out the cosmolene clogging the barrels. As your boiling have a ladle handy to skim the grease that rises to the top. Boil for at least an hour giving plenty of time for the rust to convert which takes about 45 minutes. Remove them individually and steel wool the rust (now blackoxide) off and have plenty of oil on hand to keep them from rusting again. Labor intensive but so is everything involving firearms.

So as in just water? I can do that but was wondering what the end result would be? Just wanting to get this right, but will that remove all the fouling and crud in the bores. As far as the shot out barrels they still have value and just don't want to screw it up. Not a gunsmith by any stretch and sorry for asking a lamens question. Thanks for the responses and advice.

If you're not concerned about the finish, you could fashion a PVC pipe with a cap and fill it with EvapoRust and drop a barrel in. That stuff is non-toxic (no need for gloves, apron, mask, etc) and cleans rust like no one's business. It's reusable to a point; it all depends on how much rust is on each barrel. Just rinse with water and apply oil afterwards.

If you boil be sure to avoid tap water, the chlorine can complicate things.