Whats this in the barrel?

Short story for sure. Picked up this TC Hawkin 45 recently. Barrel was somewhat clean, I did attempt to clean the barrel, but am not sure what this is. Note the brown. Is this rust, old lube or what? Any thoughts would be appreciated. If old lube what would get this out.

Looks like rust to me.

There are thousands of threads here on how & what to use to clean a barrel. All you have to do is know how to read. Did you check to see if the barrel was loaded?

Some 0000 steel wool on a jag, or wrapped around a brush, with some oil. Work that up and down several times till you remove it. I’m sure you’ll get several replies, but this method will work fine.

Old Hawkeye said:

There are thousands of threads here on how & what to use to clean a barrel. All you have to do is know how to read. Did you check to see if the barrel was loaded?

Click to expand...

Pretty sure I know how to read. Read your negative post. Maybe, just maybe somebody else would like to know how to get rid of what ever ale's this barrel. Thanks for your time though.

Here is a positive post. In the upper right hand corner you will see " Search", click on it, in the space provided type in " rusty barrel", click on "search". You should find more info than you need.

Just looks like a little bit of surface rust. I would cut out a piece of green Scotch-Brite, and use a nice penetrating oil and scrub it up and down through the bore.

mtsage said:

Pretty sure I know how to read. Read your negative post. Maybe, just maybe somebody else would like to know how to get rid of what ever ale's this barrel. Thanks for your time though.

Click to expand...

Not sure if you will consider this negative or positive, but does whoever owns the gun have access to a borescope? Hard to tell condition of the bore from the photograph you posted as if doesn’t show much, just a peek near the muzzle. Crud and rust usually tends to get worse towards the breech end of the bore. If it’s something like a Borebutter build up, hot water and a bronze brush will usually clean it up. If rust, one could use Evapo-Rust to kill the active rust, then follow up with a Scotch Brite polishing to smooth out the rough surface a bit from pitting. Good chance a barrel like that will shoot reasonable well, although it may require swabbing between shots and a little extra effort at the end of the day, depending on the condition of the bore.

There are many ways to polish and smooth up a bore. Here is a @duelist1954 video showing the process he used on a difficult to load GPR that I have posted a reference to more times than I can remember.

I have used a similar method with Scotch-Brite for some time, but Mike explains his very well. I started doing it after speaking to Don Getz (Getz Barrel) years ago before he passed, and he recommended using the green (600 grit) Scotch-Brite for smoothing up barrels that were cutting patches. Said it wouldn’t hurt the barrel, but with a rusty bore, may be moot point.

mtsage said:

Pretty sure I know how to read. Read your negative post. Maybe, just maybe somebody else would like to know how to get rid of what ever ale's this barrel. Thanks for your time though.

Click to expand...

Well, @Old Hawkeye gave you some pretty good advice.
Long story short,
Don't just "attempt to clean the barrel", Clean it until, and you have obviously read it before,, but,
Clean till a white patch comes out white,
Then lubricate the barrel.
Then use the gun and repeat the process,
You could use one of the the many techniques described here for decades.
Or you could just ask again.
Guess what?
You'll get the same answers that have been made for decades.
Welcome to buying a gun that has been out of production for 10yrs or more

Last year we had a new to BP shooter turn up with a very nice .45cal TC that wouldn't shoot a 'group' smaller than about a foot a 50m with a REAL-style bullet.

It just so happened that I was bragging about my new, dirt-cheap borescope that fixes up to a cell-phone, and we used it. About 3/4 of the barrel from the breech up the rifling was completely filled with some kind of plastic stuff that had set hard, rendering the rifle into a mostly smoothbore. Much scratching of a number of heads ensued, but I advised him to use the old green-grade Scotch pad, and as much elbow grease as he could provide before trying to shoot it again. My advice was echoed by a number of other BP- shooters there, and dismayed at the amount of hard work ahead of him to clean this stuff out, he left.
The following Thursday - a BP-only shooting day - he was back, and asked me to take another look at the bore. TBH, it wasn't totally cleaned up, but I felt that another hour or so might well do it. What was the cr*p? I axed him.

The answer was astonishing, at least to me. He got in contact, via the gun store, with the previous owner, who admitted that he'd gotten rid of the rifle because it wouldn't shoot. Hardly surprising, when you consider that instead of using a regular patch, like most of us would, he'd used an undersized ball from his .36 revolver, swathed in many folds of Glad-Wrap.

be careful with bronze brushes or you may wind up with more problems as they were made to go through a barrel they tend not to reverse well .. [can get stuck] use an undersize brush with an oiled patch or scotch brite pad.. oh and dont use your ramrod use a good strong cleaning rod. pulled off tips of a r/r stuck in the bore is an other story. just .2 cents worth for free . good luck and happy shooting

Old Hawkeye said:

There are thousands of threads here on how & what to use to clean a barrel. All you have to do is know how to read. Did you check to see if the barrel was loaded?

Click to expand...

Aw come on. No need to be rude.

JimS said:

Aw come on. No need to be rude.

Click to expand...

As I see it, the problem arises when a seeming two dimensional comment takes on a life of its own simply because it is written succinctly in a forum such as this. When spoken face to face, the same comment is judged by not only the words themselves but also facial cues and body language. The skilled novelist knows just how to "write the picture" via words so the mind conjures all that cannot be seen. Perhaps the author in this case chose economy of words rather than verbose illustration. Either way, the point was made without harm or foul.

That's stuff in the barrel is called "FUZZ". Found the same thing in a couple of my barrels. Fired, cleaned, put away for an extended period of time. Not looked at for quite a while.
That's when I decided they had to go "down the road" to someone that would shoot them.
Did pull all of them out and give them "the treatment".
Someone also mentioned "shooting the fuzz" out?
Not too sure that would work with a "patched round ball" because of the distance between the ball and the lands.
Center fire ? A different story. Don't know of anybody that can pack a round ball that tight.

They are a pain to unbreech, with a special jig required that safely fits around the breech, but unbreeching makes everything clearer and easier to work on.

If it’s loaded with some kind of plastic I’d unbreech it and heat the heck out of it with a heat gun while running a steel wool wad through it till it comes clean. But depending on what the situation is, there are many approaches to get it clean.

Go shoot it, clean it, then see what it looks like.

mtsage said:

Pretty sure I know how to read. Read your negative post. Maybe, just maybe somebody else would like to know how to get rid of what ever ale's this barrel. Thanks for your time though.

Click to expand...

"Ale" is a beverage, not a condition. My post was not meant to be negative, but I guess that's how you perceived it. All I said was your answer is here if you just take some time & make a little effort. There are as many ways to clean a barrel as there are people on this forum. All the remedies you will get on this thread have been posted here THOUSANDS of times! Now there will be dozens more posted. Which one do you want me to recommend? Seems everybody is too sensitive about every little thing these days. I asked if the gun was loaded because a lot of used muzzle loaders are unwittingly sold that way & a rusty barrel is a red flag that your's may be, as well. Did you check? Good luck!

Old Hawkeye said:

"Ale" is a beverage, not a condition. My post was not meant to be negative, but I guess that's how you perceived it. All I said was your answer is here if you just take some time & make a little effort. There are as many ways to clean a barrel as there are people on this forum. All the remedies you will get on this thread have been posted here THOUSANDS of times! Now there will be dozens more posted. Which one do you want me to recommend? Seems everybody is too sensitive about every little thing these days. I asked if the gun was loaded because a lot of used muzzle loaders are unwittingly sold that way & a rusty barrel is a red flag that your's may be, as well. Did you check? Good luck!

Click to expand...

Have done some ale's. Some history. I'm not new to shooting. Got 60 plus years throwing lead of many diff calibers. Been shooting my old 50 cal TC Hawken since 1969 actually. But have never had rust or any buildup of lube. So looking into this new barrel was something new to me. And you are correct in that there are many many posts on cleaning rust, lube from barrels. So I guess I took the shortcut and just asked without doing a search. But some peeps for whatever reason feel in necessary to remind other peeps of the "SEARCH" line. Of course the easy way would be just to avoid posts with headlines that were not of interest. Enough said. Thanks for the reminder. Search just took on another meaning to me.

And yup the TC did have a RB and patch in the breech with 40 grains of powder. Ramrod proved something still loaded. Screwed ball out and shook/scraped powder out. Weighted powder and was 40 grains. I was told 45 was put away 20-30 years ago. So my brain says lets see if powder is still good. Oh, I don't have a clue what kind/name of powder was. Hope this video loads for show.

Please always check to see if gun is loaded. Use the ramrod. It did not lie. Fun stuff.

rich pierce said:

They are a pain to unbreech, with a special jig required that safely fits around the breech, but unbreeching makes everything clearer and easier to work on.

If it’s loaded with some kind of plastic I’d unbreech it and heat the heck out of it with a heat gun while running a steel wool wad through it till it comes clean. But depending on what the situation is, there are many approaches to get it clean.

Click to expand...

There are bore cleaners out there that will remove most plastic residue from a bore. A jag with a patch and soapy water isn’t going to cut it.

Did the barrel clean up okay? I’d be inclined to do a good cleaning and the scotch brite trick. Also if after cleaning if you can feel consistent rifling on a tight patch it may shoot okay. I’ve had a couple like that and accuracy is pretty good. They just may require a bit more care when cleaning.