High Mileage Hawken

[OXN939]

Inherited the task of cleaning a blackpowder rifle a family member didn't know what to do with. It's a percussion cap Cabela's Hawken, made in Italy, which was apparently shot about ten years ago and put away without cleaning. I broke the whole thing down and gave it as thorough a cleaning as possible, but it's in pretty bad condition- the bore is pitted badly enough that you can barely see rifling in some parts. So, what is the grossest rifle you guys have ever gotten operational? Imagine it would be pretty tough for corrosion to get bad enough to cause an actual safety concern, and it'd just be used to shoot lead round balls at ~75 yards and in. Thanks in advance!

 

[ElDiablito]

Sounds worse than anything I’ve had to deal with. I’ve bought a couple muzzys cheap on GB that had terrible corrosion.

Evapo-Rust, oiled steel wool (on a bronze brush) and JB Bore paste are all helpful.

I takes a lot of corrosion to stop a barrel from shooting decent to great. The pitting just makes them much harder to clean. I suspect you’ll have no problems lobbing prbs at close range. No safety concerns.

 

[OXN939]

Sounds worse than anything I’ve had to deal with. I’ve bought a couple muzzys cheap on GB that had terrible corrosion.

Evapo-Rust, oiled steel wool (on a bronze brush) and JB Bore paste are all helpful.

I takes a lot of corrosion to stop a barrel from shooting decent to great. The pitting just makes them much harder to clean. I suspect you’ll have no problems lobbing prbs at close range. No safety concerns.

About what I was thinking. Was actually shooting a 130 year old Marlin 1893 yesterday that has very little discernable rifling, and it shoots great.

I'm still scrubbing the hell out of this thing, honestly never seen anything like it. These are probably around the 30th patches I've sent down this thing's bore... it's like trying to clean an industrial size sharpie