[Turbokev]

Hello.. today while at the range, after 100 rounds or so, I noticed the target holes made by my shots turned rectangular instead of round.. knew something was off about that, so I ran a bore cleaner through the barrel and it was tighter than usual.. Ran it through 20 times or so and it got a little better but still didn’t feel right.
took the slide off and put my iPhone camera up the barrel and got these shots..

there were no misfires, this is normally a fantastic gun to shoot, never have had an issue with it.. has about 4000 rounds through it at this point.
Cleaning it is not effective.. thoughts on what I should do? Ever see this before?

thanks!

 

[bubba68]

Looking at your pictures it looks like your barrel has a bad case of lead build up. That will cause your bullets to go sideways and make the holes in your target like you describe. Need to get a good lead remover cleaner and let it soak in the barrel a few hours maybe overnight and use a bronze brush and start cleaning the bore. It will probably take a few cleanings to get all of the lead out.

If you have any Kroil penetrating oil it would be good to put it in first and let it soak overnight then go with the bronze brush. Kroil is good for getting under fowling like lead build up in barrels.

Don't know how often you clean your barrel but maybe keep a closer eye on it although most of the time it is the ammo some brands tend to lead up the barrel worse than others. If you find a certain brand that leads the barrel quit using it.

 

[JHB51]

Looks like a bad case of Remington Thunderbolts.

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

Here's a good method to remove lead from a barrel, and was used by blackpowder shooters to remove lead in the bores of their muzzle loaders. Mix up 50% hydrogen peroxide and 50% white vinegar.
Put a rubber stopper on the chamber end of the barrel and then pour the solution into the bore. Stand the barrel up on end to let the solution soak for around 15 minutes, then pour it out into a container. Check the bore, if it's still fugly lookin' do the solution thing again for another 15 minutes, and continue until all the lead is removed. It really does work and won't do any damage to the rifling, or bluing. Just use rubber gloves in a ventilated area because the used solution will now contain lead acetate, so it will need to be disposed of properly.

 

[Turbokev]

Thank you very much for the replies..
Gun is cleaned regularly, maybe 200 rounds ago.. but interestingly it was thunderbolts that have been the last 200 through the gun.
Going to try the peroxide/vinegar solution tonight..

 

[Turbokev]

Took several soaks but eventually got the barrel cleaned up.. picture is a couple of the pieces that came out.
no more thunderbolts for me!

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

WOW! Those are some huge chunks of lead. No wonder why the bullets were "key-holing".

 

[JHB51]

Thunderbolts are known for this. There are a lot of threads about it on rimfire central. I gave up on Remington rimfire ammo 20 yars ago. Their quality control is lacking. The cheapest rimfire that I found that is consistentt is CCI Blazer.

 

[VoxEphemeral]

Thunderbolts are known for this. There are a lot of threads about it on rimfire central. I gave up on Remington rimfire ammo 20 yars ago. Their quality control is lacking. The cheapest rimfire that I found that is consistentt is CCI Blazer.

There are good reasons that the Thunderbolts have been nicknamed "Thunderduds."

I stick with CCI Minimags and Federal when I can.

Never a problem with them.

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

Hopefully, now that Remington has been purchased by other entities, that the NEW owners will get Remington ammunition back on track once again, as they used to be a pretty darn good ammunition company in days past. I just don't understand how the Golden bullets, Vipers and Yellow Jackets can be fairly good and the Thunderbolts so dang dismal.

 

[JHB51]

My guess would be size or what ever the coating used on thunderbolts is. I would think they use the same wire for all their rimfire bullets so hardness would be the same.

 

[louchia]

I've used Rem. Go;den bullets for a long time an found them to be much better than Thunder bolt.
Thunder Bolt.. never
Golden ... yes.

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

My guess would be size or what ever the coating used on thunderbolts is. I would think they use the same wire for all their rimfire bullets so hardness would be the same.

Using the same lead wire would make sense as long it is of the same chemical content and bear the same percentage of antimony for hardness, but there must be something going on with those rounds that makes them so crappy.
I do actually buy a box once in a while to see if I can personally find any improvement in their character. Hopefully, some day I will as I do wish they would improve. One thing I did notice in a recent issue of one of the "slick-page" magazines, was an article on Remington, after being bought up, getting the ball rolling with production once again with .22 rimfire ammunition. Unfortunately, the pictures of the machinery showed them to be quite old and not maintained very well.

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

My guess would be size or what ever the coating used on thunderbolts is. I would think they use the same wire for all their rimfire bullets so hardness would be the same.

A while back we encountered a very similar issue just like this one. The owner ran a bunch of Thunderbolt rounds through his rifle. He then set it down for a while and was shooting another rifle for a while. After an hour or so, he shot his .22 rifle again, with more Thunderbolts and for some reason, his barrel leaded up like yours did. Only thing we could assess what possibly happened was that the bore was dirty and the next batch of Thunderbolts lost all the bullet lube passing over the dirty bore and then began leading the front portion of the rifles bore.