Big Boy Cleaning

[RanchRoper]

ok, so what exactly will I need to keep a Big Boy 45 Colt well maintained? I see dozens of kits, etc at Cabelas....what's the real story folks? Thanks for the help.

...plus, approx. how many rounds do you guys put through your BB's before you clean them? Different for lead bullets?

[Steve51]

The Henry Website has a very good video on cleaning Big Boy rifles.

I have never went to that extreme on mine. I just open the bolt and clean this chamber with a shaving brush. Then I run a boresnake through the barrel a couple of times. The I put two or three drops of oil on a shaving brush and brush the outside surfaces and wipe off with a silicone cloth and I'm good to go.

I normally shoot copper plated or jacketed bullets through this rifle. I have a small flashlight with a right angle fiber optic piece that lets me look down the barrel and it is clean and shiny after using the boresnake - so I go with it.

[JEBar]

basically its best to have some type of cable/rope pull system that can pull patches/brushes away from the chamber and out through the end of the barrel .... a few years ago we purchased a Otis Elite Cleaning System with Optics Cleaning Gear --http://www.amazon.com/Otis-Elite-Cleani ... ng&sr=1-18 .... add a can of Ballistol, see this thread --http://henryrifleforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=222 -- and you should be good to go .... you can get cheaper kits that work with fewer calibers .... as noted the Henry cleaning videos are good .... we wipe ours down, run a cable through the barrel and call it good after every time it is used .... if going to storage or once I get a notion, they are disassembled and cleaned per Henry video

[RanchRoper]

Sounds good. thks

[ditto1958]

RR, centerfire lever guns don't really get all that dirty. I have a Hoppe's boresnake that I run down the bore once or twice after shooting. I will also open the bolt and check inside to see how dirty it is and use a brush and/or qtips if necessary. Once in awhile, maybe every six months or so, I remove the lever and bolt and do a more through cleaning.

[RanchRoper]

RR, centerfire lever guns don't really get all that dirty. I have a Hoppe's boresnake that I run down the bore once or twice after shooting. I will also open the bolt and check inside to see how dirty it is and use a brush and/or qtips if necessary. Once in awhile, maybe every six months or so, I remove the lever and bolt and do a more through cleaning.

Great to know. Thanks!

[RanchRoper]

Ok so I want to check how clean or dirty the bore is and make sure the action is lubed properly. Probably is from factory but I see that HRA says clean from muzzle to breech but Hoppe's says other way?

[RanchRoper]

Got it. Bore was dirty. Clean as a whistle now and lightly oiled. Good to go. I also cleaned and lubed the action. Slick now.

[PT7]

RanchRoper,

I just caught your thread a little late this week. But that's okay since I noticed you're all cleaned up already! Still will add my "cleaning nut" routine to everyone else's helpful tips.

I've used mainly a bore snake on my .357 Big Boy...until recently. I read an article that although the bore looks clean, it is actually fairly dirty after the snake slithers through. That was a little hard to believe as it looked quite clean when visually checked. So one time I "checked" with a cleaning rod and patch using Hoppes #9. The patch came out quite dirty, although probably much cleaner that it would have been by using the bore snake.

So as I'm known as a cleaning nut, I changed to the cleaning rod, patch, and Hoppes usage for now....just to keep an eye on it.

I continue to be a cleaning nut as I clean my Henrys after each time at the shooting range -- whether 50 rounds or 150 rounds. It may not need it, just the way I do it. (I also change my oil in the van earlier than it needs. Just gotta keep after this, too!)

The main thing I'm careful with is the muzzle crown, and I move that cleaning rod in very carefully. Been considering getting a muzzle guide, but haven't yet got one. They are a little hard to find in the LGS.

Also clean the receiver, trigger, and hammer areas with patches & q-tips or a nylon brush, again with a little Hoppes. Usually my patches come out of the receiver area pretty loaded up with the good 'ole black stuff. I generally use CP or JHP bullets, but do run some LRNs, too.

Last step in cleaning is with some drops of RemOil on cleaning patches, and I wipe a light oil layer over all other metal parts of the rifle. The Henry rests for a little while from all this abusive rubbing & scrubbing, then I gently "soothe the rifle" with a silicone cloth. Into my Bore Stores storage bag every time after the clean routine, although it isn't long-term storage. Just another symptom of a cleaning nut!

One final comment. To visually check my bore after cleaning, I fold up a patch and set it flat at back of the open receiver while standing the Henry on the stock butt. If I'm cleaning outside, I angle sunlight off that patch upward through the bore. This really reveals anything I missed. Inside, my workshop light does the same thing, although not as sharply defined when using sunlight.

Most folk might say, "Pretty much too much." But this attentive care time, for me, adds to the fun of any day just off the shooting range. Cleaning is fun to do, too!

[RanchRoper]

RanchRoper,

I just caught your thread a little late this week. But that's okay since I noticed you're all cleaned up already! Still will add my "cleaning nut" routine to everyone else's helpful tips.

I've used mainly a bore snake on my .357 Big Boy...until recently. I read an article that although the bore looks clean, it is actually fairly dirty after the snake slithers through. That was a little hard to believe as it looked quite clean when visually checked. So one time I "checked" with a cleaning rod and patch using Hoppes #9. The patch came out quite dirty, although probably much cleaner that it would have been by using the bore snake.

So as I'm known as a cleaning nut, I changed to the cleaning rod, patch, and Hoppes usage for now....just to keep an eye on it.

I continue to be a cleaning nut as I clean my Henrys after each time at the shooting range -- whether 50 rounds or 150 rounds. It may not need it, just the way I do it. (I also change my oil in the van earlier than it needs. Just gotta keep after this, too!)

The main thing I'm careful with is the muzzle crown, and I move that cleaning rod in very carefully. Been considering getting a muzzle guide, but haven't yet got one. They are a little hard to find in the LGS.

Also clean the receiver, trigger, and hammer areas with patches & q-tips or a nylon brush, again with a little Hoppes. Usually my patches come out of the receiver area pretty loaded up with the good 'ole black stuff. I generally use CP or JHP bullets, but do run some LRNs, too.

Last step in cleaning is with some drops of RemOil on cleaning patches, and I wipe a light oil layer over all other metal parts of the rifle. The Henry rests for a little while from all this abusive rubbing & scrubbing, then I gently "soothe the rifle" with a silicone cloth. Into my Bore Stores storage bag every time after the clean routine, although it isn't long-term storage. Just another symptom of a cleaning nut!

One final comment. To visually check my bore after cleaning, I fold up a patch and set it flat at back of the open receiver while standing the Henry on the stock butt. If I'm cleaning outside, I angle sunlight off that patch upward through the bore. This really reveals anything I missed. Inside, my workshop light does the same thing, although not as sharply defined when using sunlight.

Most folk might say, "Pretty much too much." But this attentive care time, for me, adds to the fun of any day just off the shooting range. Cleaning is fun to do, too!

Agree 100%. I like the quiet time of cleaning saddles, etc and now my rifle. I did use Hoppe's and was careful with the rod. I was surprised at how black the patches were at first. But she's clean now and ready to rock. It will live in the padded bag when not being used, and stay lookin' good. However, it will see some use...everything I own gets used. No "too pretty to use" stuff here; trucks, trailers, gear and horses all go to work.

[RanchRoper]

...so assuming all the black stuff on the Winchesters I shot today will have lined my barrel as well, I'll spend Sunday morning having quality time with Henry and a patch kit. Thanks for all the info, I'll be very thorough.

[Squatch]

I think PT7 covered it pretty well. I'll just add get a couple of brass brushes and occasionally run a brush through to get rid of any copper or lead fouling. Run a wet patch through to soak the barrel. Then dip the brush in Hoppes and run it through a few times, Follow with another wet patch then dry patches till clean. Repeat if needed.

[RanchRoper]

I think PT7 covered it pretty well. I'll just add get a couple of brass brushes and occasionally run a brush through to get rid of any copper or lead fouling. Run a wet patch through to soak the barrel. Then dip the brush in Hoppes and run it through a few times, Follow with another wet patch then dry patches till clean. Repeat if needed.

Done! thks

[clovishound]

I was doing just the boresnake thing on my Savage bolt action in .223. Only jacketed bullets. Looked good down the barrel. After a while I started noticing way too many fliers. I ran some Hoppes and a brush down the bore and started getting lots of copper fouling out. After a good cleaning, the accuracy was back. I now run Hoppes, a brush and some patches through it every couple of range trips.

[clovishound]

Update: between this thread, and the recent experience installing the LLL on my H001, I decided to go ahead and disassemble and clean my .357 Big Boy Steel. I went to the Henry site and started the video playing on my tablet that I took out to the workbench. I had to pause it several times to catch up on the procedure. The only trouble I had was the trigger assembly screw. There is a thin spring steel yoke that will keep the screw from seating all the way. It stops where the threads transition to smooth rod. In the video playing with the trigger is how he got past this. I paused the video before I got to that point. I took the lever/trigger assembly back out and put the screw through the mechanism to see where the hang up was. I then wiggled the reset assembly with a small tool to get past the bottleneck. Playing with the trigger would probably work, and is much easier.

It was surprisingly clean after over 2,000 rounds, almost all my reloads. Probably took about an hour, but I went slow. The hour included the obligatory searching for a tool, and finding the screw I dropped that rolled up into some wood shavings on the shop floor. I could probably do it in 20 minutes to a half hour now. Might go back up to an hour by the time I do it again. Wasn't sure what lube to use, ended up using Rem oil and choke grease. There were a couple places that obviously had grease as the original lube. Tried not to overdo the lube, but wanted to make sure it had enough.

Can't believe I have run that many rounds through it already. I bought it last summer. I'm almost out of the second 1K brick of magnum primers. I've also run a couple boxes of factory through it, as well as some .38s from time to time.

This is not a procedure for someone that has no mechanical sense. For those who aren't afraid to dig into things, and exercise due care, it isn't too bad. I would recommend getting a set of gunsmithing screwdrivers for this, if you don't already have them. The basic Weaver set worked just fine. I believe they are available on Amazon for under $20. Not saying they are the ones to get, just that was the set I had and they worked well.

[RanchRoper]

I'm not that adventuresome; yet. 2,000 rounds seems like a lot of shooting! I'm at the range again tomorrow night and will put another 20 rounds through it. That makes 80 rounds since the last cleaning, so I'll run a patch or two thru it this weekend and see what it looks like. After awhile I guess you get to know your rifle pretty well and how often to clean it. I'm shooting only lead, so may need it more than some other type of ammo. Thanks for the tips.

[clovishound]

When it is time to pull it down, the videos are an excellent resource. I would not have known what needed to be pulled, and in what order. The videos made everything clear.

[RanchRoper]

Just gave it a thorough cleaning including Hoppe's copper solvent. Next to nothing copper-wise as I've only shot less than a hundred rounds of JSP. Mostly shoot lead. She's a clean machine now!

Then the heart stopping moment; I lean it against the wall for a second while I start to put lids back on cleaner, and THUMP! It falls over on the floor. No marks on it and everything works fine but wow does that ever get your attention! Never again. I assume hunting rifles get banged around sometimes and work fine so I'll put some rounds through it this week again.