On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 12:09:40 +0100, Alaric B Snell
wrote:


Hello,

I've had passed to me a pellet gun with a barrel of some metal or other
(presumably a steel 'coz it's grey and considering what it's being used
for). The barrel is a tube, and at the back, the breech block screws in.
The whole thing is on a spring; you pull back the spring, unscrew
breech, insert pellet, screw in breech, release spring, pow.


If the barrel is indeed steel, Simply put a bit of rag at the ass end,
and pour a bit of mercury down the barrel. It will sublimate the lead
out in short order. Tipping the barrel forwards and backwards with
both ends so plugged with do the job.

However, there's a mangled pellet or two (a blockage of about an inch in
length!) in the barrel near the back, which I have been tasked to
remove. From shavings pulled out with a pointy stick it appears to be
lead or a similar alloy.

I have some brass rods which are a loose fit in the barrel - so my plan
is to follow the guidelines in Tubal Cain's "Drills, Taps, and Dies" and
make a spade bit out of the brass rod by flattening and sharpening the
end, then proceeding to hand-drill into the blockage. The brass
hopefully won't scratch the interior of the barrel, but I'll test it on
the outside first just in case.

This will still leave a lot of lead on the sides of the barrel - so I
plan to heat my brass rod in the blowtorch until it glows, use it to
melt the lead inside (storing some heat in the barrel too to keep it
molten while I faff about), then use it to push a bit of wire wool
through to soak it up.

So... does anyone have any better ideas?

I have (that I think will be relevant):

1) Torches galore. I can melt the whole thing down if needs be.
2) Brass rods and wire
3) Various files (none small enough to fit in the barrel though)
4) A Dremel with a wide range of accessories
5) Coathanger wire

I don't think I can really seperate the barrel from the spring and the
rest of the gun, so I'm a bit nervous of just heating the whole thing up
to 350 degrees and melting out the lead; this might make the spring rust
or anneal or temper or something bad like that. There's a plastic part
in the safety catch but I can remove that.

Lead softens at 575 F. G A spade bit or even a regular drill bit
brazed to the end of a rod works pretty well, I like to spin the sides
of the bit a bit on a soft wheel, to dull the sides of the flutes.

Gunner


TIA,

ABS


"Anyone who cannot cope with firearms is not fully human. At best he
is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not
make messes in the house."
With appologies to RAH..