Like many of you, I enjoy hunting and shooting with 100 year old classic American SxS's, mostly 12 gauge.

For whatever reason, these barrels seem to require more cleaning efforts than modern shotguns, even when they appear to have bright shiny bores. It takes many more passes to get really clean barrels. Often it requires a wire brush, steel wool, and 30+ patches to finally run a clean patch out the muzzle. Hoppes #9 is my norm.

And then if I wait a day or two, another oiled patch will still show more dirt.

The first 4 or 5 patches after firing show the black, sooty, carbon that one expects. Sometimes also a few tiny lead flakes from the shot pellets. Then the next 10 to 20 patches display a brownish color. I'm not sure if that is from the recently fired gunpowder, or some minute unseen rust in the pores of the barrel interior.

Anyone else experiencing similar results? Any theories? Why would older barrels be different?

gold40