Any opinions on BROWNING BLR?

[HEUER]

Any opinions on BROWNING BLR? I love lever action rifles, and was curious if anyone has any opinions on the BLR. How accurate is the BLR?

[crank]

Since no-one is going to pony up, I will give you my sole experience with one. I had a customer bring one in with a failure to fire, once I got it apart I found a black, deeply corroded firing pin. I ordered one fron Browning and once it arrived I had a devil of a time putting the rack and pinion system back together. Afterward all was fine but I was still curious about the ruination of the firing pin, it seems that they used a titanium firing pin and the only chemical that will react with it is chlorine. We never confirmed it but my best guess was that the owner had used a chlorinated solvent with disastrous effect. Otherwise the design is sound and the forearm is mounted on an independant hanger and should not have a significant affect on accuracy. Overall there is little to find fault with the design and I have yet to hear any negative feedback in regards to accuracy or reliability. If you are partial to lever guns and want one with the strength and accuracy of a bolt gun you will not go wrong
Thanks
Mark

[bwiese]

We never confirmed it but my best guess was that the owner had used a chlorinated solvent with disastrous effect

I haven't seen ANY "chlorinated solvents" with Clorox-like presence of chlorine: any of that type of chlorine will react with about any metal around, especially when two dissimilar metals are joined in proximity to the chlorine.

"Chlorinated solvents", rather, means stuff like 'carbon tet' (CCl4), trichloroethane, etc. - the stuff that's in dry cleaning fluid, Energine and Carbona nonflammable spot removers, and nonflammable BrakeKleen, etc. Even 'chloroform' anaesthetic falls into this category.

The chlorine (and sometimes also flourine) in these compounds is tightly bound to the carbon atoms in a covalent bond and won't separate without tremendous energy or special catalysts: these are chemcially "nonpolar" compounds.
These solvents are entirely safe to use around metals and are noncorrosive.

More than likely this troublesome gun didn't have enough lube in that area, there was a bit of moisture/condensation, and simple electrolytic corrosion occurred between dissimilar metals (firing pin vs. firing pin shroud or whatever surrounds pin...)

Bill Wiese
San Jose CA

[crank]

Bweise, I respect your opinions but the metal had eroded to an extreme that made very little sense. I was a qualified gunsmith and I relied on my ex-brother in law who is a gifted machinist with extensive metallugical training and this was our combined best guess. Even Browning was at a loss to Identify the cause of this damage (to the pin only) I stand firmly on the cause of this extremely odd failure only because of the reactive characteristics of Ti to chlorine. I also welded titanium for about 3 1/2 yrs and was unaware of this singular weakness to this otherwise "supermetal" There was no evidence of corrosion to the firing pin hole whatsoever, which dissuaded me from the dissimilar metal theory.
Mark

[bwiese]

Well I did some digging-stuff-up. I was wrong.

Most all metals are immune from nonpolar solvents (incl both flammable stuff like benzene, toluene, etc. as well as the nonflammable stuff like carbon tet, dry cleaning solvent, etc.)

It turns out indeed that Titanium IS attackable by chlorinated carbon solvents, found this from NTS Corp's website: [quote]
Precision cleaning of Titanium parts used in medical, aerospace and other applications requires special care. Titanium degrades from exposure to chlorinated solvents so no Freon or similar agents are permitted for cleaning. Instead, carefully selected alkaline solvents and/or alcohol can achieve the desired cleanliness levels. [quote]

That's really funky. Apparently, magnesium and beryllium also can suffer from exposure to some chlorinated solvents.

Not all chlorinated solvents react with these metals however. Some of the 'healthier' ones (carbon tet hasn't been used in years) seem to be more worrisome for these metals though.

Learn something new every day.

So if I get a Taurus Titanium or a new S&W Ti/Sc gun gotta watch what I clean it with.

More info at:
http://www.wfubmc.edu/ehs/sop/chlorsolvw.pdf#search='chlorinated%20solvents%20and%20titanium'


Bill Wiese
San Jose, CA

[HEUER]

Hoppes's o.k.? How about Simple Green and Break Free?

[bwiese]

Originally posted by heuer:
Hoppes's o.k.? How about Simple Green and Break Free?

Hmm. BreakFree CLP has some kinda Teflon-like stuff in it. Teflon is a chlorofluourocarbon and has some chemical relationship to Freon. So after reading up on the above I'd wanna double check on this.

Bill Wiese
San Jose