Carbon/powder buildup in the barrel question????

[grahng]

If you do not get all the carbon/powder cleaned out of the barrel, that is, the amount you cannot see, will this adversely affect the barrel over time?
Thanks

[J Miller]

grahng,

I'm not overly anal about cleaning all the carbon out of my barrels. I soak my brushes in Hoppe's #9 then saturate the bores and let them sit for a while. Then run the dry patches through them. Usually I pay much more attention to any lead I see or excessive amounts of copper fouling than the carbon.

To date I've no deterioration of my barrels, rifle or handgun, from this method.

Joe

[grahng]

Thanks. I have a stupid question for you. How do you spot the copper down the barre. In other words, yeah you get a light and take a look, but what does it look like?
Thanks again

[J Miller]

Generally copper fouling is seen as a light colored smear on the driving side of the rifling and sometimes all over it. When you run a patch saturated with solvent through a bore with copper fouling it will come out blue to green.
Normally when I get one that's badly fouled I'll soak the bore with solvent, stand it muzzle down on a folded rag and let it sit over night. Then I'll brush it a bit, soak it again and repeat till the blue goes away.

Joe

[grahng]

Got it. Thanks Joe

[AJMD429]

Some gun shops supposedly will let you look down your bore with their bore-scope for free or for a small fee, or even rent you the scope for a deposit & fee.

None around here do that, unfortunately...

[Pisgah]

>Normally when I get one that's badly fouled I'll soak the bore with solvent, stand it muzzle down on a folded rag and let it sit over night. Then I'll brush it a bit, soak it again and repeat till the blue goes away.

Just be sure to follow the instructions that come with your solvent. Some are safe to leave overnight, but some of them have a very high ammonia content, and if you let them dry out in the bore you will get horrific corrosion in a very short period of time. For example, my favorite, Sweet's 7.62, recommends you let it soak no longer than 15 minutes. You can go longer, but you need to be sure that you re-swab the bore every 15 minutes or so to keep it wet. If you don't, it MIGHT stay damp overnight, but if it dries out on you, watch out!

[centershot]

As Pisgah mentioned, some bore cleaners can erode your barrels' inner surfaces if not used according to label directins, so be darned careful about how you use them! I

I shoot mostly cast bullets at moderate velocities in my pistols and rifles so I treat them the same as my .22's, that is, I run a dry patch through when I'm done shooting and put them away. I've never had a problem. I have found that when I clean them with solvent to remove leading, it takes a number of shots to "seal the bore" again before best accuracy returns. Every gun is different, of course, but this works for me. When I notice that I'm not getting best performance from a load/gun, I clean w/ solvent. In my 357 & 44 carbines, Ive found that I can shoot 300-500 rounds, depending on the load, before I need to clean thoroughly. This is with cast bullets. Just out of curiosity, I once shot an entire season (about 1200 rounds) of Service Rifle competition without cleaning my AR-15, just a drop of Breakfree applied to the bolt before each match to keep it lubed. Accuracy did not deteriorate and function was flawless! YMMV!

[Rusty]

I have a Remington 700 that is terrible about building copper fouling. There's no doubt what it is. It always starts near the muzzle and is a royal pain to get rid of. It usually takes several days worth of treating it with Sweets to get it clean. One of there days I'll get around to fire lapping the bore.

[J Miller]

>Normally when I get one that's badly fouled I'll soak the bore with solvent, stand it muzzle down on a folded rag and let it sit over night. Then I'll brush it a bit, soak it again and repeat till the blue goes away.

Just be sure to follow the instructions that come with your solvent. Some are safe to leave overnight, but some of them have a very high ammonia content, and if you let them dry out in the bore you will get horrific corrosion in a very short period of time. For example, my favorite, Sweet's 7.62, recommends you let it soak no longer than 15 minutes. You can go longer, but you need to be sure that you re-swab the bore every 15 minutes or so to keep it wet. If you don't, it MIGHT stay damp overnight, but if it dries out on you, watch out!

Yep, so true. As I posted in my first response I use Hoppe's #9 and that doesn't have ammonia in it to my knowledge. At any rate I've never found any form of corrosion in the bore the next day.

Joe