no copper fouling?

[tjen]

Any one have guns that just do not fowl with copper? Many factors but I would say velocity is one fact. I have rifles that in differing degrees show some or alot of copper when cleaning them. Either blue or green on the patches depending on the solvent.

I get very lightly with my CZ257 22-hornet and my 336D 35rem even with its porting. Its my brand new 700 stainless 223rem which after 100 rounds say no more than 30 at one time has never shown any sign of copper. Or has my used 700/221 rem.

I have properly cleaned both with shooter choice solvent and then used JB bore brite past on both to polish them as soon as I recieved them before shooting them. The 221 was used but the 223 was new in box only having the proof shots fired at the factory.

Not complaning just seems odd. I have butches & TM solution which turn copper to blue very fast and have checked using them and no blue/green patches.

 

[Guy Miner]

All of my rifles foul eventually. Some are better than others.

The .308 Win with the Krieger barrel fouls the least, and is good to go for a couple of hundred rounds between cleaning. It also cleans up very fast. I suspect this is due to both the very smooth finish of the Krieger barrel, as well as the modest velocity of the .308 Win cartridge.

Perhaps my fastest-fouling rifle is the .25-06 Rem with the factory barrel. I believe it's relatively rough, and I do push the bullets fast through it. Also, some of that impression comes from when it was brand new and I was running soft copper Barnes TSX bullets through the rough, new bore. Dang, it fouled very quickly then! If I didn't clean it every 20 rounds, accuracy would start deteriorating rapidly.

The others are somewhere in between.

Barrel smoothness/roughness.
Velocity?
Bullet construction.

I suspect those are the three main factors affecting how fast a barrel fouls with copper or jacket material.

FWIW, Guy

 

[bullet]

All of my rifles foul eventually and some sooner than others. My M48 TGR in 7mm-08 takes the longest to foul.

 

[DrMike]

Any rifle will eventually foul. Copper wash results when the bullet engraves the lands. The finish of the throat area is the primary contributor to generation of copper wash. Though many people speak of a rough barrel, it is the tool marks and general finish of the throat that appears to be the primary culprit in generating copper deposits. When we break in a barrel, we are primarily dressing this area.

 

[bullet]

Thus, the advantage if a hand lapped throat and barrel like the M48 TGR

 

[Guy Miner]

"Though many people speak of a rough barrel, it is the tool marks and general finish of the throat that appears to be the primary culprit in generating copper deposits"

I agree completely.

 

[Guest]

I'll add a slightly different flavor to the discussion of rough barrels. I've seen a few "rough" barrels that were not primarily throat issues. Every last one of them has been a hammer forged barrel. It's my theory (unproven as yet, but supported by anecdotal evidence) that hammer forged barrels sometimes don't get hammered quite enough, and what you end up with is a rough bore. This is because of the process of hammering the barrel around the mandrel, which creates tiny folds in the steel, if I understand it correctly, while creating the rifling. When these folds get hammered tightly together, no problem. But when they are not hammered quite tightly enough, you can end up with barrels that are rough in spots. I've been able to isolate 2-3" sections in several bores, well down bore from the throat area, that are where the copper is really building up, and where one can feel the "gravel" feel of roughness in the bore, through the cleaning rod handle. It's a little voodoo, and a little science, for certain, but that's what I've found. Other rifles feel gravelly all the way through the bore, and invariably, these shoot poorly and foul quickly - some in as few as 10rds.

I do agree that it is only a sliver of a minority of rifles that are rough anywhere but the throat, but they do exist, I believe.

 

[bullet]

I'll add a slightly different flavor to the discussion of rough barrels. I've seen a few "rough" barrels that were not primarily throat issues. Every last one of them has been a hammer forged barrel. It's my theory (unproven as yet, but supported by anecdotal evidence) that hammer forged barrels sometimes don't get hammered quite enough, and what you end up with is a rough bore. This is because of the process of hammering the barrel around the mandrel, which creates tiny folds in the steel, if I understand it correctly, while creating the rifling. When these folds get hammered tightly together, no problem. But when they are not hammered quite tightly enough, you can end up with barrels that are rough in spots. I've been able to isolate 2-3" sections in several bores, well down bore from the throat area, that are where the copper is really building up, and where one can feel the "gravel" feel of roughness in the bore, through the cleaning rod handle. It's a little voodoo, and a little science, for certain, but that's what I've found. Other rifles feel gravelly all the way through the bore, and invariably, these shoot poorly and foul quickly - some in as few as 10rds.

I do agree that it is only a sliver of a minority of rifles that are rough anywhere but the throat, but they do exist, I believe.

Barrels hammer forged whether Krieger, Ruger, Weatherby, Sako use a specified process that is never broken or changed for specific lots of steel which are verified before the process of making the barrels begins and the stress relief process is always the same which takes place multiple times with hammer forged barrels. The throats still have to be cut so there are those issues with the fact that most hammer forged barrels are not hand lapped. Hammer forged barrels actually are pretty smooth if the Mandrel is in good shape. Also, if you get an area about 2 or 3 inches in front of the throat that tends to grab copper, many times this is due to how the roughness of the throat has caused the bullet to leave deposits of copper quicker than a barrel that the throat was handlapped. I know what you are speaking of having rough places at times that are past the throat area, but those are also present at times with cut or button barrels. Cut barrels are actually rougher and demand hand lapping for sure as do button barreling.

Hammer forged barrels can end up most of the time being actually smoother than other processes before the other methods are lapped. Manufacturing of any barrel depends on the care taken by the manufacture. Just in passing, the most accurate cold forged Weatherby I ever owned was a 30-06 Mark V and it was the fourth most accurate rifle I have ever owned. The most accurate rifle I have ever fired a three shot group from and I have owned some accurate rifles was a cold forged, out of the box Ruger 358Win Hawkeye, and it does collect copper faster than other rifles I own, but it was not hand lapped. Now the most accurate rifle on a consistent bases is my M48 TGR which is not a cold forged barrel plus it is hand lapped.

 

[ScreaminEagle]

I have a new model Rem 700 SPS 22-250 with factory barrel that hardly fouls at all. I send one patch of shooters choice copper remover through it and that's it. All other patches come out clean. That being said, i have an older 280 with factory barrel that I put one round through it and have to scrub it for hours to get the copper out! It still shoots sweet though.

 

[DrMike]

My first 280 required well over 200 rounds before fouling ceased being heavy (Winchester Featherweight from the NH plant late in their life). My 7mm WSM shot clean almost from the first day (Winchester Featherweight during the final days of the NH plant). Each delivers 0.25 inch groups. They are simply different rifles. Copper fouling is not necessarily a predictor of accuracy.

 

[bullet]

What a lot of people do not understand or realize is that the copper is not as big a culprit as is the carbon from the burning powder being laid over the copper fouling. Carbon is a lot tougher than copper. You can actually get a carbon ring at the beginning of the throat and if you do not remove it you will not have good accuracy. When a round is fired it lays down copper with carbon over it, and this repeats it's self for as many rounds you fire until you clean the barrel. Now you might not think your rifle fouls very much and it might be that what you uses to clean the barrel will remove copper extremely well but not carbon as well.

I have actually taken two shooting buddies of mine at our shooting club and said your lack of obtaining accuracy could be that your barrel is not really clean. Of course I was made fun of until I ask if I could clean their barrels after they did. Well they cleaned their barrels and the copper disappeared from the patches real quick and just a slight graying of the patches and a couple of times later the patches were almost a purer white. So I took their rifles and when I stacked up not only dirty gray patches but blue covered patches their mouth fell open. Just saying, that some barrels that seem to not show a lot of copper at all on the patches are because carbon is protecting the underlying copper and carbon layers. Just something to consider. :mrgreen:

 

[Guest]

@Bullet - I understand what you're saying, Mike, and I agree that hammer forged barrels are superb, generally speaking. I've shot too many that will ring the bell at any distance I'm capable of, and beyond, on command. But I've also been privy to a few hammer forged barrels that were not properly built, IMO. They've come from multiple manufacturers, so it makes me think it's a "fluke" in the process somewhere that on rare occasion the bore ends up with not enough hammering and thus loose folds of metal, and a "roughness" that is detrimental to fouling characteristics. Many of these have been in areas well beyond the chamber - my reference to 2-3" well down bore refers to as much as 5-6" beyond the throat, to one barrel with a rough patch close enough to the crown that I could see the copper fouling with my fiber optic light.

I also agree - it's the layers of carbon and copper that lots of shooters don't understand. That's why the first run through with BoreTech Eliminator always has a bunch of blue, then black, then blue, then black, and so forth. I've literally left a rifle on the cradle and cleaned it nightly for six or eight days before. That was a 243Win that a buddy of mine had, that had about 2k rounds down the tube, with only a boresnake and Hoppe's #9 down it every so often. What's amazing is that it held sub-MOA accuracy up until about 1900rds. He thought the barrel was toast, and I could see copper and carbon streaking with my fiber optic light, from the crown down into the bore. The whole thing was pasted with the stuff. Once I got it cleaned (finally) he was amazed. Of course, when I showed him what handloads would do (.4" groups of five at 100yds) versus factory ammo, he almost instantly became a handloader, too! Oh, and that rifle was a button rifled barrel, I believe. It takes all kinds, huh?

I don't have a dog in this fight, as I own hammer forged and button rifled barrels, and the two most accurate rifles I have are one of each, I believe, but I'm not sure about the barrel on the Colt Light Rifle. It may be button rifled like my 'bee.

 

[bullet]

dubyam, it is amazing how copper and carbon can layer itself in a barrel and a person who is not aware of it thinks it a barrel that has finally given up or he thinks there is just some little thing in his load chain that needs to be tweak when all along it is the build up in his barrel. Now you add a rough barrel or throat or both whether it is a cold forged, cut or button barrel and you can really compound the the problem of accuracy and consistency. One thing for sure, every rifle's chamber, throat and barrel are unique to itself.

 

[ScreaminEagle]

That's why they make JB bore paste!

 

[bullet]

That's why they make JB bore paste!

Yes sir and Deaton's Deep clean

 

[Guest]

I'm telling y'all, grab a bottle of BoreTech Eliminator. Three soaked patches. Wait 10min. One soaked patch. Wait 10min. Repeat until the 1 soaked patch comes out clean, then patch it dry. If that takes too long (because of the layers you didn't know were in there) do it a while and then patch it dry, then start over tomorrow night, or later this week, or whatever. It works, guys, without any scrubbing or fuss.

 

[tjen]

I spent time specially lapping the throat area as well as the whole barrel with JB Bore Bright past. It may not be an agressive lapping compond but it works and I think all new barrels not lapped by the manufacturer would benifit from it. Why not it does what the shot and clean and shot and clean does. All except work harding the metal.

I spend more time cleaning carbon than cooper for sure. Start with a good solvent like Hoppies#9 or Shooter Choice. Clean untill there is little if any gray showing on the patch. Now use an oil like Hoppies BR or Kroil an you now will again have very drity patches. I switch back and forth betwen solvent and oil untill both show clean patches. The copper must come out with the carbin but the dirty patches only show black to gray dirt. I do not have to fuss over it I often let a barrel soak with oil a feww hours or over night as well.

 

[Guest]

If you're just using Hoppe's #9 and Shooter's Choice, I suspect you have a lot of copper building up in your bore. Depending on the rifle, the cartridge for which it's chambered, and the loads you're shooting, you may not notice it until accuracy just falls off like the barrel is toast. The good news is, it's pretty easy to get it back to working accuracy with the right solvent.

 

[bullet]

Deaton's Deep Clean in one product removes carbon and copper with a special lubricant in the product to protect the barrel from rust. I have been testing this for a year and 9 months. I have tested it against the products I use to use and I won't use anything else if I can help it. Here is a link http://www.deatonsguncare.com/

 

[tjen]

If you're just using Hoppe's #9 and Shooter's Choice, I suspect you have a lot of copper building up in your bore. Depending on the rifle, the cartridge for which it's chambered, and the loads you're shooting, you may not notice it until accuracy just falls off like the barrel is toast. The good news is, it's pretty easy to get it back to working accuracy with the right solvent.

n

I have no copper at all. I have very agreesive copper cleaners Like TM solution and Butches that turn copper to blue in seconds and Have to use a aluminum jag when using them. I have used them to soak the bores and no copper at all. Also if you use Hoppies#9 nitro you would know it turns copper to green on the patches so this idea that hoppies will not remove copper is false. Its just not as agreesive as some other solvents are. But it works on carbon well. I have a few Bore Tech solvents, Rem solvent with grit, Gun Slick foaming stuff too. I would say I used about ten differnet sovents over the years but I perfer Shooter Choice, Hoppies#9 Nitro, Kroil Oil, and Hoppies # BR oil over all the rest and are realy the only things I need. They work great and are not harsh on the barrels. Add the JB Bore bright past and the Shooterchoice shotgun solvent (desolves plastic) and I am set.