Any tips on copper fouling?

[Remmington31]

Just purchased a new Savage Mod 12 LP 204. I am in the process of breaking in the barrel and it seems like I just cant get it clean. I haven't sent a dry pad through the barrel and it come out clear or clean. Is this normal? Any tips or tricks to get a good clean barrel would be appreciated. I am using the Hoppes solvent and the Hoppes Elite for copper

 

[Bob3700]

Everyone has 'The Method' for cleaning a bbl.

Here is what I would recommend.

Use your Hoppe's for taking the powder fouling out initially.

Wet the bore with this, now wet a bronze brush and stroke the bore,approx. 10 times). Patch out.

Now, wrap a patch around an old worn brush and apply some Rem Clean, it is a mild abrasive). Work the Rem Clean first in front of the chamber and then down the whole length of the bore. You need to keep the throat smooth and then remove the copper from the muzzle end of the bbl. The muzzle end is where much of the copper fouling is located.

After this, use your copper solvent and see what sort of blue/green tint comes off on your patches.

Finish with your Hoppe's solvent and then patch out.

That should be a resonable method for getting the powder and copper out of your bbl. The 204 is a pretty intense cartridge and may lay down more copper than our 6mm BRs so you may have to repeat the above once or twice.

Once the bbl is broken in, the copper fouling should go down considerably.

Give that a try.

Bob

 

[eggman]

There is a product for copper fouling removal that I have been using with great success in the barrels that I have that do tend to copper foul. It's called KG-12 and it is made by KG Coatings. I believe Midway USA carries it and you can order it directly from KG. It is yellow in color and the only thing that I do not like about it is that is you cannot see on your patches the copper being removed. The patches do not turn blue like with other products. You just have to have faith it is working . Follow the procedure that was described in the earlier post and follow up with KG-12 and I promise it will remove any remaining copper without harm to your barrel.

Good luck,
Rodney

 

[shootsanything]

You may find that you have too many tool marks in the barrel to ever get it shot in. One of my shooting buddies got a Savage with a barrel that would never come clean. He returned the gun to Savage and got a new barrel put on it and it is great now.

If polishing the barrel won't work, I would contact Savage, explain the situation, and I bet they will make it right.

 

[tome]

call savage customer service & tell them or use boars head 22 cleaner for carbon per the directions & sweets 7.62 for copper. i shoot 2 lrpv's.. a 22-250 & a 6mm br..both shoot great..but are hard to clean..if it's shoots good i'd keep it..if not send it back..remember ball powder fowls worse than stick power

 

[gpoldblue]

Remmington31.....Small calibers & high velocity have ALWAYS caused more copper fouling than more moderate cartridges. I don't know how many rounds you're firing between cleanings,but the higher the velocity the more often you'll have to clean to maintain acuuracy. Tha alloy of the different brands of copper jackets also make a difference,some are softer than others too).
I fire a max of 3 5 shot groups & 2 fouling shots in my Savage LRPV,.223 before cleaning---no fouling problems,carbon or copper). Same in my 6PPC's.
Savage Arms service dept should be able to help you with this problem. I'd contact Savage before doing anything drastic like fire lapping which effectively wears down the lands & grooves---give 'em a call...they'll probably tell you to send the rifle to them and replace the barrel. I had a problem with my Savage barrel,sent the rifle,and they replaced the barrel @ N/C. gpoldblue

 

[Klong]

You may need to lap that barrel. Take it to someone that has a bore scope and they can tell you for sure. You can hand lap the barrel yourself with JB compound. Sounds like you will need the gray and the red,gray is the most aggressive). Follow the instruction on the container. You could also use David Tubb's coated bullets and fire lap the barrel. Go to Superior Shooting Systems to see this product. If it were me, I would use the fire lap process on your barrel.

 

[fdshuster]

Had a Hart barreled 204,Ruger) built on a Sako L-46. Powder and copper fouling were not a problem. The really BIG problem was carbon fouling. I spent a lot of time cleaning it out with JB, blue label,, it works!). After a documented 845 rds. fired, saw the beginning of some serious fire-cracking in front of the chamber, and that, with the ever on-going cleaning required to get rid of the carbon, spelled the end of that barrel & cartridge. I tried numerous other methods for carbon removal, but found the JB worked best for me, I just don't have the patience to spend hours doing it.

 

[acloco]

A milder metal polishing compound is called Blue Wonder. Works very well in removing copper.

Remove the carbon first, then go to work on the copper.

 

[Rust]

The problem with some factory barrels is the tooling marks. Savage button rifles their barrels. This means that the bore is reamer, which leaves ridge/ring marks, and than the rifling button is forced through the bore, which irons down/flattens the ridge marks. Sometimes they don't get as flattened quite as well as they should.

So some barrels are a little rougher and tend to pick up quite a bit of fouling. If it's bad enough the solutions are replace the barrel, or as the onlly alternative do some heavy duty fire lapping.

Midway used to carry a fire lapping kit, probably still do. It consists of three grits of non embedding lapping compound and two steel flats. The a little lapping compound is spread on the flats, and a bullet rolled with a fair amount of pressure between the flats, so the copper picks up some of the grit. Thing to not is while it is called non embedding compound, everything embeds in copper, which is what you want. Several bullets are treated thus, the excess grit which is not mechanically embedded in the copper removed, and the bullets loaded and fired down the barrel. It is preferrable to use the longer heavier VLDs for this, they lap better with the longer bearing surface and you don't care if they tumble, they just need to go down the barrel.

Hand lapping with a lead lap is best left to experts. Lapping with JBs or Flitz doesn't work with severe barrels, the grit is much too fine.

It works, but it's best recommended as a last resort for a barrel you would otherwise have to replace. And even then results vary. But it's not too expensive to give a try.

 

[Johnboy]

rem31 there are some guys at another site saying that gun juice [Microlon] is a good product.say that it helps a lot with fauling.I sent the info to my uncle so he can pick at it and see if he would use it.he likes to play around on the computer and is very good at it.so when he digs up all that he can and lets me know I'll try to put all the info here on the site.he is the type og guy that has to know everything about a product before he will even think about useing it.so he will pick it to death. John

 

[Laurie]

Don't panic too early - Savage barrels often need 200-250 rounds through them before they settle down, down to what people have said on other posts about the realtively rough bores.

Laurie

 

[cmillard]

JB and kroil works wonders for me

 

[SS427]

My Savage .223 LRPV fouled big time. One of the worst I've ever seen. I have twice cleaned it down to barrel metal and did the JB treatment. It no longer fouls like it used to and overall accuracy slightly improved.

I have a Remington 700 .223 that fouled like normal. I did the JB treatment on it once, and it also cleans easier than before. Didn't notice any accuracy improvement on this one though.