Barrel Cleaning

[Alex Wheeler]

Some powders will hardly leave any carbon behind, others lay coal. The same powder can even burn differently in difference cases.

 

[ShootDots]

Some powders will hardly leave any carbon behind, others lay coal. The same powder can even burn differently in difference cases.

That is true. I have a .300 R.U.M. that shoots very well with Retumbo and RL-25. Retumbo burns very clean. However, about 15 or so shots with the RL-25 and accuracy suffers greatly>>>>not so with Retumbo!

 

[alinwa]

I'm happy to be corrected in this because this is REALLY an opinion but In My Opinion running at the top of capacity, ie "running hot" like PPC/BR hot if possible, makes for "cleaner" burn.

Some examples of what I routinely shoot are;

PPC/BR= 32, 322, 130, 133
6X47L= RL17, 4350
300WSM=4350
338's RUM/Lapua= Retumbo

With any of these, and running very high on the reloading scale, I manage to keep barrels looking good without brushing. I don't have time to play with too much else so my cleaning regimen success could be said to be confined to these examples.

 

[seymour fish]

In ARA matches you'll see everybody cleaning.
Some scrub some patch only. Depending on how mine is shooting.
If shooting good I wet patch and 4-6 dry.
If something just isn't wright I'll run a brush a few times.
At the end of matches I run a brush, spinning it in the chamber area a bunch.
Oh . #9 only.
Kroil well keep the wax from coating the barrel (my experience) some use it allot though.

Mayo, agree no krill down a rimfire tube. Can take forever to re-season it

 

[BoydAllen]

I remember the pictures posted by Greg. One picture, at least, was flawed. It showed the crown of the barrel. Well, the scratches went well out on the crown. If those scratches were made by a proper brush, it's whiskers were about a half inch long making the brush about an inch and a quarter in diameter.

I saw the same thing.

To the skeptics, the best way to save your barrel is not to shoot it, but what would be the point?

I do not know of any serious competitive short range benchrest group shooter who does not brush. I have actually met a couple who prefer nylon...just a couple. The rest use bronze, and many of them have high quality bore scopes.

Barrels are important, but they have a service life. That is why they are attached with threads. If you get an exceptional one, enjoy it, and then hope that the next one is as good.

Let your barrel tell you how and how often to clean it. I have had barrels that shot better after they had more than a little fouling , and those that shot best almost clean.

One thing that gets missed here is the difference between ordinary powder fouling and what has been called hard carbon, which I do not believe any brush and solvent combination will remove. For powders that tend to produce this careful periodic cleaning with something like IOSSO or perhaps JB Bore cleaner will be required.

A friend who shoots LT32 in his 6PPC has found that using IOSSO every hundred rounds works for him. On the other hand, if he was shooting 133 that would not be necessary.

 

[Capt. Oblivious]

I'm happy to be corrected in this because this is REALLY an opinion but In My Opinion running at the top of capacity, ie "running hot" like PPC/BR hot if possible, makes for "cleaner" burn.

Some examples of what I routinely shoot are;

PPC/BR= 32, 322, 130, 133
6X47L= RL17, 4350
300WSM=4350
338's RUM/Lapua= Retumbo

With any of these, and running very high on the reloading scale, I manage to keep barrels looking good without brushing. I don't have time to play with too much else so my cleaning regimen success could be said to be confined to these examples.

I saw the same thing with VV N160 this weekend, upped the load a little to jussssst where I feel a bit of resistance when I open the bolt and there is virtually no carbon in that barrel. Im stuck between a rock and a hard place now because I feel I might be on the edge but man that rifle shoots and cleans like a dream

 

[flatlander]

When a shooter has only one rifle, it's pretty easy to keep track of rounds fired & when it was last cleaned. You buy a lathe & start building rifles in all the chamberings you've ever lusted after or were more than mildly curious about, and pretty soon, it gets a lot tougher to keep track. Besides all that, I was taught to clean a gun (rifle, shotgun, handgun) after I'd finished shooting it. That's what works best for me - whether it's a CF or 22RF. I've got some nice custom bbl'd 22RF repeaters, and probably 90% of the time, all it takes to clean adequately after a range session is a couple of patches wet with Ed's Red, followed by one dry patch. If I feel some unusual resistance with the first wet patch, I'll usually run a bronze brush through a few times, then a couple of wet patches, then dry. I check chambers for a carbon ring with a Hawkeye borescope with some regularity; 22RF carbon in regularly patched bbls doesn't seem that hard to get rid of.

CF barrels get a couple of Shooters Choice wet patches, followed by bronze bore brush also saturated with SC. If I can, I usually leave the rifle sitting overnight, then wet patch again in the morning. The amount of blue fouling on that patch will usually give me a good idea what the bore needs after that. I've used IOSSO to get carbon out of throats, but don't use it unless the Hawkeye clearly indicates it's time for it. Almost every custom bbl I've ever owned (mostly Kriegers & Bartleins) will collect some copper fouling out in the last 3" or so at the muzzle; I seldom find any in the throat while checking with the Hawkeye. Rather than use an abrasive to get rid of it, I prefer to use BoreTech Eliminator. That's it in a nutshell - I do my own bbl work more than 90% of the time (recently bought a couple of Vudoo V-22 bbl'd actions, had done the previous five 22RF bbls myself), and don't really need anyone else's permission to clean as I see fit. The Hawkeye gets used while I'm chambering a bbl to see what the throat looks like, and throughout its life, and I'd hate to be without it. But like I said, the amount & type of fouling I get out of a bbl after it's soaked overnight tells me quite a bit about what my next step should be - looking at it with the Hawkeye just confirms the evidence.

 

[jamesdmock]

Billy Stevens has a way of concise, accurate statements. i.e. He "cuts to the chase". When asked about using a brass brush, he stated, "If you ain't brushing, you ain't winning. This is from a 3-time World BR Championships member and 2-time winner of the Super Shoot. He is also a gunsmith who has built many world record holding rifles.

 

[JRS]

Billy Stevens has a way of concise, accurate statements. i.e. He "cuts to the chase". When asked about using a brass brush, he stated, "If you ain't brushing, you ain't winning. This is from a 3-time World BR Championships member and 2-time winner of the Super Shoot. He is also a gunsmith who has built many world record holding rifles.

"So let it be written, so let it be done".

 

[KevinThomas]

What I got from what Kevin Thomas said was the 300 round test was done with "Bare Bullets" not Moly Coated Bullets. Probably to get a base line prior to testing the Moly Bullets.

That is correct, the bullets used in this series were standard, uncoated bullets right off the press. With all the claims being made for moly, it seemed reasonable to question just when or where the dreaded accuracy degradation began with regular, uncounted bullets. I wish I could have had more time and at least doubled the number of groups I tested, but I guessed (incorrectly, it seems), that we would have seen some accuracy deterioration by the 300 round mark. Not even close, and those 50 shot composites were still shrinking when I curtailed the test.

 

[Paw precision]

Barrel bore consistency is key to accuracy. When the cartridge discharges - the ultra high pressure and millisecond of heat that is dispelled upon the first inch or so of bore is the place and start of degradation.
While the full length of barrel will collect amounts of carbon - most will collect at the throat whereas copper can be just as prevelant at the muzzle as in front of the chamber. When there is any buildup of carbon in the throat - the bullet has to squeezed down ( swage tighter ) in that area and fails to have the bore fit going forward. The bullet now has unwanted scarring and deformation which degrades accuracy.
Copper seems to be more of a problem towards the muzzle. Thats why an initial collection of copper doesnt degrade accuracy as bad. Sometimes it can actually help a barrel with a lot of wear to a certain extent. However when we shoot benchrest we are working with or at least want to work with as good and fresh a barrel as we can so we opt to keep it all out!
My best barrels have had a really consistant feel when running a wet tight bore to patch fit but yet feels just a little more snug the last couple of inches.
I find it better to clean as often as possible using patches and using the brush whenever i even start to feel any inconsistancy patching the bore especially at the throat.
Most new barrels go through a little more copper collecting during the first 25 rounds and generally taper off to around a hundred while at a steady and vigilant cleaning process. After a hundred and through the upmost accurate part of the barrels life the coppering is at the minimal and then comes on hard again once the lands in the throat become pitted and degraded.

 

[Greyfox]

Barrel cleaning practices invoke a kind of religious belief. We believe it to be so, therefore it is so. Then someone like Kevin comes along with documented verified proof and all you hear is crickets. And after a while we return to our regularly scheduled belief system. Be careful Kevin you may be burned at the stake as a heretic.

Rick

 

[Tim Singleton]

Some years back, when I was working for a certain bullet company in the Midwest, they decided to cash in on the molycoating craze then in vogue. The claims were that one could shoot far more rounds between cleanings without loss of accuracy. At that time I normally cleaned about every third group or so in the test barrels, more out of habit than any scientifically derived reason. As it was obvious that we were going to wind up offering moly coated bullets, it seemed worthwhile to do a little testing and see just what the advantages may be. Using one of the return to battery test barrels, I fired a series of 30 ten-round groups, with every five groups simultaneously giving a 50 shot composite. The barrel wasn’t cleaned throughout the entire 300 round test, not a dry brush, not a patch, nothing. This was done with bare bullets, all from the same lot, all other components from the same respective lots, making the 300 rounds of test ammo as homogenous and identical as possible. Examining the ten-round groups showed virtually nothing. All were remarkably similar, with none of them showing any sort of stand-out differences, either good or bad throughout the entire thirty groups. The composite groups were where things became interesting. Oftimes a series of ten (or five) round groups will be close enough that the differences between them become nearly meaningless. Largely unnoticeable, and possibly just typical statistical variance between them which amounts to virtually nothing of significance. But fifty round composites will often show things which are invisible in smaller sample sizes. While there wasn’t a great deal of difference between the six 50-round groups, there was a decided trend. The groups were getting better as the test progressed. Rounds #1-50 were a little larger than rounds 51-100, 101-150 were a bit tighter, and so on. The single smallest 50 round group was the last, rounds #251-300.

That little test removed a lot of the angst over things like not cleaning every 20-30 rounds. Lots of folks are FAR more concerned about their cleaning routines than their rifles are.

A couple questions.
What cartridge and bullet was used in the test?
What size were the 10 shot groups?

 

[Tim Singleton]

The current 10 shot 100yd NBRSA group record is a .095 not in a tunnel
The acceptable group size may have some impact on how
often you clean

 

[BoydAllen]

The current 10 shot 100yd NBRSA group record is a .095 not in a tunnel
The acceptable group size may have some impact on how
often you clean

Absolutely, and it can vary by powder, individual barrel, velocity and the case size to bore ratio. If you are thrilled by the threes, which many rightly are, including myself for some rifles, it can be quite different than if you are seriously pursuing ones, and expect them if tune is maintained and flags properly read.

 

[KevinThomas]

A couple questions.
What cartridge and bullet was used in the test?
What size were the 10 shot groups?

Tim, the cartridge was a 308 Win, with an Obermeyer chamber, most likely a Hart barrel, a 1x12” twist and 168 HPBTs. Can’t recall the group sizes exactly, but they all stayed in what were typically the range for these bulletin; 1/4 to 1/3 MOA for ten-round groups @ 200 yards, with none of them exceeding (or being dangerously close to the) 1/2 MOA mark. Pretty standard stuff for these bullets and daily production testing with this set up. I wrote this up for Pecision Shooting at the time. Sorry, but I no longer have these on file, and couldn’t begin to tell you when, or in what issue it ran.

 

[Tim Singleton]

Tim, the cartridge was a 308 Win, with an Obermeyer chamber, most likely a Hart barrel, a 1x12” twist and 168 HPBTs. Can’t recall the group sizes exactly, but they all stayed in what were typically the range for these bulletin; 1/4 to 1/3 MOA for ten-round groups @ 200 yards, with none of them exceeding (or being dangerously close to the) 1/2 MOA mark. Pretty standard stuff for these bullets and daily production testing with this set up. I wrote this up for Pecision Shooting at the time. Sorry, but I no longer have these on file, and couldn’t begin to tell you when, or in what issue it ran.

Thanks, this much helps a lot.

Tim