Barrel cleaning

[MN50Shooter]

I clean my 50 BMG Match Rifle barrel with 26% aqueous ammonia, with a little Joy Dish Soap added. I apply it with wet patches and wet my stainless brush with it as well. Once completely wet, I give it about 20 strokes using just the brush. I then wrap a patch around the brush and again, wet it with the ammonia, and push thru the bore (one way only action to barrel end). I repeat this until no evidence of carbon nor brass (I shoot Lehigh Solid Brass Projectiles). I then run a couple dry patches, followed by at least two patches with a light gun oil.

Seems to work great for me.

Note: If you try this strong ammonia solution, be sure to be Up Wind so the fumes don't wreak havoc with your eyes/sinus'

 

[johnnyi]

Carbon first, copper 2nd, hard carbon every 300-400 or right before a big match. My method is below, and it’s just that, my method! Everyone has there own, most are just fine, it’s not rocket surgery.

CLR is magical if you use it prior to any other chemical, soak a patch and squirt a little extra in bore guide, push patch very slowly, literally a plug of black carbon an inch long will come out in front of the patch. I run 3 or 4 more saturated patches every minute or so. Patch dry. As a bonus, CLR will remove most of the hard carbon ring in the neck area.

Rubbing alcohol to neutralize

KG-12 is the most aggressive copper remover I’ve found, the lack of color change indication kinda sucks, but it works, use a borescope to confirm or confirm with eliminator or similar.

Rubbing alcohol to neutralize

Iosso paste for hard carbon, smear on a patch, push that patch through two or three times, short stroke if possible and necessary in throat area. Two or three clean patches to remove paste. A couple oily patches to remove any paste residue.

Rubbing alcohol to neutralize

Couple patches saturated with lockeeze, one or two clean patches to to finish.

As a side note, last week at SWN I cleaned my barrel before the midrange match, I did NOT clean all week! Went into Sunday with over 250 rounds dirty! Ended Monday team practice day with 322 rounds dirty and still going strong.

so no bronze or plastic brushing at all.??

 

[Tod Hendricks]

so no bronze or plastic brushing at all.??

Nope.. I don’t have a problem with brushes, just don’t find it necessary with my system.

 

[Tod Hendricks]

The video is first patch with CLR, saturate patch and squirt a little more in bore guide, push slow.

 

[500yards]

Put that rem oil away, it has teflon in it... Bad for the barrel. I use boretech eliminator to get things clean. When I clean I brush, patch, and giver hell to get it done. The more I shoot the less I like cleaning... So I don't. If the rifle shoots good don't clean it. The tipton carbon fiber rods are nice btw.

 

[Joe Maisto]

I've always heard, if it shoots well; does it really need to be cleaned?

Rust aside, food for thought
-Mac

Finally....someone who feels the same as I...to a degree. I have been cleaning as most others on the range in short BR group shooting , Thinking you must have an absolutely clean and copper free barrel in order to put 5 rounds into the same hole as the 1st bullet went into. Years later, it did not seem to make a difference on the target. Anymore...I just think we take all this cleaning process to extremes. I have only had one barrel ( which was a hummer from HART) that quit shooting the way it used to, but that was after 2000 rounds.

 

[K22]

This is a hotly debated issue - I don't know that there is an absolute correct answer to rifle bore cleaning but I'll add my input to help confuse the issue more .

I believe there are three cleaning absolutes to retain shooting precision: 1. Removal of carbon fouling, 2. Removal of copper fouling, 3. Using a cleaning method that does not harm the bore. The rest I submit is open to debate.

I'm an advocate of using the two part system, first remove carbon fouling then remove the copper fouling. For this purpose I use Bore Tech's carbon remover, C4, per their instructions except that I use a bronze brush. I believe the mechanical action of the bronze brush aids in a more thorough job of removing carbon and prevents formation of a carbon ring.

After dry patching, I apply Bore Tech's copper remover, Cu+2 per their instructions except I do not use a nylon brush, I just use three patches to apply the solvent. I use a nylon looped jag with the patch on the third pass which spreads the solvent liberally in the bore and doesn't "press" it out - it's the chemical action of the solvent that's the goal here - not scrubbing. After the prescribed solvent dwell time I dry patch.

Finally I treat the bore with Barricade as a rust preventative - dry patch before a shooting session.

I selected Bore Tech products because they are very effective and do not have an offensive odor.

To prevent damage to the bore I use a rod guide and push the patches and brush through the bore completely - no "sawing" action inside the bore. I do reverse the brush back through the bore but very carefully so as not to damage the crown. I use Dewey coated rods and Dewey brass core brushes with looped ends.

The next question becomes how often to clean? Here again I don't know that there is an absolute correct answer except you don't want the fouling to build up to the point that it affects precision shooting or makes it difficult to remove. After experimenting with various approaches I adopted a 30 to 40 round cleaning cycle. In my rifles, they seem to retain their accuracy to this point and the fouling is not difficult to remove.

 

[INTJ]

Lots of methods work, but when you get a good borescope, you perspective changes.

JB Bore Paste absolutely gets everything out down to bare metal very quickly. Iosso works very well too. KG 12 copper cutter is also very strong. I have yet to use a carbon cutter that works as well as JB or Iosso, but a haven't tried them all.

I don't think we need to get down to bare metal. I try to get all the carbon, most of the copper, and call it good. One of my fellow LR BR competitor/gunsmith friends thinks many people put too much effort into cleaning, and he is hard to beat......

 

[J F Johannes]

Carbon first, copper 2nd, hard carbon every 300-400 or right before a big match. My method is below, and it’s just that, my method! Everyone has there own, most are just fine, it’s not rocket surgery.

CLR is magical if you use it prior to any other chemical, soak a patch and squirt a little extra in bore guide, push patch very slowly, literally a plug of black carbon an inch long will come out in front of the patch. I run 3 or 4 more saturated patches every minute or so. Patch dry. As a bonus, CLR will remove most of the hard carbon ring in the neck area.

Rubbing alcohol to neutralize

KG-12 is the most aggressive copper remover I’ve found, the lack of color change indication kinda sucks, but it works, use a borescope to confirm or confirm with eliminator or similar.

Rubbing alcohol to neutralize

Iosso paste for hard carbon, smear on a patch, push that patch through two or three times, short stroke if possible and necessary in throat area. Two or three clean patches to remove paste. A couple oily patches to remove any paste residue.

Rubbing alcohol to neutralize

Couple patches saturated with lockeeze, one or two clean patches to to finish.

As a side note, last week at SWN I cleaned my barrel before the midrange match, I did NOT clean all week! Went into Sunday with over 250 rounds dirty! Ended Monday team practice day with 322 rounds dirty and still going strong.

I just tried this and wow, that was amazing. Never cleaned a barrel with such ease. Thanks Tod

Jim

 

[Jennb]

I just tried this and wow, that was amazing. Never cleaned a barrel with such ease. Thanks Tod

Jim

I was quite amazed also.

 

[JEFFPPC]

I have used most of them. Have ended up with Hoppes, little bit of brushing, and soaking for carbon. ISSO on ocassion. Sweets for copper. Yes, I soak overnight with Sweets. Before someone gets excited, they tell you to patch it out every 15 min. They dont say only one application at a time. They want to sell product. ,just dont let it ever dry it will form ammonia salts, not good.If you think You can shoot 50 yrs and spend 20 or 30 minutes and it's clean, your kidding yourself. Just my observations and experiences.

 

[Martin52]

The video is first patch with CLR, saturate patch and squirt a little more in bore guide, push slow.

How many rounds since the last clean ? Seems a lot coming out there.