Joe
I always make a few passes with a brush soaked in Butch's just to get as much as possible suspended in liquid form. Then patch out.
Best Practice for using Iosso Bore Cleaner?
- Thread starter HTSmith
- Start date
I always make a few passes with a brush soaked in Butch's just to get as much as possible suspended in liquid form. Then patch out.
Thorro Clean is kind of an offshoot of Iosso pimped by Bullet Central. It seems to be an Iosso suspension that is recommended to be applied by a brush. It works quite while, is fast and so far has not produced any negative effects that I have witnessed. I picked a new 6 Creed barrel that I am pushing 110's at 3170fps as a test subject and so far so good. I'd have to go look at round count.
Anyway, do any of you experts have any thoughts on it and maybe it's a little different, I don't know. It is abrasive but not near as aggressive as Witch's Brew.
Anyway, do any of you experts have any thoughts on it and maybe it's a little different, I don't know. It is abrasive but not near as aggressive as Witch's Brew.
I've never used it but it's packaged with Thorro Flush. Does that tell you anything. My guess is it works like Rem Clean. An abrasive suspended in a liquid carrier instead of paste form.
I won't use any abrasive on a brush, nylon or otherwise. On my personal barrels I don't let them get to the point of needing extreme measures to get them clean. Multiple passes with tight fitting patches sure. Particularly as they age.
We have such a variety of great cleaning products now that extreme measures shouldn't be needed. All that's required is diligent, regular cleaning.
I won't use any abrasive on a brush, nylon or otherwise. On my personal barrels I don't let them get to the point of needing extreme measures to get them clean. Multiple passes with tight fitting patches sure. Particularly as they age.
We have such a variety of great cleaning products now that extreme measures shouldn't be needed. All that's required is diligent, regular cleaning.
Friction continual friction by the water polishes the rock. Projectiles going down the barrel do the same add heat and the wear multiplies. Flame cutting can start before work hardening occurs.
Rockwell to you is how it affects your manufacture process with a trade off to the end user in barrel life. The harder the steel the slower the process the longer barrel life. I realize the diminishing return and the problems with the bean counters.
Unless you test for Rockwell not just spec it you could have any thing. Mistakes do occur. You may have a very good in house testing protocol let down by not testing your raw material.
What Rockwell is used by the military small arms barrel makers.
I'm working on an order for an elite military unit, actually two orders and they are Bartlein's standard spec. Rc30 give or take a couple of points.
It's obvious you have no experience or training in metallurgy. And I'll add manufacturing.
It is entertaining to watch you rage against the proven norms of precision barrels.
It's obvious you have no experience or training in metallurgy. And I'll add manufacturing.
It is entertaining to watch you rage against the proven norms of precision barrels.
We don't just take for granted what the steel certs say. We check every lot that comes in with our own RC tester. If we second guess anything we can and will send it to a independent lab as well. I've even done this with barrels when we've received one back. Done it both with the mill and the lab. Doesn't matter if it a barrel wear thing or if the guy blew up the rifle.
Military small arms spec is the same. No difference. Goes for the same on that gov't ammunition test barrel drawings. They might call out 416R, CM 4140, CM4150 etc....we've made barrels out of CM material that was as hard as 37Rc. Didn't last any longer then 30Rc same type of material or 416 material at 30Rc.
It was just recently as of last fall we did the 37Rc material and it was the second time in 2 years we had to use that material for that specific type of an order/job.
I've also gotten feedback from places like Hornady, Federal Cartridge etc...where the test barrels are being shot in controlled conditions. Calibers range from 7mm Rem Mag, 300wm, 308win, 260 Rem. and 6.5CM. Nothing stood out to say one was better than the other in regards to the cm and ss. Yes they do wear differently but overall barrel life....no difference. We've also done barrels in 338 Lapua as well as 50bmg. So the range of calibers has been pretty good and these are the most recent ones that I remember.
We had a real limited supply of a special grade of ss and we made 300wm barrels out of it for Gov't testing. The two WM barrels had 3k and 4k rounds on them and still held sub moa. Most barrels are done by about 1200 rounds. The longest one they ever got to go before that was just one barrel at like 1800 rounds. This special grade of steel that we had to make the barrels out of...the RC was only 33/34.
From working with the mills and the lab's directly it's not necessarily a hardness thing that helps.
You guys all have a Happy Easter weekend! Stay safe and healthy with with all the virus thing going on.
That could be why I never saw any damage with abrasives and bronze. I am anal about getting the abrasive out. Often times I find a little in the shoulder area of the chamber where the bore guide ends. I run 99% Isopropyl patches through the bore after an abrasive until it's clean. Then I clean the lugs and chamber, then a final pass through the bore.
That said, I'll be using nylon brushes from now on. Hopefully the Iosso brand are stiff enough.
Mark W
Gold $$ Contributor
After buying a teslong borescope and discovering that I had plenty of barrels with hard carbon build up, I decided to do some testing.
In the end I’ve decided that Flitz Bore Cleaner works better for me than Iosso or the other popular abrasive cleaners. I’m using it on a snug fitting patch only as needed for hard carbon build up. Like others mentioned about Iosso, I make sure to carefully remove all remnants from the barrel after its use.
https://www.flitz.com/gun-bore-cleaner/
In the end I’ve decided that Flitz Bore Cleaner works better for me than Iosso or the other popular abrasive cleaners. I’m using it on a snug fitting patch only as needed for hard carbon build up. Like others mentioned about Iosso, I make sure to carefully remove all remnants from the barrel after its use.
https://www.flitz.com/gun-bore-cleaner/
Bore Tech has a new product, or at least new to me, called Chameleon Gel. This gel seems to be a mixture of eliminator and a mild abrasive in gel form and billed as a cleaner/polish that changes color depending on the copper, lead or carbon coming out of the barrel. The directions say to use 1 to 3 applications on evenly coated patches either on a jag or wrapped nylon brush.
This thread and the links provided have been eye opening to me. I've been guilty of some of the cleaning practices mentioned as detrimental to the life and accuracy of a barrel. The thing most disconcerting to me is the amount of material removal reported from aggressive use of abrasive compounds like Iosso. One to two thousandths of an inch increase in bore diameter will definitely ruin a barrel.
From here on out I'll be paying a lot more attention to what I'm doing cleaning wise. A bag of patches and proper cleaning equipment are a heck of a lot cheaper than the premature purchase of a new barrel because the old one was destroyed due to pure ignorance.
Thanks for the many new insights.
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I hope everyone's take away is to develop a regular preventative cleaning routine. Routine cleaning doesn't hurt a barrel. Extreme measures to play catch up can.
rwj
Gold $$ Contributor
^^^ THIS ^^^
Plus starting your cleaning process at the range lets one take advantage of the latent barrel heat and the soak time created by the drive home.
Yes that’s the thread I talked about and the picture I posted of the barrel.
From Ozfclass thread Feb 2017, barrel damage, first post, last paragraph
Qoute
"I hope other people can shed some light on what causes damage like this as I have an "UNFIRED" barrel with similar lines in it, although not as many, but as can be seen from the pics the lines run parallel with the rifling and has not damaged the lands, only the grooves!"
Qoute
"I hope other people can shed some light on what causes damage like this as I have an "UNFIRED" barrel with similar lines in it, although not as many, but as can be seen from the pics the lines run parallel with the rifling and has not damaged the lands, only the grooves!"
Well in my present isolation bored I have been going through old reloading equipment. All the guns have been cleaned to the max. Opening up bins with reloading stuff packed away for years. Some parts I haven't been able to identify yet. Today I put losso to work on 2 old wilson seaters that had rusted. My fault. Put them away without a light coat.of.oil. anyway cleaned them with gun cleaning solvent, washed them is hot soapy water, took a patch and wrapped it.around a tight fitting brush oiled it and covered it with losso. Scrubbed it good but not too much. Another hot soapy water wash cleaned all the brushes used while doing it. Looked at it with my bore scope. One looked better than new and one went in the trash. Lightly oiled the good one and put it away. Don't even have rifles with that cartridge anymore. Anyway losso works great cleaning lightly rusted wilson dies. Guess you can tell I am bored.
An update. I only use IOSSO now for a really dirty bore as it seems to increase throat erosion a little.
Most of the time I use a tight bronze brush with KG-1 Carbon Cleaner, then follow up with a few patches of KG-12 Copper Cutter. When I need a heavy cleaning I use JB on a tight bronze brush after pushing a few patches of KG-1 though the bore.
This method takes only 20-30 minutes, doesn't require a hot bore, and looks good with both the borescope and on a 1000 yd BR target.
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JEFFPPC
Gold $$ Contributor
Often.
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