Bronze Brushes, Carbon & False Reading?

[jelenko]

Using Free All combined with bronze brush treatment on an unfired barrel blank yielded perfectly white patches.

Ned - Interesting. I rubbed bronze wool on the outside of a clean stainless steel barrel. When the barrel was wiped with a clean cloth that had M Pro 7, the patch had black stuff on it.

Just to confirm, the barrel you tested on was chromoly or stainless?

 

[6MMsteve]

Does anyone put Alcohol on a patch after cleaning ?

when I can remember, but 95% of the time yes

 

[DaveTooley]

Does anyone put Alcohol on a patch after cleaning ?

I don't want a barrel perfectly dry. I intentionally put a thin coating of oil in my 1K BR magnums prior to shooting the first round. After the final 5 strokes of brushing I push just two patches down my SR BR rifles. I do not want a squeaky dry barrel for the first shoot. I can trust the first shot out of my SR BR rifle to be in the group. The 1K BR rifle will print about 12"-16" low.

 

[CharlieNC]

Does anyone put Alcohol on a patch after cleaning ?

After cleaning with Free All (my current fav subject to change) my final patch is lighter fluid which leaves a minute layer of lubricant. The first shot sometimes has a minor shift.

 

[JFrank]

I tried the alcohol patch after cleaning just to see if anything else came out and to my hummm the patch was pretty darn white, as you said Dave the dry bore definitely shoots lower. Mine was about 3 in at 500

 

[jelenko]

Bore Tech tech support says they have not changed the formula for C4.

 

[DaveTooley]

I've got a project right now that involves 6 year old muzzle brakes that lived inside a suppressor. Talk about carbon. I have some soaking in GM top engine cleaner. Report and pics to follow.

Just an update. The carbon on these brakes was so hard that a wire brush wouldn't touch it and require a Scotchbrite wheel to remove. After an over night soak much of the carbon has softened to the point it can almost be wiped off with a paper towel. Some just flakes off, the bond between the carbon and the brakes being broken. The tough stuff is getting additional soak time.
As I've said chemicals and time are your friend. Regular frequent cleaning shortens the time needed for a thorough cleaning. Pay me now or pay me later comes to mind.

 

[dellet]

Lots of things to consider. But at the bottom level, cloth and some sort of concoction has been used for centuries to polish metal.

If you can take your bronze brush and run it across polished steel and see scratches, or the finish dulls, it's removing metal that when wiped off with clean cloth, will look grey or black. Same thing rubbing metal with plain cloth.

How much is removed will be based on the hardness of both the steel and the brush or cloth, and in the case of a bore, the tightness of the fit.

The dissenting opinion about getting discoloration on a patch in a clean or new bore comes from Ned Ludd using Free All.

Free All is a lubricant with cleaning qualities, part of it's purpose is to reduce wear between moving metallic parts while cleaning.

Just a thought, but maybe he's removing carbon, without polishing the bore and removing as much of the lands.

 

[BoydAllen]

The false reading that I think that most shooters need to concern themselves with is the white patch that you can get when you have cleaned all of the powder fouling out of a barrel and all that is left is hard carbon.

Personally, I think it would be useful if everyone who posts on barrel cleaning posts would include whether they have a bore scope, or not. People who do not are all just guessing, and when they post their guesses as if they were facts I think that it can confuse those who are less experienced, and who do not have scopes.

When I read some of these posts I wonder if the person has taken a barrel to the end of its accuracy life, and seen what causes that end. I have never seen or heard of this happening because of brushing. In fact the fellow that I know gets the longest barrel life from his PPC uses a bronze brush between every match. The reason that he sees this life relates to other factors that are not part of this discussion. My point is that if brushing with bronze was doing damage he would not be getting the results that he routinely has gotten for many years.

 

[K22]

I think they have. The bottle of C4 I bought just a couple months ago is eating my bronze brushes.
I've used C4 for about 4-5 years. Before this most recent bottle, it's always showed no blue at all in regular use. If left in the bore for hours and hours, I might have noticed a bit of blue.

ETA. I'm going to ask Boretech if they did change the formula or just screwed up on a batch.

Yea, let me know what you find out (PM).

I hate the idea of changing solvents again! Everything was working so smooth with C4 and a bronze brush - consistent groups, no first shot or clean barrel flyers, etc. The CU+2 created all kinds of consistency issues until the barrel settled (seasoned) back in with some copper being laid down.

I guess I could always go back to Shooter's Choice which worked very well for me for 25+ years and the only reason I switched to Bore Tech was because the odor was bothering my wife.

 

[jelenko]

Yea, let me know what you find out (PM).

I hate the idea of changing solvents again! Everything was working so smooth with C4 and a bronze brush - consistent groups, no first shot or clean barrel flyers, etc. The CU+2 created all kinds of consistency issues until the barrel settled (seasoned) back in with some copper being laid down.

I guess I could always go back to Shooter's Choice which worked very well for me for 25+ years and the only reason I switched to Bore Tech was because the odor was bothering my wife.

BoreTech tech support said there has been no change in their formula.

They said there has always been an agent that softens copper [no idea how copper is softened].
Guess I need to do a test with a patch of C4 wrapped around a brush just sitting there to see if it turns blue.

 

[K22]

BoreTech tech support said there has been no change in their formula.

They said there has always been an agent that softens copper [no idea how copper is softened].
Guess I need to do a test with a patch of C4 wrapped around a brush just sitting there to see if it turns blue.

Thanks for the reply.

In my cleaning process, the brush is only exposed to the solvent for a few minutes, i.e., ten strokes through the bore. I then immediately soak in a small bottle of just plain water. There is no or very little "blue" residue on the paper towel when I remove the brush to let it air dry.

The first 3 solvent saturated patches come out black as coal.

I then brush with a bronze brush about 10 strokes.

Next, I run 3 solvent saturated patches down the bore. I do get some light blue color on the patches. The 3rd solvent saturated patch normally comes out almost devoid of a carbon residue.

I then let sit for about 15 minutes then dry patch until I get a clean patch which is normally about 5 to 6 patches. These patches contain no blue coloring.

I do use a Dewey rod with an aluminum jag and ferrule.

 

[jelenko]

Thanks for the reply.

In my cleaning process, the brush is only exposed to the solvent for a few minutes, i.e., ten strokes through the bore. I then immediately soak in a small bottle of just plain water. There is no or very little "blue" residue on the paper towel when I remove the brush to let it air dry.

The first 3 solvent saturated patches come out black as coal.

I then brush with a bronze brush about 10 strokes.

Next, I run 3 solvent saturated patches down the bore. I do get some light blue color on the patches. The 3rd solvent saturated patch normally comes out almost devoid of a carbon residue.

I then let sit for about 15 minutes then dry patch until I get a clean patch which is normally about 5 to 6 patches. These patches contain no blue coloring.

I do use a Dewey rod with an aluminum jag and ferrule.

Thanks for reminding about the aluminum jag. I'm also seeing blue from the first couple of C4 patches using an aluminum jag.

I'm wondering if I accidentally mixed in some Eliminator with the bottle of C4 [I 'decant the solvents into needle nose squeeze bottles. ]

 

[Ned Ludd]

Ned - Interesting. I rubbed bronze wool on the outside of a clean stainless steel barrel. When the barrel was wiped with a clean cloth that had M Pro 7, the patch had black stuff on it.

Just to confirm, the barrel you tested on was chromoly or stainless?

Stainless. It was a second barrel that had been chambered for one of my rifles, but never fired. The gunsmith that did that work does not "test-fire" barrels as far as I know. I ran a couple wet patches of Kroil and three dry patches through the blank before sending it to the smith, but nothing else was done to clean it that I am aware of prior to having it chambered and the Free/bronze brush test I did much later. To be honest, I was rather surprised. I thought the patches would come out dark gray like every other [fired] barrel I had tested using the Free All/bronze brush treatment. I used the same cleaning rod, jag, and patches for that test as I always do.

 

[jelenko]

Update. I used C4 directly from the bottle from the factory - no blue.

 

[DaveTooley]

Just an update. The carbon on these brakes was so hard that a wire brush wouldn't touch it and require a Scotchbrite wheel to remove. After an over night soak much of the carbon has softened to the point it can almost be wiped off with a paper towel. Some just flakes off, the bond between the carbon and the brakes being broken. The tough stuff is getting additional soak time.
As I've said chemicals and time are your friend. Regular frequent cleaning shortens the time needed for a thorough cleaning. Pay me now or pay me later comes to mind.

View attachment 1357931View attachment 1357932

An update. The front of these had probably .050" deep carbon. After a 24 hour soak the carbon was softened and could easily be scraped off. As I've said for years. Chemicals and time are your friend in cleaning. It doesn't matter whether it's carbon or copper. Put chemicals in the barrel with a brush. Nylon if you prefer. Soak, soak, soak then briefly brush with a bronze brush, patch out and inspect. Abrasives should be used to manage heat checking. YMMV

 

[Zeke 225]

You might try Ed's Red. Google it if you're not familiar with it. It's very effective on carbon with a little bronze brush thrown in. If you're worried about the acetone, you can mix it without using the acetone but it works better with it, IME. Pretty dang good and it's cheap to boot. The ATF is the key. I've still never seen a dirty automatic transmission, yet. Lol! ATF alone is very near being the perfect gun lubricant/protectant and the Ed's Red cleaner is hard to beat, too. Don't expect it to do much with copper but my regimen is to go after the carbon first, the hit the copper after exposing it to a good copper cleaner..fwiw. It works well for me. YMMV.

First patch was throat area, second patch was 1 push through the barrel, mixed up some think it works but this rifle hasn’t been cleaned in years.