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Cleaning F-Class barrels

Mulligan

Mulligan

Silver $$ Contributor
I am new to F-Class shooting (6 shoots under my belt).
I Bought a second hand rifle with a Brux, Panda, Lee Six stock combination. After I put several hundred rounds down the tube it was time to rebarrel. After the new barrel was installed I asked the gunsmith to look at the old barrel and see if we could set it back and get a little more mileage out of it.

He put the borescope in the chamber end and very politely said my cleaning technique needs improvement......."you have copper streaks on top of carbon layered in the bore".

Is there a best practice?
What are shooters doing that works (have used a bore scope and checked)?

I have every intention of improving my cleaning technique, your input is appreciated.
CW
 
CW, whatever technique you're using may or may not be working. Unless that rifle bore was pristine condition when you got it there's no way to determine if it was your cleaning process that was faulty or the process used by the former owner.
I'd suggest you work with your new rifle, using your current techniques, and run a bore scope through it every other cleaning cycle. You will quickly see if your techniques are working. Don't be afraid to go forward. You can always remove and plug the barrel to load the bore with an aggressive solvent to disolve residue if things get dirty.
Last note ..... a shiney bore isn't necessarily a clean bore. Bullets moving down the barrel can put a shine on carbon deposits that shine like a diamond in a goats %$#; but that don't mean it's clean.
 
DRNewcomb said:
Can you describe the tools and technique you currently employ?
Click to expand...
Don, I could however I intentionally left that off the post because I do not have any desire to build on my current regime. My intention is to LEARN.
We defer it experts not rank in the wildland fire service, that's the approach I'd like to stick with.
CW
 
Lapua40X said:
CW, whatever technique you're using may or may not be working. Unless that rifle bore was pristine condition when you got it there's no way to determine if it was your cleaning process that was faulty or the process used by the former owner.
I'd suggest you work with your new rifle, using your current techniques, and run a bore scope through it every other cleaning cycle. You will quickly see if your techniques are working. Don't be afraid to go forward. You can always remove and plug the barrel to load the bore with an aggressive solvent to disolve residue if things get dirty.
Last note ..... a shiney bore isn't necessarily a clean bore. Bullets moving down the barrel can put a shine on carbon deposits that shine like a diamond in a goats %$#; but that don't mean it's clean.
Click to expand...
I should have stated in my first post that the rifle was shipped to a smith, he scoped it and never mentioned a poorly cleaned bore.
CW
 
chamber protector is paramount. wipe out patch out until patches show no black Or blue. Some cleanings take a couple of days some five or more.
 
Mulligan said:
Don, I could however I intentionally left that off the post because I do not have any desire to build on my current regime. My intention is to LEARN....
Click to expand...
S.O.P. the way I learned it is to use a clean one-piece stainless (or maybe Teflon coated) cleaning rod and a bore guide. The jag must press the patch firmly into the lands. Push the patch only from the chamber to the muzzle. Remove the patch at the muzzle and draw the naked rod back out the back. Same if you use a brush. Tight fitting, pushed only from chamber to muzzle and removed when it comes out the muzzle.

Don't buy your rod mail-order. Go to the store and inspect it carefully as you would a pool cue. You want it to be perfectly straight. I'm still working off the zillion 2"x 2" flannel patches I bought from the DCM many years ago. My jag is too tight to accommodate a 2x2 patch, so I cut them in half. They are pierced on the point of the jag and wet with solvent.

I currently use Hoppe's solvent but if I ever use up the quart bottle I have, I may switch to something different. At one time I was using Sweet's 7.62 because it really attacks copper fouling. Then I read an article in Precision Shooting the demonstrated that a high-ammonia solvent (like Sweet's) could also attack the barrel steel and I stopped using it and discarded what I had.

That's what I do and I make no particular claims about it, except that's what I've learned over the years.
 
Solvent and bronze brushes remove powder fouling, patches push out loose crud. Solvent dissolves copper, takes time. Iosso removed hard carbon build up. You need to use them all if you want your barrel clean. Slovent/brush until patches are clean, soak until no more blue, stroke first 1/3 off barrel with iosso until smooth. You will get it down, just pay attention to how the brush feels in the throat area, roughness tells you it time for iosso
 
How reliable is Patch-out at indicating carbon in the bore?

I got A fair amount of bright blue on a couple of patches after a 12 hour soak however not much brown.

Soaking with Kroil and Patch-out now.
CW
 
I don't claim to be a cleaning expert. The article I am attaching did convince me to buy a borescope. So I can monitor my practices. I found the pictures in the article to be a very good guide.

My practices:
  1. As soon as I return from a range session, I use Butches Bore shine. Let it set 15 to 30 minutes and repeat until I am seeing very little blue from the copper. This seems to remove the carbon pretty well.
  2. Then I switch to Bore Tech Cu+2 copper remover. This seems to be a fairly safe copper remover and it works really well. I apply to the bore and let it set 30 minutes or so. I repeat until no blue is coming out. For a used rifle with a manufacturers standard barrel, this has taken a week to remove all the copper. I will let it set longer (overnight) as this process continues.
I can monitor the process with the borescope. Once I get a barrel clean, if you clean shortly after shooting, it cleans much easier. The premium barrels will collect almost no copper after they have a couple of hundred rounds through them.

Even when PD hunting, I clean the bore every 50 shots. In the field I just use Butches. But every night I remove the copper with Bore Tech. I found that if I don't, after 700+ rounds, I will get an occasional flyer.
 

Attachments

jepp2 said:
I don't claim to be a cleaning expert. The article I am attaching did convince me to buy a borescope. So I can monitor my practices. I found the pictures in the article to be a very good guide.

My practices:
  1. As soon as I return from a range session, I use Butches Bore shine. Let it set 15 to 30 minutes and repeat until I am seeing very little blue from the copper. This seems to remove the carbon pretty well.
  2. Then I switch to Bore Tech Cu+2 copper remover. This seems to be a fairly safe copper remover and it works really well. I apply to the bore and let it set 30 minutes or so. I repeat until no blue is coming out. For a used rifle with a manufacturers standard barrel, this has taken a week to remove all the copper. I will let it set longer (overnight) as this process continues.
I can monitor the process with the borescope. Once I get a barrel clean, if you clean shortly after shooting, it cleans much easier. The premium barrels will collect almost no copper after they have a couple of hundred rounds through them.

Even when PD hunting, I clean the bore every 50 shots. In the field I just use Butches. But every night I remove the copper with Bore Tech. I found that if I don't, after 700+ rounds, I will get an occasional flyer.
Click to expand...
Some darn good info in that article!
Thank you very much.
CW
 
Im a barrel clean nut and Ill clean a barrel if I only shoot 5 shots to check a new loads speed and what I have found and im sure allot off other people know this as well is that the sooner you get a carbon removing agent down the tube after shooting the faster it works or the easier it is to get the carbon out. As soon as Im done shooting ill push 3 soaked patches of Boretech C4 down the barrel and let it stand for anything from 30min to 2 hours depending how long it takes me to get to the barrel, push a couple dry patches down the barrel to get all the crud out and then another 3 wet patches of C4 and let it stand for 30min to an hour, patch out and ill go after the Coper with something like Montana Extreme if the patches comes out clean after the C4. After the C4 application there are generally very little if any coper left in the barrel. I generally don't like to brush but every couple 100 rounds ill short stroke the throat with some C4 on a brush, copper doesn't really bother me in a barrel but I hate seeing or feeling carbon
 
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