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Cleaning with Abrasives and using Fire Lapping kits and warranty

I've got no issues with JB Bore Compound (blue label) and I do use it once in a while. Never with a brush. Patch only. Also you don't need to use a lot of it. A little goes a long way.

I'll also use Rem. 40x cleaner or I think it's called Remington bore cleaner. For us old timers it use to be called Gold Medallion. Again never with a brush. Just a patch. Again I don't use it all the time.
I have to say that to hear that you use Rem. 40X cleaner is a surprise to me. I tried to develop an understanding of just how abrasive some of the common abrasive bore cleaners are. I took a drop off the muzzle of a barrel, and turned it parallel and polished to a high shine. I took Iosso, JB blue, Flitz bore cleaner, Gold Medallion and Remington 40X and placed a small drop on of each on a piece of plate glass. I rubbed the abrasive cleaners between the polished steel and the glass. You can literally hear and feel the difference between the abrasiveness of all the cleaners. Remington 40X cleaner is like creek gravel compared to all the others. I've read here several times that JB is less abrasive than Iosso or Flitz, but my experiment clearly showed that it is more abrasive than the others. I use abrasives to clean with caution, and I will not use 40X in a barrel that is of any value to me.
I would urge anyone who is really interested in using abrasives to do the test that I did, and verify for yourself, just how aggressive the common bore cleaners are. I think you might find a few surprises that differ from the common narrative.
 
I have to say that to hear that you use Rem. 40X cleaner is a surprise to me. I tried to develop an understanding of just how abrasive some of the common abrasive bore cleaners are. I took a drop off the muzzle of a barrel, and turned it parallel and polished to a high shine. I took Iosso, JB blue, Flitz bore cleaner, Gold Medallion and Remington 40X and placed a small drop on of each on a piece of plate glass. I rubbed the abrasive cleaners between the polished steel and the glass. You can literally hear and feel the difference between the abrasiveness of all the cleaners. Remington 40X cleaner is like creek gravel compared to all the others. I've read here several times that JB is less abrasive than Iosso or Flitz, but my experiment clearly showed that it is more abrasive than the others. I use abrasives to clean with caution, and I will not use 40X in a barrel that is of any value to me.
I would urge anyone who is really interested in using abrasives to do the test that I did, and verify for yourself, just how aggressive the common bore cleaners are. I think you might find a few surprises that differ from the common narrative.

I think that might the clay carrier more than the abrasive. But I'm not an expert.

I called the makers of Flitz and they said the material in their product is so micro fine it's not even considered an abrasive.
 
You could take Flitz Barrel Cleaner and put it on a rag and hold it on a barrel spinning in a lathe at 2000 rpm for 10 minutes and it wouldn't remove a micron.

Throats move because of the fire, not abrasives. At least on a patch. I'm still trying to figure out how a brass brush could cut steel, even with a normal abrasive on it. Shoot, even bullets don't cut steel. The fire does.
Thank you sir very well stated, your response should be reposted on every barrel cleaning topic
 
The new thing apparently is the routine ( like in EVERY cleaning ) use of Thorroclean to clean barrels. Being simply Iosso in solution, therefore an abrasive, how can that not be detrimental to a barrel over time? The boys doing it swear by it, though. Perhaps they haven’t been doing it long enough to see any negative ramifications? And I’m not trying to say that there’s no appropriate time and way to use an abrasive, either.
So.....just where did you get this information?
 
I have to say that to hear that you use Rem. 40X cleaner is a surprise to me. I tried to develop an understanding of just how abrasive some of the common abrasive bore cleaners are. I took a drop off the muzzle of a barrel, and turned it parallel and polished to a high shine. I took Iosso, JB blue, Flitz bore cleaner, Gold Medallion and Remington 40X and placed a small drop on of each on a piece of plate glass. I rubbed the abrasive cleaners between the polished steel and the glass. You can literally hear and feel the difference between the abrasiveness of all the cleaners. Remington 40X cleaner is like creek gravel compared to all the others. I've read here several times that JB is less abrasive than Iosso or Flitz, but my experiment clearly showed that it is more abrasive than the others. I use abrasives to clean with caution, and I will not use 40X in a barrel that is of any value to me.
I would urge anyone who is really interested in using abrasives to do the test that I did, and verify for yourself, just how aggressive the common bore cleaners are. I think you might find a few surprises that differ from the common narrative.
Like I said, I don’t use it all the time. Same with the JB. I have a slow method of cleaning and a fast method of cleaning. So which method I use determines if I use it or not.

I do feel depending on caliber, powder etc…. You might have to use something like this to keep things in check.

I’ll play with it as you did and see what I see and what I feel. Again the way I use JB or the Rem. Clean and I’ve used them since around 1990 I haven’t wrecked a barrel with either.

Also if you read in my posts I feel sometimes shooters use an abrasive cleaner and they don’t always make sure they get it all out. This is another problem/issue. Like I said, if you don’t… you might as well have gravel in the barrel when you pull the trigger on that first round.

The point of the thread is… we have no control over how someone is cleaning and what they are cleaning with.
 
One of the biggest culprits in ruining barrels is these Disciplines that are set up so shooters have to put as many as 150 rounds down a barrel before it’s cleaned. And then the shooter has to use all sorts of draconian procedures to get it “clean”.

I have always said that the secret to keeping a barrel clean is to never let all of that crap build up. You do that the way Short Range Benchrest Shooters do. No matter how many rounds you shoot on your relay, you clean it after every target.

Even when I practice or am testing, I never shoot more than 10/15 rounds without cleaning. I never take a rifle hope dirty.

And I never use anything but Butches, a bronze brush, and patches.
 
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I've got no issues with JB Bore Compound (blue label) and I do use it once in a while. Never with a brush. Patch only. Also you don't need to use a lot of it. A little goes a long way.

I'll also use Rem. 40x cleaner or I think it's called Remington bore cleaner. For us old timers it use to be called Gold Medallion. Again never with a brush. Just a patch. Again I don't use it all the time.
Frank, glad to hear that and thank you for replying.

I do use only a patch with the JB, and after trying just about every cleaning product, I am down to using only stiff nylon brushes and Bore Tech products, mostly Eliminator.

Thanks!

Alex
 
One of the biggest culprits in ruining barrels is these Disciplines that are set up so shooters have to put as many as 150 rounds down a barrel before it’s cleaned. And then the shooter has to use all sorts of draconian procedures to get it “clean”.

I have always said that the secret to keeping a barrel clean is to never let all of that crap build up. You do that the way Short Range Benchrest Shooters do. No matter how many rounds you shoot on your relay, you clean it after every target.

Even when I practice or am testing, I never shoot more than 10/15 rounds without cleaning. I never take a rifle hope dirty.

And I never use anything but Butches, a bronze brush, and patches.

Fclass.....
 
I'll start with thanking Frank for having the pair to post this. I'm sure many egos have been hurt but the simple truth is don't let a barrel get to the extreme that you need an abrasive to get it clean. The one thing that hurts accuracy is hard carbon. Cleaning out hard carbon deposits will destroy a barrel. Shooting a hundred rounds without cleaning is going to leave hard carbon deposits. In my opinion once you have hard carbon deposits you will never get that barrel back. The required cleaning to remove hard carbon will round off the edges of the rifling and enlarge the bore. Don't let it get there. Shoot clean shoot happy!
 

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