Cleaning with Abrasives and using Fire Lapping kits and warranty

[Kracken McGraw]

then you have the one's who say you don't need to clean your barrels at all.

This is the thing that upsets me seeing it suggested on the internet. People will gravitate to it out of laziness.

 

[Turkeytider]

This is the thing that upsets me seeing it suggested on the internet. People will gravitate to it out of laziness.

I’ve often wondered how those who rarely, if ever, clean barrels avoid the dreaded carbon ring. I think I know the answer to my own question. They don’t.

 

[X Count]

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.

Yepppppppp! A little and often is a much better approach. These PRS guys that run 100s of rounds between cleaning if they actually mapped their fps and impacts they would see.

I can't clean every 10-15 but I clean around 50 on average.

 

[X Count]

I've used this pic a million times... cleaned with KG2 bore paste and a brush after every 25 rounds fired. It's a 7mm/284win F class barrel. Pic is at 800 rounds and this is the muzzle end of the barrel.

Should measure .277" x .284". It now measures at the muzzle end .279" x .2855". Basically a full .002" was taken out of the barrel.

View attachment 1703117

Abrasive on a bronze brush and a cleaning rod that doesn't rotate.

People don't seem to realise that after you use and abrasive cleaner barrels seem to pick up copper until they run in again. Some get themselves into a viscous circle of using abrasive to get the copper out and to try and smooth the barrel out which causes more copper fouling. "It coppers up soooo bad" "I need to try and lap it in more" They go round and round blaming the barrel until they have ruined it.

I'm a firm believer that barrels get run in by more of a burnishing effect than a lapping effect. Upsetting the surface finish with an abrasive reverses that burnishing effect.

The dreaded carbon ring is a myth from what I've seen. Rotate and oversized bronze brush in the neck area and it virtually wipes out. Abrasives won't get rid of it as it hidden in the corner of neck / throat junction where a patch usually bridges that area.

 

[jelenko]

People don't seem to realise that after you use and abrasive cleaner barrels seem to pick up copper until they run in again. Some get themselves into a viscous circle of using abrasive to get the copper out and to try and smooth the barrel out which causes more copper fouling.

I've not seen this.
I use 6 patches/10 cycles with each patch with Flitz bore cleaner wrapped around a parker hale jag every 50 to 100 rounds for several years over a total of 12 barrel and 40,000 rounds. The patches are worked in the first 3-4 inches only.
All of the barrels are 223 Wylde. Most of the barrels are from White Oak Armament with a few X Caliber and a few Shilen.
I get very little to no copper [using BoreTech eliminator] until 2800-3000 rounds. Accuracy falls off/random fliers starting in the mid 3000 round count.

 

[6.5 forever]

I've not seen this.
I use 6 patches/10 cycles with each patch with Flitz bore cleaner wrapped around a parker hale jag every 50 to 100 rounds for several years over a total of 12 barrel and 40,000 rounds. The patches are worked in the first 3-4 inches only.
All of the barrels are 223 Wylde. Most of the barrels are from White Oak Armament with a few X Caliber and a few Shilen.
I get very little to no copper [using BoreTech eliminator] until 2800-3000 rounds. Accuracy falls off/random fliers starting in the mid 3000 round count.

The key might be you are only working 3-4 inches? I think most are working the full barrel. I may try your method. I use JB and the pellets

 

[X Count]

I've not seen this.
I use 6 patches/10 cycles with each patch with Flitz bore cleaner wrapped around a parker hale jag every 50 to 100 rounds for several years over a total of 12 barrel and 40,000 rounds. The patches are worked in the first 3-4 inches only.
All of the barrels are 223 Wylde. Most of the barrels are from White Oak Armament with a few X Caliber and a few Shilen.
I get very little to no copper [using BoreTech eliminator] until 2800-3000 rounds. Accuracy falls off/random fliers starting in the mid 3000 round count.

Yes as per above I think it's because your concentrating on the first 3-4" which during firing quickly gets a layer of carbon. The carbon prevents the copper from sticking to the barrel steel.

Like when you run in a barrel you usually see copper streaks more at the muzzle end. If you clean back to bare metal you will see streaks the full length of the barrel. As it runs in and you start going to 5-10 shot groups it usually only lays copper toward the muzzle. Do you think that is because it's running in or because the carbon is acting as a lube / barrier to metal / copper contact? Why do you think speedy uses lockeze after cleaning?

 

[jelenko]

Yes as per above I think it's because your concentrating on the first 3-4" which during firing quickly gets a layer of carbon. The carbon prevents the copper from sticking to the barrel steel.

Like when you run in a barrel you usually see copper streaks more at the muzzle end. If you clean back to bare metal you will see streaks the full length of the barrel. As it runs in and you start going to 5-10 shot groups it usually only lays copper toward the muzzle. Do you think that is because it's running in or because the carbon is acting as a lube / barrier to metal / copper contact? Why do you think speedy uses lockeze after cleaning?

Sorry. I'm not getting the point.
I'm simply seeing just very little copper even though I'm generous in my use of abrasives. Since I'm not using the abrasive past the first three to four inches, if using the abrasive was increasing copper in the bore, it would still be further down the bore - yes?

FWIW. I thought copper in the barrel was created from roughness in the throat causing copper from the jacket to vaporize and then precipitate onto the barrel further down the bore.

 

[BoydAllen]

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.

I think that one distinction that needs to be made is between Flitz polish and Flitz bore cleaner. In the case of the bore cleaner there is some abrasive that is quite easy to feel, not a lot, but it is definitely there.

 

[urbanrifleman]

I think that one distinction that needs to be made is between Flitz polish and Flitz bore cleaner. In the case of the bore cleaner there is some abrasive that is quite easy to feel, not a lot, but it is definitely there.

I called the manufacturer. They said (I'm quoting here ) "the material in Flitz Barrel Cleaner is so fine that it is not considered an abrasive".

Probably on par with "swirl remover" for car paint.

Certainly not enough abrasive to EVER remove steel. Like. Ever.

 

[urbanrifleman]

In the 1990s I was a plant engineer at International Truck (Navistar) Springfield Assembly Plant. I worked with some of the finest engineers, fabricators, machinists, toolmakers, electricians, and maintenance managers that ever lived. We built entire departments of equipment, machines and fixtures. Millions and millions of dollars.

Well, the upper managers came up with this notion called the "challenge chip". It was a poker chip that you threw out when (in a meeting) someone said something unfounded or combative, or basically when someone was just talking out of the side of their mouth. My friend Chris Keaton (the finest electrical controls engineer that ever lived) called this poker chip the "bullshit chip".

So, when you heard "well I heard", or "this one time", and of course "everyone knows", etc etc ol' Chris would throw out his bullshit chip and say "show me... I'm from Missouri, show me". And if they couldn't, we just moved on.

Well, I'm throwing out the chip. Until someone shows me you can remove material from a steel barrel with cloth and Iosso or Flitz (which I'm saying can't be done), or you can remove steel with a soft bronze brush (which I'm saying can't be done), and by logic placing one on the other can't remove steel, I'm simply going to remain on my side of the fence. No matter how authoritative the person on the other side may be.

 

[DLT]

I myself can’t fathom how that much material is being removed from a barrel, but I do know that there are people out there who can tear up a tombstone with a marshmallow and swear they did nothing wrong

 

[DaveTooley]

In the 1990s I was a plant engineer at International Truck (Navistar) Springfield Assembly Plant. I worked with some of the finest engineers, fabricators, machinists, toolmakers, electricians, and maintenance managers that ever lived. We built entire departments of equipment, machines and fixtures. Millions and millions of dollars.

Well, the upper managers came up with this notion called the "challenge chip". It was a poker chip that you threw out when (in a meeting) someone said something unfounded or combative, or basically when someone was just talking out of the side of their mouth. My friend Chris Keaton (the finest electrical controls engineer that ever lived) called this poker chip the "bullshit chip".

So, when you heard "well I heard", or "this one time", and of course "everyone knows", etc etc ol' Chris would throw out his bullshit chip and say "show me... I'm from Missouri, show me". And if they couldn't, we just moved on.

Well, I'm throwing out the chip. Until someone shows me you can remove material from a steel barrel with cloth and Iosso or Flitz (which I'm saying can't be done), or you can remove steel with a soft bronze brush (which I'm saying can't be done), and by logic placing one on the other can't remove steel, I'm simply going to remain on my side of the fence. No matter how authoritative the person on the other side may be.

SO you're saying all of us who have first person experience with this are full of bull shit?

 

[dellet]

In the 1990s I was a plant engineer at International Truck (Navistar) Springfield Assembly Plant. I worked with some of the finest engineers, fabricators, machinists, toolmakers, electricians, and maintenance managers that ever lived. We built entire departments of equipment, machines and fixtures. Millions and millions of dollars.

Well, the upper managers came up with this notion called the "challenge chip". It was a poker chip that you threw out when (in a meeting) someone said something unfounded or combative, or basically when someone was just talking out of the side of their mouth. My friend Chris Keaton (the finest electrical controls engineer that ever lived) called this poker chip the "bullshit chip".

So, when you heard "well I heard", or "this one time", and of course "everyone knows", etc etc ol' Chris would throw out his bullshit chip and say "show me... I'm from Missouri, show me". And if they couldn't, we just moved on.

Well, I'm throwing out the chip. Until someone shows me you can remove material from a steel barrel with cloth and Iosso or Flitz (which I'm saying can't be done), or you can remove steel with a soft bronze brush (which I'm saying can't be done), and by logic placing one on the other can't remove steel, I'm simply going to remain on my side of the fence. No matter how authoritative the person on the other side may be.

How much metal has to be removed to change your mind/win the challenge?

You clearly don’t believe that a crown can be damaged by cleaning from the muzzle end, or pulling the brush back and forth through the muzzle?

 

[J.d. Popkes]

 

[urbanrifleman]

SO you're saying all of us who have first person experience with this are full of bull shit?

I threw out my challenge chip. I think I stated my challenge pretty clear.

Take a cloth and either of those two cleaners and remove metal from a barrel. Take a bronze brush and remove steel from a barrel.

Chris Keaton called it bullshit, I didn't.

 

[urbanrifleman]

How much metal has to be removed to change your mind/win the challenge?

Good question!!

Which challenge? How would you do it?

I suggested it would be pretty easy. Take a section of barrel. Measure the od. Spin in a lathe and hold the material on the od and show that it removed metal. Should be easy to show with high speed that it removes material way faster than by hand.

 

[urbanrifleman]

I decided while I drink my coffee I'm going to take my own challenge.

I'll have my results in a few minutes.

 

[dellet]

Good question!!

Which challenge? How would you do it?

I suggested it would be pretty easy. Take a section of barrel. Measure the od. Spin in a lathe and hold the material on the od and show that it removed metal. Should be easy to show with high speed that it removes material way faster than by hand.

Depending on your thoughts about muzzle damage due to cleaning from the wrong end, the challenge is already won.

As far as proving it, I figured I’d just hand a brand new rifle with no access to the breech end and a cleaning kit with 10,000 patches and 100 brushes to a 10 year old and tell him to call me when it’s clean or your out of patches.

 

[urbanrifleman]

Okay so I made a mark on the barrel so I could make sure I measured the exact same place.



This is my initial measurement



This is after 30 seconds at 1800 rpm. I figured this might represent a lifetime of cleaning with a patch.



As you can see I can't get any difference it's beyond the capability of my my micrometer and my measuring technique to be able to measure any difference. I'm just going to assume it's exactly the same.

Feel free to repeat the experiment That's what science is all about.