copper fouling

[searcher]

I have a Remington .223 factory varmint barrel that was so rough, I spent about as much time trying to get the copper out as I did shooting it. Even with moly bullets, problem persisted. The barrel was VERY accurate. Prior to pulling the barrel, I decided to buy some of the abrasive coated bullets sold by David Tubb's company. Figured not much to lose. Accuracy did not change at all (no better - no worse). The bullets will not remove heavy machine marks common to factory bores - but they do smooth them out enough to make them noticeably easier to clean. I've used them in three rifles now, with similar results in all three. If Tubb has them in .20 caliber, I'd try them. If he doesn't, I think I recall a few other places that sold similar products back when I was looking. If you hand-load, try moly or other coatings. They can help.

 

[Patch700]

We're that my rifle I would take to it with JB bore paste until I was quite sure I wore the bearings out of the cleaning rod. .. I have managed to make some decent shooters out of what would normally be called tomato stakes by taking this action..

Bottom line is it will either help or you will have to replace the barrel. ... which at some point is inevitable anyways.

The problem I had when it came to trying to get a factory copper scraper to shoot was the small window a person has before the accuracy falls off again if you play that game where you leave a plating if you will of copper in there to take up the rough bore. Try the bore paste it's cheap , if it doesn't help you have yourself a great excuse to get a new pipe.

Good luck.

 

[CatShooter]

My experience with the 39BK's in several different 20 cal aftermarket hand-lapped button rifled barrels was they are pretty fragile, sensitive to barrel conditions, while the 40 vmax was not. 12tw works fine for me, while the 11tw may be in theory a better choice.

I took apart some 20 calibre 39gr SBK and a 40gr V-Maxs...

The 40gr V-max jacket is 3 thou thicker than the 39gr SBK.

Both will do fine in a 10" twist at 204-R velocities.

 

[GrocMax]

My experience with the 39BK's in several different 20 cal aftermarket hand-lapped button rifled barrels was they are pretty fragile, sensitive to barrel conditions, while the 40 vmax was not. 12tw works fine for me, while the 11tw may be in theory a better choice.

I took apart some 20 calibre 39gr SBK and a 40gr V-Maxs...

The 40gr V-max jacket is 3 thou thicker than the 39gr SBK.

Both will do fine in a 10" twist at 204-R velocities.

If they made 'em a teensy bit thicker or tougher they'd be great, when they worked for me, they worked quite well, just the 30+% grey mist in the scope rate was too much. Prefer shooting PD's and not scrubbing barrels.

 

[Rpbump]

Use Patch-away and then Wipe-away I do not use a bore paste and scrub.

Rpbump

 

[A_Gamehog]

First things first. You need a reference point to start with, get 20 rds. of Factory 32 Grain ammo from Hornady to test your rifle. No handload from this site will work in your chamber 100% certain. Once you shoot some test groups let us know the results. I have 4 Savage .204 Ruger rifles now and they all have McGowen 11 twist custom barrels. Some 12 Twist rifles won't shoot the 40's short lead core 39's shoot in all of them. Start with 32's and then worry about the bore and possible fouling. I have shot over 300+ rds in a squirrel patch without cleaning, and it still shoots 1moa, foam the bore overnight and it's clean for the next day.
Don't waste money on the 40's till you know your rifle shoots the 32's. It might be something else, (mabe the prevous owner shot the barrel hot). One day in a good dogtown you can mess up the barrel easily if you don't watch the heat between rds.

 

[bigedp51]

Below is a custom made hand lapped barrel.

Below is a Savage barrel before and after fire lapping, fire lapping was done because of the amount of copper the bore was eating.

J&B bore paste will not remove the button rifled speed bumps, and as I said before just give it one shot of foam bore cleaner and call it quits. Anything else is just over cleaning because the next time you pull the trigger the bottom of the speed bumps will fill with copper all over again.

 

[amlevin]

Why not just hand lap the barrel? Rather than dealing with "symptoms" get to the cure.

Rather than fire lapping make a hard lap and hand work the barrel until it looks more like the top picture in Big Ed's post.

600 grit silicon carbide lapping compound with a poured lap will do a far better job of smoothing the grooves and top of the lands than a bullet coated with the same material. Just takes more time but a far more controllable process.


BTW, J-B Bore Bright is nothing more than a paste made with Jeweler's Rouge. Your arm will fall off before you'll smooth out most copper fouling barrels if even then.