A couple of things. First of all, if you look at the MSDS for Free All and research all of the ingredients, one of the major components is a SOLVENT for nitrocellulose, which is the main component of smokeless powder. Granted we are talking about removing a combustion product of nitrocellulose, but I think that the ingredient may have some effect on a small fraction of what we are trying to remove, and that that is significant. Another thing, I would guess that no one who does well in competition, or even makes a decent showing, has the hard carbon that I was helping guys with, so what we did was essentially for another situation than most who post here have dealt with, for the same reason that I have not either, we never let things get that far out of hand. Finally, method. A few years back a friend got to know Walt Berger and hit it off with him well enough that Walt shared what his source was for moly powder, how he coated bullets and how he cleaned. Remembering that back when Berger Bullets sold coated bullets, that the instructions, meant for after extended shooting, included using JB, I was curious about how Walt was cleaning many years later, since he was still shooting moly coated bullets even though the company had long since stopped offering them that way. The point that I am leading up to is about bronze wool, which is similar to steel wool, only softer. He would wrap it around his bronze brush and scrub with it using solvent in the barrel and on the bronze wool and brush combination. Since I have always known that Walt was a very sharp person, even in his old age, I just had to try this, so I bought some off of Amazon, wrapped a worn brush to a snug to tight fit and gave it a try. It worked well, but I soon learned not to let the combination go out of the muzzle because it was a bit challenging to put back in. Later when I was helping fellows with extreme cases of hard carbon, we modified the method to make it easier to short stroke in the barrel, because we observed that the length that the hard carbon extended down the bore, shortened as we removed it, scrubbing by scrubbing. This allowed the shooter to work in the area where the remaining hard carbon was. While some good work can be done with a tight bronze brush, I cannot reverse one that is not worn out, mid bore. For the less experience, if you can reverse a bronze brush in the barrel, it is worn out. Toss it, or use it to brush the insides of case necks, which is what I do.
