Use bronze brushes every time

[retired]

alex,
you forgot to mention that they wear out and need to be replaced.
as a child, we used the same brush that came in our cleaning kit for YEARS.
LOL

Use them every time you clean. And replace them often. Any time someone calls with any type of fouling issue they are not brushing or they are using a nylon brush. Save yourself grief, brush often. It wont hurt anything.

 

[group therapy]

A fellow by the name of Boyer has been using JB since he 1st started shooting Bench Rest and a Bronze brush and DOES not unscrew it before pulling it bac through the bore.

Once I asked him when a barrel starts to wear out --The 1st shot was his answer

Jim

he also snicks down the edges of the brush so it cant grab the edge of the bore while drawing it back through. not the bristles, the part that screws into the rod.

 

[WillyTP]

They make a nylon brush??

Yea for cleaning the inside of your brass neck

 

[retired]

i like brownells brushes.

 

[Ringostar]

They make a nylon brush??

Yes, they are for cleaning toilets.

 

[LA50SHOOTER]

Does one brand of brush stand out over the rest for quality? Troy

Troy, I like the ones Dewey makes because they have a Bonze core as well and good bristles.

 

[alf]

I haven't used a brass/bronze brush for years........

 

[LRPV]

Otis makes a really good brush. I like them.

 

[mikegaiz]

Yes, they are for cleaning toilets.

My toilets like them. have used only nylon since 2012 and a good solvent. I think my shooting has been ok, oh yea my brushes go both ways (in the barrel). Remember when the world was flat? Why change. Just because someone has a different opinion than yours, dose it make them wrong?

 

[K22]

I'm a bronze brush advocate also. About a year ago I switched solvents to from Shooter's Choice to Bore Tech. Wifey could no longer tolerate the smell of Shooter's Choice. Bore Tech has no odor.

Instead of their Eliminator product which requires the use of a nylon brush I opted for a two part cleaning process so I could use a bronze brush using C4 followed by C2 w/ nylon even though Bore Tech claims that only a nylon brush is required with any of their products. In some rifles I get no remaining copper indications after using C4. I verify C4's copper removal first cleaning of season then ever third cleaning with C2. Other older rifles I have to use C2 every cleaning to remove all copper.

I must say that I'm very impressed with Bore Tech's products. C4 does a great job of removing carbon and most copper too. The C2 work very well on copper.

I use Dewey bronze brushes which have looped ends and brass cores to minimize the chance of damage. The brushes fit well and have enough resistance to clean but glide smoothly in the bore so you don't have to force the rod down the bore. I change brushes ever 4 to 5 cleaning or when resistance falls off noticeably.

 

[DirtySteve]

Why don’t you go build a house...hope everything is going well for y’all. I use a bronze brush in mine ever so often as well.

I don't use brushes very often but I always use bronze. And why don't I build a house??? Well cause I am still moving crap. lol. Plus I ran into trouble selling some property. Seems if they left the last letter off your middle name it creates problems during closing. Heck when I got the deed I just threw it in the safe. I did not read it over.

 

[Jimmy James]

No brushes in my match barrels thank you very much.

 

[Jefferson]

- I make 3-5 passes with a bronze bristle brush when I clean & I push from the chamber end to the muzzle, screw it off the rod. - I don't pull it back as I don't want to do anything that can affect the crown. -I have never had any barrel maker try to discourage the use of a bronze bristle brush, but I have had proper cleaning technique emphasized by several. - About the only time I stroke back & forth is when I use ISSO and it is in short back & forth strokes in the area just forward of the throat and I use the hoop / slotted tip with a patch threaded through it.

I have never understood the screwing it off of the rod,

If one just starts the return stroke of the rod RATHER SLOWLY until the brush is once again into the barrel the crown is not damaged

Fake problem solved. Jeff

 

[22DASHER]

 

[Rsadams]

We have been cleaning rifles in my family with brushes for decades and the rifles are still fine some of them older than me by alot and I am 50 , pushing a brush through a hard steel barrel at the speed of smell shouldn't do anything compared to a bullet exiting... Although I have lost count of the people who have told me I was wrong and damaging the barrel... Yes although I don't anymore would pull the brush back through the bore and then shove it back through again till clean... I trust the barrels that still shoot fine in 70 year old guns that it must not be to horrible on them... Glad also Alex said it or it would be a dumpster fire in here..lol

 

[Dusty Stevens]

this goes right along with neck sizers. plastic brushes and neck sizing wastes more of a gunsmiths time than anything else. no wonder backlogs are so deep.

 

[KenOath]

I'm a bronze brush advocate also. About a year ago I switched solvents to from Shooter's Choice to Bore Tech. Wifey could no longer tolerate the smell of Shooter's Choice. Bore Tech has no odor.

Instead of their Eliminator product which requires the use of a nylon brush I opted for a two part cleaning process so I could use a bronze brush using C4 followed by C2 w/ nylon even though Bore Tech claims that only a nylon brush is required with any of their products. In some rifles I get no remaining copper indications after using C4. I verify C4's copper removal first cleaning of season then ever third cleaning with C2. Other older rifles I have to use C2 every cleaning to remove all copper.

I must say that I'm very impressed with Bore Tech's products. C4 does a great job of removing carbon and most copper too. The C2 work very well on copper.

I use Dewey bronze brushes which have looped ends and brass cores to minimize the chance of damage. The brushes fit well and have enough resistance to clean but glide smoothly in the bore so you don't have to force the rod down the bore. I change brushes ever 4 to 5 cleaning or when resistance falls off noticeably.

I use Bronze brushes with Boretech also, works well, check with borescope and keep going if I see more that needs to come out. I’ve only just recently switched from JB on patches to Iosso with there blue brush and I believe Iosso on the brush cleans more of the barrel better than JB does with equal effort. IME.

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

Does one brand of brush stand out over the rest for quality? Troy

Yes, I think so. I don't recall the name and don't know if he still carries them or not, but look up a guy named Bill Gammon on BRC. At least I think that's who I got them from. I need to do the same, as I need some brushes now.
Anyway, I ran into him at a shoot in Ohio several years ago. He was peddling what he claimed to be the best bronze brush ever..or something to that effect. I bought some and IMHO, he was right! I have to admit that I didn't really believe him until I saw the difference for myself. They are very good and last longer than others, to boot. I've not found any, before or since, that I like as well as his. Generally speaking though, just stay with a brush with a brass core with a closed end and smooth near the threaded end..as possible and it won't hurt a thing.

A premium lapped barrel is lapped with something between 240 and 320 grit abrasive. A bronze brush just isn't comparable to that. Anyone that cares to can take a new brush and scrub the outside of a polished ss barrel stub or similar to see what happens. Then do the same with some 240 grit paste! Lol!

I'm of the opinion that bronze won't ever hurt a barrel but that the dirt and debris that gets on the brush when using it, can. The other side to that is fewer rod strokes up and down the bore because you are using a brush is a good thing. I'm not a fan of uncoated ss rods either. There's no way to avoid rod contact with the bore from ever happening. The worst thing, IMO, is hitting a ss rod with the palm of your hand or similar. That rod WILL flex and slap the lands! That is not a good thing. I truly believe that more damage occurs from over cleaning and especially improper cleaning, than anything short of just plain burning up a barrel.

The only visual evidence I've seen of a brush is gradual dulling of the crown with time. By that time, most 6mm barrels are done anyway or very close to it. Touching up a crown periodically is cheap and is a good practice, IMHO. Like every 700-800 rounds.

 

[dcali]

Nylon brushes aren't all that bad. You'd think they were worthless from this thread. They do a good job of loosening up the crud before you patch it out. If you're not getting hard carbon or heavy copper fouling, they're plenty good and they last forever. I use them almost exclusively, and combined with some good solvent and JB, I rarely need anything else.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

when you polish oxidation off of a metal you dont use polishing compound on the head of a needle so why would you polish carbon out of a barrel with compound on the tip of a brush? would you wax a car with wax on a toilet brush?