[scrat]

Ok my list is best to worst

Trail Boss ----almost no dirty brass very easy to clean up
Win 748----- a little more dirty than Trail boss but managable
H4198------ a lot more dirty brass. Barrel needs a lot of cleaning
H4895-------omg ***. The brass is filthy. At the range 10 passes with a bronze brush and a patch wrapped in hoppes. a new patch every pass and its still dirty.

H4895 though gave me great accuracy on what i was using but wow that powder is un real my brass looks like trash.


ok so lets see your list out there.

[Walkalong]

AA #9 - Clean
Solo 1000 - Very clean
American Select - Pretty clean
W231 - A little dirty
Trail Boss - Filthy - I was shooting it at LOW pressures
Red Dot - Very clean
700X - Very clean
AA #5 - Very clean
AA #2 - Very clean until pressure drops, then leftover granules.
WSF - Very clean
N310, N320, N340 - Ultra clean
H335 - Very clean
TAC - Very clean
IMR4895 - Very clean
IMR 3031 - Very clean
AA2015 - A little dirty, but accurate
N130 & N133 - Very clean
BL-C(2) - Very clean

Probably forgot some.

Naturally the application makes a difference in how clean powders burn.

[snuffy]

Who cares? As long as it does what it's supposed to, it gets cleaned after I get done shooting.

The only time I worry is with the AR-15. Since it poops inside it's feeding end, sometimes I worry about it. Again, the filth has never tied up a range session with the AR.

[Zak Smith]

Cleaning is over-rated.

If the outside of rifle brass has soot or fouling, it usually indicates an under-pressure load.

[rcmodel]

Scrat
Are you shooting Cowboy Action loads?
I noticed you compared Trail Boss to H4198 & H4895 in your scale of dirtyness ratings.

Most IMR type powders won't burn clean with low pressure / reduced loads.
They are not supposed to.

Crank them up where they are designed to operate and they are about as clean as anything else.

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j219/rcmodel/KTOG/1224.gif
rcmodel

[taliv]

usually, but not always, in my experience

the accurate data powders (2230c, DP74, etc) that I've shot in 223/308 are noticeably dirtier (and stinkier) than the likes of varget and R15 given all of them at near max loads.

titegroup that i've shot in 45acp is WAY dirtier than Vhitavuori

[scrat]

Yep mostly lead cowboy action. thats where i have noticed trail boss actually did ok. but some of the others wow.

[Ala Dan]

Best:

Hodgdon's Universal Clays
Alliant Bullseye
Hodgdon's TiteGroup

Worst:

Alliant Unique
Alliant 2400

[BsChoy]

Cleaning is over-rated.

Zak, being a hard core precision guy, how often do you clean and do you shoot naked or molyied bullets? I have noticed my guns seem to shoot better dirty to a degree...

[zxcvbob]

I load to the upper end of the load data; if a near-max load is too powerful, I switch to a faster burning powder and load it as high as I can. All smokeless powders burn more efficiently that way. I haven't found any powders to be excessively dirty when loaded hot. (Pyrodex doesn't count) :)

The minimum loads can be pretty filthy. More powder = less soot.

[RON in PA]

Gotta laugh, shoot some black power and tell me about dirty. That's why God invented Hoppe's.:D

[Fatelvis]

My guns stay cleanest.... by not shooting them.

[Master Blaster]

Trail Boss - Filthy - I was shooting it at LOW pressures

Huh???? Trailboss is made for lead bullets, at moderate to low velocities, I have loaded and shot about 8,000+- rounds of .45 acp,.45colt, .44mag and .357/.38spl loads loaded per hodgdon's data for cowboy action over the past 2 years. Trailboss is my powder for accuracy loads in .45acp with a 200LSWC or 230RNL.
Its by far the cleanest powder with lead bullets, NOTHING is even close, NO SMOKE, NO FOULING. Any other powder is like BP compared to trailboss.

It is not for jacketed bullets.

[strat81]

I don't mind anything that's a little dirty. Considering how dirty cheap factory ammo is, light loads with Titegroup aren't so bad. Lighter loads might be a little dirtier than their stouter counterparts, but they don't batter the gun as much and you get more rounds per pound of powder (assuming you are working with safe loads, low or high).

[scrat]

i totally agree with master blaster. Now you dont get all the bells and whistles when shooting trail boss. However it is the cleanest i have ever shot for lead cowboy style shooting. i would say that anyone saying it is a dirty powder has false information. That or they just need to revisit it again.

[Walkalong]

It is not for jacketed bullets

I was shooting plated bullets. Maybe that was the problem.

[akaduck]

IMR 4064 - FILTHY. After putting 80 rounds down range, it took me well over 50 patches and 10 brush applications to get the bore clean.

[BsChoy]

I love 4064...it is a but dirty but i live with it due to the outcome it always gives me

[NVMM]

I'm suprised no has mentioned Clays.

[Zak Smith]

Zak, being a hard core precision guy, how often do you clean and do you shoot naked or molyied bullets? I have noticed my guns seem to shoot better dirty to a degree...
I shoot only non-coated bullets. I haven't had the accuracy in any of my bolt rifles go bad because of lack of cleaning. I didn't clean my 308 barrel for a year and several thousand rounds. Then it shot this group:
http://demigodllc.com/~zak/DigiCam/CSGW-ST10/?small=D101_2990_img.jpg

[BsChoy]

Nough' said for me Zak thank you...not that I will wait a year but anyway...

[ArchAngelCD]

Then it shot this group:
Zac,
Did I mention how much I hate you?? But I don't mean that in a bad way!!! :p

BTW, I want to thank you for your WEB site on "PRACTICAL LONG RANGE RIFLE SHOOTING." I bought a 1917 Enfield a while back that someone sported out. The barrel is a Winchester and in good shape. I'm just starting to "try" to distance shoot and your site is a huge help...

[Master Blaster]

ZAK that is great shooting, IIRC you have some very expensive custom rifles,which have hand lapped barrels right???

Some of us have factory rifles like rem 700's and savage 110's so with their rough factory barrels, not hand lapped, a couple thousand rounds could completely obscure the rifling with copper fouling.

[Don't Tread On Me]

I shoot only non-coated bullets. I haven't had the accuracy in any of my bolt rifles go bad because of lack of cleaning. I didn't clean my 308 barrel for a year and several thousand rounds. Then it shot this group:
http://demigodllc.com/~zak/DigiCam/C...1_2990_img.jpg

How clean is clean?
We get this question many times and have a great deal of difficulty helping some customers understand that a rifle barrel does not have to be spotless to shoot great. Many times more harm than good is done in trying to get it that way. Picture a car's fender. If the fender has a small dent in it, then professional application of body putty fills the dent. When painted over, the dent becomes unnoticeable, and the surface of the fender is smooth and consistent. The same thing happens in a rifle barrel on a microscopic level. Removing this small trace of copper puts you right back to square one. The next bullet that crosses that area will, again, leave a small trace of copper. Similar to patching a pothole. All successful benchrest shooters shoot one or more "fouler" shots down the barrel before going to the record target. This is not to warm up the barrel. They are resurfacing it on the inside. Benchrest shooters clean between relays to get the powder fowling out, not the copper. However, since copper usually comes out with the powder, they know that it must be replaced to get "back in the groove". I've had shooters tell me they "cleaned their rifle for 3 hours to get all the copper out of it." Their next statement is almost invariably that they had to shoot 4-5 rounds through it just to get it back to "shooting" again. This tells me that in order for the rifle to shoot well again, they had to replace the copper they worked so diligently to remove. I have a 7x08 Improved that shoots the same 1/2" MOA after 15 minutes of cleaning or 3 hours of scrubbing and de-coppering. Personally, I prefer shooting to cleaning. The gist of this is to set a regular cleaning regimen and stay with it. If the accuracy of the rifle is acceptable with a 15 min. cleaning, why clean longer? I would much rather have people admiring the groups I shot than marveling at how clean my barrel looks on the inside.


What Zak says is accurate, pardon the pun.


Shilen also makes perfect sense. If copper "built up" then the bore would shrink! There is only 3 things that can happen. 1] the bore shrinks progressively while each bullet leaves copper behind causing "build up" 2] the bullets "suck up" copper as they go through the bore, while they leave copper behind for the next bullet to do the same process 3] The bore gets a slight copper foul and that's it!


I think #3 is the only logical possibility.


There's a condition here though. It could be different for a rough bore on a lesser quality factory barrel. Perhaps that doesn't apply there because that bore is being "lapped" by every shot the first few hundred rounds, so the bore in a factory gun is experiencing a more significant change in surface than the bore of a match-grade barrel which began life with accuracy from day one.


In reality, that wouldn't be a copper fouling issue, it would be a barrel break-in or wear-in issue.


******


As for the topic, cleanest powder I've ever used was TAC. Wow. 2-patch clean! When I heard that on the web, I thought it was more internet BS. It's for real. It is also the ideal burn rate for many .223 loads. That makes it a great choice for the AR-15 rifle which is a filthy gun.

[Zak Smith]

Yep, this is with premium match-quality barrels. I've seen the same thing in Kriegers, AI (probably Border), Rock, and Satern-- which are all the "good" barrel makers I've tried so far.

-z