Bronze transfer from brush to bore?

[gopackgo]

I cleaned my Redhawk the other day and when I finished I shined a bore light into it and noticed some faint reddish staining. This was sort of linear and was not associated with raised deposits or pitting. I repeated the process and it was still there. At no time did I notice any red staining on the cleaning patches, just the usual small amount of black deposit. This cleaning was after about a month of storage in a dehumidified gun safe. I use Breakfree as a lube and Hoppes as a solvent and have never noticed a rust problem on any of my guns. I do not think that this is rust, because there were never any rust stains on the patches at any time. My question is, can a bore brush transfer bronze to the metal of the bore and cause discoloration?

 

[Bovice]

That's not what it is. That's copper fouling from shooting jacketed bullets. I have not found hoppe's #9 to do much of anything for removing copper fouling. The benchrest formula might do better, but I just use hoppe's for powder fouling. You need to get a solvent which is explicitly marked as being able to remove copper fouling. Pro-Shot is what I use.

I start with a regular solvent (hoppe's #9) and get all the carbon fouling out. Once that's done, I run a patch soaked in Pro-shot down the barrel. Let that sit for 10 minutes and then push a dry patch through. It should come out a blue color, like denim. Keep pushing dry patches through until they're not blue anymore.

The bore should have no more copper stuck in it. I'd also like to add that it isn't a huge deal if there is copper fouling in there, so you don't have to do this every time. Just once in a while. Precision rifles are different. For my varmint AR, I use the copper solvent in it and let it sit for 10-15 minutes, and then dry patches. After that, a few wet patches of standard solvent and dry it out. Then I use a protectant. It has only seen a bore brush once, because it gets cleaned often and the solvent and patches take care of all of my problems. The 16" chromed bore gets a light brushing every 300 rounds or so, but still mostly just solvent/patch treatment.

 

[gopackgo]

Thanks. I will give a try to a copper solvent & use it like you advise. The more you know, right?

 

[Drail]

Mop some Sweet's 7.62 solvent into the bore and let it sit for 15 minutes. Repeat until you don't see any copper left or blue color on your patches. Be sure to get ALL of the solvent out. Some barrels are rough enough inside to retain a lot of copper jacketing. Ruger would be one of those. I shoot almost nothing but hard cast lead bullets and if I do shoot any jacketed bullets it does take much more effort and solvent to get it out of the barrel.