Stubborn Copper Fouling

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Hey, thanks everyone!!!!

I think I'll add sweets 7.62 and the foaming bore cleaner to my list next time I hit up the gun shop. And I only remove the action everyother time, I live in nw Wa. And my hands sweat so I like to be sure there is no rust forming on my action. If I don't check, sure enough, next time (a few weeks to a few months) there will be some light orange on my oil rag. Thanks for the advice. My gun right now shoots 5 shot groups at about 1.10"-.8" but I'm just learning so I'm hopefull this will shrink. And wd40 is all my dad will use on his shotgun... No help there

Thanks guys!!
 
i have seen the leadout cloths before, but it was about 4 bucks for 20 patches....worth it? how many barrel cleanings do you get from a pack/patch?
 
If you can find it, Montana Extreme is really potent stuff that cleans copper out very well. I found it works better than Barnes CR10 on Barnes X bullets. I have never used Sweets.
 
I've used sweets and regular hoppes (which I leave in for 15min to 24 hrs depending on what I'm doing). I use 4-5 iterations of dry-wet patches (after a quick brushing) before I put the rifle up.

Don't ever dunk bronze brushes into solvent. A given amount of solvent can only dissolve so much copper and it's not going to work well if you've been putting it to work eating up your brushes.

By removing the stock every time, you're doing far more damage than good. Nothing's getting dirty in there. Unless you're shooting in the rain, it really never ever needs to be done. Additionally, it often takes a couple of rounds for the rifle to settle back into the stock once you've removed it. You'll have a difficult time finding a gunsmith that would recommend doing that routinely.

Unless you're see accuracy start to drop off, the copper in your barrel isn't doing anything bad.
 
Ok, I went to Sportsmans warehouse... picked up some Gunslick Foaming bore cleaner... That has to be the easyest way of cleaning you guns ever!!! I just shot it down the bore till it came out the other end, 15-20 min later push it out w/ patch, 3-5 strokes with brass brush, 2 oiled patches... DONE!!!
 
Ok, I went to Sportsmans warehouse... picked up some Gunslick Foaming bore cleaner... That has to be the easyest way of cleaning you guns ever!!! I just shot it down the bore till it came out the other end, 15-20 min later push it out w/ patch, 3-5 strokes with brass brush, 2 oiled patches... DONE!!!
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Yep. That'a about all I use for copper anymore. Non toxic and seems to work very well. Once in a while I'll need 2 applications to get it all but not usually. It's nice to not have the gun room stinking of ammonia for a couple of hours.
 
Bench Rest 9 is an ok product. It's called Benchrest because this formula is specifically aimed at removing copper fouling. The original #9 will eat copper but not nearly as well. The problem with Benchrest #9 is you have to soak overnight and it stinks. Foaming bore cleaners are more effective at copper removal and the Gunslick brand I use is odorless and non-toxic. It only takes 15-30minutes too. Not overnight.
 
Hoppe's bottle leaks

Thanks.

Yeh, the other thing about Hoppe's I have is that the bottle leaks. I have to keep it wrapped in absorbent paper and inside a plastic bag, else it "slimes" everything. However, if a bottle can't contain it, it must be some darn-good penetrant!

You may wonder how it is that I have some Hoppe's and don't know how it works? I am a newbie to rifles and don't have access to any bore inspection equipment, to look for the copper. What is the best/cheapest for that?

Bill
 
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Flashlight shined 45degrees into the muzzle will reveal if there's any copper in the last few inches of the barrel. That's all you really need to know unless you're a competitive shooter who demands perfection. Remember most factory barrels shoot better with a little copper in the barrel anyway. Don't feel like you have to get every bit of it out. It won't hurt anything unless it reaches a level it affects accuracy. I clean it out because I'm anal about stuff like that but I realize it's not absolutely necessary to remove all copper after every range session.
 
copper-burnished bore - a good thing (?)

Horsemany,

I kinda agree with you that copper rubbed into the microscopic scratch-bottoms and pits in the bore is a good thing. The copper will "flow" or be "burnished" down into the depressions by rubbing with a harder tool. In this case, it is NOT a harder tool but a copper-clad bullet that is doing the rubbing. So burninshing is probably not the right word. But it probably works pretty much the same anyway. The filling of pits, depressions and such with copper could smooth out the passage of the bullet. However, it would depend on how nice and flat and smooth the copper gets/stays. This would be pretty easy to see and characterize with a microscope, and I am sure the military and the big gun manufacturers have looked at this. The only other concern is that copper rubbing on copper is fairly "sticky" from a friction point of view. I could look that up - I work in a related field. However, the powder residue and burnt gun oil probably change this friction coefficient completely - and almost certainly for the better. As I say, copper-on-copper is a high friction "couple", and there would be "drag-along" of old copper by new copper if not for the powder residue, etc. The drag-along would probably pile up, break off and make the copper not as smooth as we'd like. It is a complex situation, but generally copper filling the voids should be good, I think.
 
It may have more friction but it changes little IMO. At least I can tell you that my chronograph doesn't read different velocities as the bore copper fouls. So if there is more friction it's not enough to change the velocity of the bullet.
 
It is a complex situation, but generally copper filling the voids should be good, I think.
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Somebody needs to help me understand how the copper gets into these voids in the first place.
 
The low spots fill in with copper and it stays there compared to the copper that sits on a hight spot. The high spots are worn away from the next bullet fired. Every rifle I own doesn't shoot it's best when it's been freshly cleaned of copper. Most take around 20 shots of fouling to "settle in".
 
Horsemany,

Excellent! I love it when data answers a question! See my profile (for why I would love it, I mean).

So maybe the copper is lubricated by the powder residue or burnt gun oil.

Or, maybe the copper coloration we see is down in the grooves of the rifling and not on the raised lands. If it is down in the grooves, it may be the drag-along copper I mentioned being finally rubbed off and deposited there.

As usual, the answer to one question leaves/raises two more. But that's what progress looks like....
 
Win71,

The copper rubs off the copper cladding of the mid-to-rear "belly" of the bullet. For precision rifle ammo, almost all bullets are coated, plated, clad, jacketed or whatever you want to call it, with copper. When you see FMJ = "Full Metal Jacket", the jacket is usually a thin layer of copper. But even with the various types of hollow-points and soft-point bullets, where the tip of the bullet is exposed lead (so it'll mushroom better, lead being almost the softest metal available that's still heavy), the mid-rear belly of the bullet will usually be coated with copper. Copper rubs off onto the steel on the inside bore of the barrel because copper is much, much softer and weaker than steel. That's on purpose - you don't want to tear up the steel of your gun barrel just by firing a bullet down it.

Soooooooo, now, you might be asking yourself, "Why bother putting the copper on if the lead is even softer?" I'll leave that one for someone else to answer....
 
Your accuracy will suffer more...

If you continue to pop the action out of the stock's bedding than a little copper fouling will ever contribute.

Leave the action in the stock. Leave the action screws torqued to a consistent inch/pound value.

Clean the gun when assembled.

You're rifle's zero will thank you for that little detail.

Trust me. ;)

How many rounds in that gun, btw?

You may be simply ironing out some tooling marks in the barrel, which appears not to be a Krieger, Shilen, Rock, Hart, Lilja, Badger, Obermeyer, or other barrel known for being lapped smooth at the factory.

Continue to shoot and clean. I'd wager it'll settle down after a while.
 
Soooooooo, now, you might be asking yourself, "Why bother putting the copper on if the lead is even softer?" I'll leave that one for someone else to answer....
Click to expand...

One reason is that lead, being even softer than copper, gunks up a bore even worse. There are probably also other reasons I'm unaware of.
 
Bill Rights

Thanks, I think I understood this part:
Copper rubs off onto the steel on the inside bore of the barrel because copper is much, much softer and weaker than steel.
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It would seem logical that the "high" spots inside the bore or at least the areas that aren't voids are the areas causing this loss of copper. It would seem that copper would be everywhere in the bore except the voids. I still don't understand how this copper gets into the "Voids", i.e., the low spots.
 
I have been using butches bore shine on my Les Baer .204 and I have been happy with it. However I used hopps #9 for years on my 30 year old ruger and never had any complaints.
any one else use butches bore shine?
 
It would seem logical that the "high" spots inside the bore or at least the areas that aren't voids are the areas causing this loss of copper. It would seem that copper would be everywhere in the bore except the voids. I still don't understand how this copper gets into the "Voids", i.e., the low spots.
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Copper is distributed over everything it touches. I forms a smooth layer of copper that is smoother than a factory bore. ie filling in the lows and maintaining a smooth layer of copper.

usmc1371

I don't use Butch's anymore because there are other products that work better and aren't so toxic or stinky. It's a good product but I like Sweet's, Barnes, and Gunslick Foaming bore cleaner a whole lot better. I have to keep my old stash of Barnes out in the garage because it was stinking up my gunroom. It even comes packaged now in the glass bottle inside another airtight plastic bottle. It's one of the few solvents that still contians the carcinogen nitrobenzene. It's a good cleaner and you'll never have copper problems with Butch's. I just like the others better.
 
Copper is distributed over everything it touches.
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I guess I'm not thinking straight and I hate it when that happens.

If a tire is skidding down the road and it hits a pot hole and the pot hole is big enough there will be rubber skid marks in the bottom of the hole. If the hole is the size of a quarter there will not be skid marks and rubber in the bottom. Why? Because the tire doesn't "touch" the bottom.

Just how big are these "voids" in the barrel? For them to fill up with copper by the passing bullet "touching" the bottom they must be longer than the bearing surface of the bullet. If that is the case then I understand the theory. If it isn't the case then I still don't understand how they get filled up.

I don't know why I even care since I try to keep all of my small bore target rifles as free of copper as I can anyway.
 
filling voids with copper

Win71,

Relax. Don't give up caring about it. I think I understand enough to explain it to you.

Imagine slush on a paved road, pavement that has big (1/2" - 1") gravel held in with tar. Many cars driving. The slush gets pushed and squished around and ends up in the spaces (voids!) between the gravel stones sticking up. The tops of the stones stay relatively clean because they get direct contact with the cars' tires. Well, in the bore of a barrel, the copper behaves like the slush and the bullets are like the cars' tires. There's just no comparison between the forces generated by the cars' weight and speed and the forces the slush is able to resist by its own strength and stiffness. I know its hard to imagine copper being soft as slush (it's not), but the weight and speed of a bullet generate forces so extreme that copper just gets pushed around like slush (putty?, butter?). Not to mention "hot flashes" of temperature from exploding powder that help to soften, maybe anneal, maybe even melt, maybe maybe even vaporize the previously deposited copper. (Any such temperature "spikes" would be only milliseconds in duration, but might still be a factor.)

Does that analogy help? No? Well, here's another one. Right after it rained, my Dad used to send me out to push a water-filled roller on the lawn. Any high spots in the ground (now mud, not dirt) would "flow" and fill the low spots. Copper = mud, bullet = roller. Make sense?

Bill
 
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