How To Remove Copper Fouling From A Rifle Barrel

How to Make clean a Rifle Barrel the Constructive and Harmless Way

Here are the tools, chemicals and the step-past-step procedure to easily and safely clean a rifle barrel.

With quality tools and correct materials, cleaning your burglarize butt is relatively piece of cake.

February fourteen, 2022

Two types of fouling build up in rifling. The least detrimental to accuracy and the easiest to clean out is carbon fouling. It'south the soot-type residue left by the burning gunpowder. The other type is copper fouling. It's copper residue that'southward basically smeared off the bullet into the pores and microfractures of the steel barrel.

Typically, the faster the velocity of your cartridge/bullet combination, the faster fouling builds up (both carbon and copper) and the heavier it builds.

At some betoken, accuracy begins to degrade, and to regain pinnacle functioning you lot've got to clean all that fouling out. Simply how many rounds you can burn down before degradation occurs depends on the quality of your burglarize's bore. Very smooth bores with minimal machining and tool marks usually tin can be shot far more than times earlier accuracy begins to drop off.

Gunpowder rest and copper bullet jacket residue both periodically need to be removed from your rifle barrel. The bluish streaks inside the muzzle are copper fouling, which oxidizes over fourth dimension. This barrel needs a proper cleaning.

One time you notice a reduction in precision, or peradventure before you lot brainstorm working upwards and tuning a new handload, or even just because you similar knowing your burglarize's barrel is in good health, occasionally y'all need to requite your barrel a good deep cleaning.

Here's how to clean well-nigh finer, using tools and solvents that are safe for your bore and heighten accurateness.

Tools, Solvents and Oils

For starters, always clean from the breech. Unless you can't, that is; for example when cleaning a pump-action or semiautomatic or lever-action design that doesn't permit access to the back of the barrel.

One time-piece cleaning rods are much easier on barrels than jointed, multi-piece rods, because there are no joints to flex and rub against the rifling within. Be sure your rod has a good, non-abrasive blanket.

E'er utilise a coated, jumpsuit cleaning rod. Coatings tin be of Teflon or whatsoever other non-abrasive finish. They prevent the sides of the cleaning rod from wearing on the rifling. This is particularly critical around the chamber throat and rifling leade expanse, where the rod is most likely to contact firmly and for extended length. Ane-piece rods don't have flexible joints that rub unevenly up and down against the rifling inside your barrel.

Carbon fouling can be removed pretty quickly, using cleaning patches on an appropriate-size cleaning jag. If you're not worried about copper, use a archetype mild solvent such as Hoppe's No. 9 (properly pronounced, "Hoppy'south"). Brush with a bronze or nylon cleaning castor to loosen heavy carbon fouling and speed upwards the process if necessary. Hoppe'south is also an anti-corrosion agent, and a thin layer may be left in the bore every bit a protectant.

Copper fouling is more difficult. Because the process of removing copper automatically deals with carbon fouling as well, I more often than not merely go direct after the copper.

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If your burglarize is of suitable blueprint, always clean from the breech and utilise a expert diameter guide to protect the rifling leade from chafe acquired by the cleaning rod.

Choosing a expert copper fouling solvent is critical to the health of your bore. Traditionally, the active ingredient in most dedicated copper solvents is ammonia. It works great on copper, dissolving it in pretty brusk order. However, it can etch the steel in your barrel, also, peculiarly if it's left in for more than 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the strength of the solvent.

Modern "gentle" copper solvents utilize chemicals that are harmless to steel, and won't harm your bore even if left in for extended periods. They take a little longer to dissolve the copper, merely it's well worth information technology.

Information technology's difficult to drive home strongly enough the take chances inherent to ammonia-based solvents. One time, while touring the Norma Ammunition facility in Sweden, I had the opportunity to visit with one of the company's pb product managers. This gentleman had qualified for four consecutive Olympics during his career. In other words, he knew shooting, and he knew rifle barrels.

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He told me he'd never apply any ammonia-based solvent. I asked why. "It gets into the microfractures of the steel, and keeps on working, eroding," he responded. "Eventually, like a crevasse in a glacier, the within of those microfractures go hollowed out, leaving pockets in the steel.

Cleaning from muzzle is sometimes necessary considering there's no access from the breech terminate. Use a cage-end bore guide to prevent the rod from wearing on the rifling effectually the muzzle crown.

"Plus, it'southward very hard to get out," my friend continued. "It migrates into every pore, and can't just be wiped out with dry patches. And a coat of oil on top of it doesn't neutralize information technology; it only traps it inside the pores of the steel."

That wasn't a pretty picture, particularly considering I'd cleaned the bore of my favorite custom 6.5-284 rifle with an aggressive ammonia-based copper solvent but before flight to Sweden. "Can y'all go it out?" I asked.

"Yep…" came the response. "Flush your bore with hot h2o for 10 minutes every twenty-four hour period for 5 days afterwards using ammonia in it."

I haven't used ammonia-based copper solvent since. By the by, you lot can ever tell an ammonia solvent by its sharp, astringent smell.

There are two copper-removing solvents I know of that work very well: Sharp Shoot'R offers two products, Wipe Out and Patch Out (foam and liquid), and Bore Tech has its Eliminator solvent.

Once your bore is clean and well dried out, yous'll desire to lay down a thin layer of rust and corrosion preventative, specially if y'all live in humid climates. Whatsoever quality gun oil will serve, merely a thin, penetrating oil called Kroil is a magic ingredient for protecting and "seasoning" a bore. More on seasoning in a flake.

Many types of copper-removing solvents comprise ammonia and are quite ambitious. If left in the bore also long, they'll compose the barrel steel, causing irreparable damage. Opt instead for a non-ammonia solvent such every bit Bore Tech Eliminator or the Abrupt Shoot'R Wipe Out and Patch Out shown here. Use Kroil—a premium penetrating oil—to season the bore and as an anticorrosive.

Barrel Cleaning Process

My kickoff step in cleaning a badly fouled rifle is to squirt Wipe Out foam in from the chamber cease. Put a Ziploc purse over the cage to catch drips—information technology's powerful soapy stuff.

Well-nigh 30 minutes afterward I wipe the foam residue out. Most of the carbon fouling comes with it. If there'southward significant copper in your bore, the liquid remainder will be bluish, as will your patch.

Next, I insert a diameter guide to protect the chamber pharynx from habiliment, and button three to five patches moisture with Patch Out solvent through, using a snug-fitting jag. Then I wrap a patch effectually a nylon brush that's one bore size too small, wet it with Patch Out, and scrub the bore. I make well-nigh 20 passes from breech to muzzle and back.

Dorsum to the jag, and patches wet with Patch Out. A half-dozen or and then should accept the bore pretty clean, and patches should be coming out nearly spotless.

If not, you may have a really muddy bore. Not to worry; just start the process over again. Even stubborn fouling should deliquesce and scrub out subsequently two or 3 cycles.

Once wet patches are coming out perfectly clean, I remove the bore guide and dry out the bore out with a serial of dry out patches. When truly dry, the bore should become about a rubbery feel, and the dry patches should become slightly more difficult to push through.

As long as your solvent-soaked cleaning patches keep coming out blue, there'southward still copper fouling in your bore. Go along working until they come out make clean.

Finally, dampen a patch with Kroil (obtainable from some hardware stores and online) and push information technology slowly through the bore. Turn the patch over on your jag, presenting a fresh surface on the outside, and button it through again.

Kroil, like a fine seasoning oil applied to a high-quality cast-iron pan or Dutch Oven, gives the surface of the steel a non-stick attribute. Treat with Kroil after every cleaning, and your rifle will foul slower, and clean easier.

Wipe downwardly your commodities body and commodities face with the Kroil patch, put a dab of commodities grease on the bolt locking lugs and cocking slice camming surfaces, and you're washed.

If you hunt boiling climates, peculiarly in areas with salt-body of water air, you're ready for the field. However, the thin protective layer of oil in your bore tin can cause a slight betoken of impact shift and minimal change in velocity for the first shot or two, so if yous hunt dryer, open-state areas, it's worth firing a few fouling shots before heading afield.

With your diameter clean and protected, your rifle is kept healthy and prepped to perform its best at the moment of truth.

Source: https://www.rifleshootermag.com/editorial/how-to-clean-a-rifle-barrel/457034

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