copper fouling help

[DavidTM]

I don't know if you reload or not, but a shooting buddy of mine reloads for his Savage in 260 Rem and he buys all bulk bullets. But before he loads 'em he coats all of 'em with molly. After 20 rounds or maybe a few more than that, your barrel is fully coated with molly (and if you want you can always run a molly coated patch down the bore to pre-coat it) and his rifle hasn't see a blue patch since....well never. There's always nay-sayer's about molly coatings, but his 260 will kill Pa. groundhogs from 400 to 800 yards. Yeah....I've witnessed this.

Just a thought.

[Cfurlo]

Sweets or butches bore shine for normal cleaning. Montana extreme for excessive fouling. I normally don't brush at all unless there is extreme fouling, just push wet patches through and let the product work. I use the KG carbon cleaner, but not the 12 for copper, didn't really have luck with it, but the carbon stuff is awesome.

[Tomcat088]

First off, I wouldn't worry too much about the fowling. You're sweating it way too much. The other thing is that some people in this thread and offering some advice, which is great. I disagree with some of the information though. Have you read the "barrel break in" threads lately? I'm not saying that because you need to "break the barrel in" but because this entire issue and phenomenon has already been discussed there.

Not sure how such a low round count is fowling a new barrel so bad. Is the bore that rough? Are you scrubbing with a bronze brush? That leaves bronze streaks you know. Plastic won't but it can be harder on bores. You need to let solvent work over night. Hoppies no9 will do it if let saturated not filled up. JB bore compound will do it fast. You may be worrying about nothing. You can over clean a bore. If it is rough you could fire lap it.

Barrels don't only foul when they're shot out, they also foul "worse than normal" when they're brand new. It has nothing to do with the bore being rough, and has to do with the throat having burrs after the barrel has been chambered. The throat area on a rifle shouldn't be polished after the chamber is reamed because it makes the rifling that first engages the bullet be rounded and not crisp sharp edges. As a result, these burrs will strip off more copper from the bullets than usual until the burrs wear off. The cooper turns into a plasma and settles in the lands of the barrel. If he's seeing big long streaks, I don't think it's the bronze residue from the brush, but copper fouling.

As the astute MR. Guns n water stated it's probably bore brush residue and not copper fouling. Are the patches coming out blue green? I can't imagine heavy copper fouling with 37 rounds.......

Make sure your aren't fooling yourself into cleaning fiddlefuckitis!

I bet it's not brush residue at all, it's probably copper fouling because the barrel is just getting "broken in". Please see above, or some of the barrel break in threads for the explanation as to why you'd see this much heavy copper fouling after 37 rounds.

i used a bore bristle brush last year it got it clean this year its worst after 7 shots, ther bore looks rough but not the rifling, its strange coming from a prestigious rifle like the 700, im getting frustrated with it every time i go shoot it.

im hoping it smooths out soon cuz its the worst copper fouling i ever had to clean in any rifle or pistol i ever owned.

The Remington 700 isn't all that prestigious, and their barrels aren't anything super special over any other brand. If you run a bore scope through them, you'll see all kinds of imperfections because they're a factory rifle coming off of an assembly line, just like lots of others. I'd be careful cleaning with brushes just because if you're not careful, you can cause problems with your barrel by overcleaning. Lots of us don't even use brushes at all. I'd read this about barrel break in, so you know what is causing this and let it put your mind at rest. http://forum.pafoa.org/general-2/678...rel-break.html . The barrel is still smoothing out.

I don't know if you reload or not, but a shooting buddy of mine reloads for his Savage in 260 Rem and he buys all bulk bullets. But before he loads 'em he coats all of 'em with molly. After 20 rounds or maybe a few more than that, your barrel is fully coated with molly (and if you want you can always run a molly coated patch down the bore to pre-coat it) and his rifle hasn't see a blue patch since....well never. There's always nay-sayer's about molly coatings, but his 260 will kill Pa. groundhogs from 400 to 800 yards. Yeah....I've witnessed this.

Just a thought.

Moly isn't going to be the answer the OP's "problem". Some shooters like moly, and nowadays it's a bit more of a passing fad than anything else. Moly was toted as the end all be all for a while, and people really liked it. They got a little better velocities than they did with their naked bullets, and some people felt like they got less fouling with it. One thing was certain, and that was that the bullets didn't shoot in the same place when you compared a non moly coated bullet to a moly coated bullet. That usually didn't matter because usually if you shot only one or the other (moly coated or not), they still shot and grouped just fine. Nowadays, lots of people decided that they didn't like moly coated bullets because the moly in the barrel tended to gather moisture and they had to deal with wax to seal the moly on. Another problem was something called "outgassing" from the moly at "low" temperatures relative to what you see with firearms. Most people who were serious about moly have now moved on to other coatings like Boron Nitride, since it doesn't have the drawbacks that moly does. So I hate to break it to you, but the Moly isn't the cause of the accuracy, and it also probably isn't the reason that he "hasn't seen a blue patch" ever since then.

Something else to keep in mind is that not all cleaners have indicators on them, and not all solvents clean copper. Lots of times the indicator is just that, an indicator and may not actually have all that big of an effect on the copper. Just some things for everyone to think about, and I hope that the post helps the OP.

[red dog]

I,m thinking barrel still needs broke in. if you want to help it along try fire lapping it. if you are going to reload check out the newer cfe powder. I have tried it in .223 and have noticed easier cleaning. don,t get to excited with minimal residue left in barrel. let your groups dictate your cleaning regime.

[Gunsnwater]

First off, I wouldn't worry too much about the fowling. You're sweating it way too much. The other thing is that some people in this thread and offering some advice, which is great. I disagree with some of the information though. Have you read the "barrel break in" threads lately? I'm not saying that because you need to "break the barrel in" but because this entire issue and phenomenon has already been discussed there.


Barrels don't only foul when they're shot out, they also foul "worse than normal" when they're brand new. It has nothing to do with the bore being rough, and has to do with the throat having burrs after the barrel has been chambered. The throat area on a rifle shouldn't be polished after the chamber is reamed because it makes the rifling that first engages the bullet be rounded and not crisp sharp edges. As a result, these burrs will strip off more copper from the bullets than usual until the burrs wear off. The cooper turns into a plasma and settles in the lands of the barrel. If he's seeing big long streaks, I don't think it's the bronze residue from the brush, but copper fouling.



I bet it's not brush residue at all, it's probably copper fouling because the barrel is just getting "broken in". Please see above, or some of the barrel break in threads for the explanation as to why you'd see this much heavy copper fouling after 37 rounds.


The Remington 700 isn't all that prestigious, and their barrels aren't anything super special over any other brand. If you run a bore scope through them, you'll see all kinds of imperfections because they're a factory rifle coming off of an assembly line, just like lots of others. I'd be careful cleaning with brushes just because if you're not careful, you can cause problems with your barrel by overcleaning. Lots of us don't even use brushes at all. I'd read this about barrel break in, so you know what is causing this and let it put your mind at rest. http://forum.pafoa.org/general-2/678...rel-break.html . The barrel is still smoothing out.




Moly isn't going to be the answer the OP's "problem". Some shooters like moly, and nowadays it's a bit more of a passing fad than anything else. Moly was toted as the end all be all for a while, and people really liked it. They got a little better velocities than they did with their naked bullets, and some people felt like they got less fouling with it. One thing was certain, and that was that the bullets didn't shoot in the same place when you compared a non moly coated bullet to a moly coated bullet. That usually didn't matter because usually if you shot only one or the other (moly coated or not), they still shot and grouped just fine. Nowadays, lots of people decided that they didn't like moly coated bullets because the moly in the barrel tended to gather moisture and they had to deal with wax to seal the moly on. Another problem was something called "outgassing" from the moly at "low" temperatures relative to what you see with firearms. Most people who were serious about moly have now moved on to other coatings like Boron Nitride, since it doesn't have the drawbacks that moly does. So I hate to break it to you, but the Moly isn't the cause of the accuracy, and it also probably isn't the reason that he "hasn't seen a blue patch" ever since then.

Something else to keep in mind is that not all cleaners have indicators on them, and not all solvents clean copper. Lots of times the indicator is just that, an indicator and may not actually have all that big of an effect on the copper. Just some things for everyone to think about, and I hope that the post helps the OP.

Then JB bore compound followed by a few fire lap bullets should solve the problem. Brownells started selling kits for fire lapping. I've never done it, just to be clear. I have used JB and it works as they claim. I know you have to start the lapping clean.

[Tomcat088]

Then JB bore compound followed by a few fire lap bullets should solve the problem. Brownells started selling kits for fire lapping. I've never done it, just to be clear. I have used JB and it works as they claim. I know you have to start the lapping clean.

The barrel may not need to be lapped at all. ALL barrels will foul pretty bad until they're broken in and the throat smooths out. My Krieger barrel on my custom rifle was hand lapped and looked like a mirror, even with the bore scope. The whole barrel may not be a problem, it could just be the throat, which is normal. You don't need any special fire lapping kit, or abrasive bullets to get the throat smoothed out and broken in. You just need to shoot it, and sometimes it takes a little bit to get the copper build up out.