carbon build up in 30 BR barrel

[Frank Green]

Uthink Uknow, You are correct and I agree on the cleaning and over cleaning etc...

Cleaning a RF barrel is different then cleaning a CF barrel in my opinion.

FBecigneul, I feel guys who use the paste cleaners and as you said the patches come out with the black color to them. I feel using the paste cleaners you are basically lapping the bore each time and I also feel you can make the bore to smooth which leads to a copper fouling situation and then guys blame the barrel/barrel maker that the barrel is bad because it fouls to much and doesn't hold accuracy etc....

I shot my F-Class gun again two weekends ago at a match. 75 rounds with no cleaning (you don't get no time to clean the gun during the match). The last match before that I shot it in, I shot nearly 100 rounds with no cleaning. I do clean after the match and normally just patches and solvent. Back to back matches. The caliber is .284win. and the barrel has just shy of 500 rounds on it. I won both matches and set two different range records. The last match at 500 yards I shot a 200-11x. The gun is holding 1/4moa to 1/3moa groups at any distance.

My short range bench gun last time I shot it.....the last five 5 shot groups the gun average a .177". One of the groups came in at .098". I kept the targets.....oh and by the way those last 5 groups the barrel had a 105 rounds on it total with out cleaning!

Again I feel more damage is done from cleaning than from anything else.

Later, Frank
Bartlein Barrels

[Boyd Allen]

Frank,
Thanks for sharing. That is some great shooting. Generally, in my limited experience, the larger the caliber (bore diameter) the greater the tolerance for fouling, and also, the lower the velocity all else being the same, the less that copper fouling comes into play.

On the paste thing, I have a friend that is getting a pretty good handle on his competition, short range benchrest shooting, and cleaning. As a result of some choices that he has made, I think that he should be able to go a lot longer without cleaning. Part of his recent routine, that seems to be working well, is to fill one of the softer, black bristled bore brushes with IOSSO and short stroke the back of the bore only, going perhaps 8" forward of the chamber, to cover the area where his normal cleaning (for LT32) has left behind carbon. Having done some experiments lapping barrels for both rimfire and center fire, and owning a bore scope, he has become very well educated as to the consequences of doing anything to make a CF barrel too smooth, especially in the front half to two thirds. This has not been a quick process, but by slowly getting a handle on several factors, he has arrived at his destination. The nylon brush and IOSSO in the back for carbon thing came directly from Tony Boyer, from the days when he was shooting T powder. All I did was pass it on, and for this particular powder and application, it seems to work very well. Because my friend has a bore scope, and has been chambering barrels for a long time, he is very aware of the consequences of cleaning that is sloppily done. Looking around at matches, I would have to say that this is not universal. Thanks for posting.

Boyd

[Pete Wass]

There is no way to ever know what condition exists inside one's barrel. I disagree somewhat regarding the concern of aggressive cleaning. If one has baked on, ironed on carbon, no amount of patches and chemicals are going to remove it. Considering barrels eventually fire crack and wear out, once one is carboned up a bunch it is close to toast anyway; depending on the barrel of course. Some of them shoot and set records looking like a moonscape. Carbon buildup often takes time but is insidious and once it's there, it will stay unless it is muscled out, from my experience. I have shot mostly 30 cal rifles in Benchrest since 1996 and have experienced about all that can be experienced. Some barrels are magnets to fouling and some clean up easily. Time usually pushes them toward the former category however.

The common thread between RF and CF barrels is carbon and it lays down about the same in either type barrel. The differences being lead and burned on wax in layers in RF barrels. I have come to believe that many barrels that folks give up on or that dwindle off in accuracy can be brought back to life with a bit of not worrying about scratching the inside and removing the fouling. Think about the lapping process. It is not a delicate process and scratches the steel, albeit in the same direction. Gordy Gritter either has made or is soon to make a video on lapping barrels for accuracy. Should be worth a look. He did say in the Youtube vid I saw him speak about this on that he uses 320, I think it was as his final finish. Paying attention to one's rod is quite important in this and developing a feel for the process and it's results is also very important. One can't be a bull about doing things and find success unless it is in an area where finesse isn't required.

Pete

[Dusty Stevens]

I hope everybody starts lapping their barrels.

[Pete Wass]

Pete must not know who you are Frank.

No text

[Boyd Allen]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1EqyKiSWTM

[Texas Plinker]

Every once in a while I insert a Sinclair Chamber Plug and the with the rifle sitting upright I fill the barrel with Bore Tech C4 Carbon Remover. I usually let it soak 12 to 24 hours, sometimes longer and then do a regular cleaning, usually starting with a stiff nylon brush. I have always been amazed at how black the first patch through the barrel is. I asked the technician at Bore Tech if it was harmful to soak the barrel for an extended amount of time and he said there was no time limit and that they had some barrels in a test tank that have been soaking for a couple of years and they check them out every so often and have yet to find any damage to a barrel.

[Lee Martin]

Good information guys. I can't speak to competitive barrels in anything over 6mm. Our 222s and 6 BR, plus soon to be PPC, get cleaned every 15 - 20 shots. Nothing too aggressive, just Kroil and Butch's (patches and bronze brush). We have a borescope and rountinely check them when swapped out. Material carbon build-up just hasn't been a problem (and we've used multiple barrel makes and powders in these guns). That said, if I pushed the round count higher it may be a differnent story.

I can't offer hard set rules, simply what I've found in shooting BR rigs over 26 years.

-Lee
www.singleactions.com

[shootsteady]

Steel bore brushes are made to clean, well, bores. I use them when I have carbon build up. I don't go crazy, just watch as I brush and not go to far. A few passes with hoppes and it's gone.

[alinwa]

Steel bore brushes are made to clean, well, bores. I use them when I have carbon build up. I don't go crazy, just watch as I brush and not go to far. A few passes with hoppes and it's gone.

Sooo Uhhthink...... you gonna' just STAND THERE? Aren't you or one of your alter egos in charge now? You're already in this exchange.....You gonna' just nod and bob while BRC trumpets the truth to the world that a steel brush and Hoppes is the answer to carbon buildup? After all, the man's short-stroking it, he's pulling out, ie "only putting the tip in"..... what could possibly go wrong?


"NOT speaking for BRC here, but Ol' Anilwa disagrees with this method

jus'sayin

[OliveOil]

I will agree the steel brush helps me to get rid of wad fouling in my chrome lined 12 gauge barrel. All in all, chrome layer is much harder than the steel brush which anyway I doubt to be steel and guess is iron wire.

Anyway I will never run something as hard or harder than the barrel material inside any barrel.

I have used the steel wool on bronze brush to remove ... lead fouling from a GLOCK barrel (nitrated bore). Never used it and never will on my GoldCup or wife's Para.

I use no abrasive paste in barrels, just JB. My thinking is that abrasive pastes are for "grit masters", lapping at barrel makers.

I am a firm believer in the bronze brush to scratch that carbon deposit just at the angle of the rifling. A patch can't apply any effort in that location, it is an angle. Solvent can go, bronze brush bristles can go there and apply effort to scratch the carbon deposit.

Just my opinion, maybe wrong, but I have some doubt about the plastic brush bristles ability to scratch the dirt out at rifling angle. Bristles are bigger, softer than bronze. Made some double cleaning trials on 30 HBR brl, was not convinced by the result.

Since that, I only use the plastic brush to carry amonia+H2O2 doped Ed's Red when I have a doubt on copper building (the bronze brush being eaten alive in less than a yardage, even if dump in a water keg in between cleaning).

I am always atonished to see how efficient solvents can be to remove carbon fouling. I recently gave Ed's Red a try at "just fired" case neck cleaning. Impressive result. At cleaning a BR brl after a match, second wet patch comes out clean.

I love Ed's Red. Price, efficacy, calcium sulfonate. I am using it to maintain all my barrels, includind BR, for almost 20 years, since we had all that ecoloshxixt which makes solvent export from the US impossible. Have been using Sinclair's in the 90's, then Montana Xtreme and Butch's for a decade before Planet Care Hysteria. So my switch to Ed's Red.

Recently, the wife had a batch of old cotton bed sheets she wanted to trash. The material is thinner that our usual cleaning patch, has less density, so I made some test cleaning a 30 brl with a batch of 1" x 4" patch cut in the old bed sheets.

It can carry much more solvent than our usual patch. I noticed I was catching much more carbon fouling using these, probably because that patch folds all along the cleaning jag (and even further back), so every jag's pressure rings are being effective and wet.

The first patch after brushing comes out much more "clean" than when I was using regular cleaning patches before brushing, which let me think I remove much more crud at wet patches step before brushing.

I will add I am not at ease with not cleaning during a yardage or a competition. Many many years ago, I was told by one of my mentor of a microscopic picture exposed at Hart. That was a barrrel cut picture, clearly putting in evidence numerous deposits at rifling angle, thin successive layers of carbon and copper.

That cumulative deposit of carbon after each shot makes sense to me. Each further shot will compress the existing deposit and add some more material. Maybe some barrels or most barrels keep high accuracy for a while, but for sure, they must be MUCH harder to clean.

[rsmithsr]

BETTER LIVING THRU BETTER CHEMISTRY.
let modern carbon cleaners do the work, save your arm.
metallic brushes are seldom seen in my bbls

[zippy06]

There are two kinds of carbon fouling. Carbon on down the barrel and the infamous carbon ring right at the junction of the neck and rifling.

For the latter, search on here for "carbon ring".

For the former, there are many ways to get it out and many different products. For the really stubborn stuff, I use repeated treatments of Bore Tech Carbon Remover and some scrubbing with a brass brush. Some folks use USP Bore Paste or Iosso.

Greg J

The carbon ring is left over solvent and carbon in the chamber after cleaning. It is trapped between the neck and shoulder of the chamber by the O-ring of the bore guide. When a new round is closed in chamber, the liquid is pushed around the chamber and stops at the chamber neck of the case. Some goes into the bore.
It gets cooked. Forms time after time after time. Most folks put a chamber mop with a patch on it into the chamber. If that patch does not come out dirty. Your chamber is still wet. This can be seen with a bore scope also. That's how I found it.
Cheap borescope plugs into any computer or phone. Win 10 has a camera program. Also used for the camera/skye mode.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I get this out with a plane bore mop. It comes out dirty. I wash it off with Break Kleene in the green can. Stores store have big cans of the stuff...

[zippy06]

Um. from 2014........oh, well. still applies...

[rsmithsr]

i disagree with the location and how it gets there.
by design there is a gap from the end of the case mouth and where the rifling begins.
it can be seen in any chamber drawing.
easily 15 thou sometimes more. this gap is where the ring forms when you fire the rifle.
a great place to grow a carbon ring
i spec all my reamers with .005-.007 gap....much less area to grow a carbon ring
i clean for carbon at the start of cleaning
( i trim to length on every reload)