Never ending "blue"

T

Travelor

New member
I have started trying to get one of my target rifles so clean that when I use a copper solvent soaked patch and then patch out after leaving the bore "wet" for 2-3 minutes , I get zero blue on a patch . I know the first answer I should be asking - "why did I let the barrel get this way?" And my feeble and lame answer is that with Butch's Bore Dhime the blue stopped coming out. so I thought the bore was copper free

This has become a real "never ending story" as I am on the second day of patching and waiting and still blue............ I'm now at about 20 or so cycles of patches wetted with Barret's Heavy Duty Bore Cleaner then patching out with a clean patch.

I have used a plastic slotted tip and pulled the wet patch with solvent through from the muzzle to eliminate the possibility of getting the bronze fitting of the cleaning rod to shedding any copper. I am still getting blue which to me indicates copper in the barrel.

Ideas? Comments? (keep them civil please).

Anyone ever tried to get a clean, clean, clean barrel doing this? My normal routine has been to run two patches soaked with Butch's Bore Shine followed by a though brushing with a bronze brush wetted with Butch's and patching out and then a patch damp with Butch's Gun Oil before putting the gun away. The gun has 2500+ rounds through it and the barrel is a Krieger 30" Palma.

George
 
JB bore paste with a tight patch. About 25 strokes. Repeat three times and clean with Koil. After barrel is dry then check with bore scope. Should be clear and clean.
 
So, you finally get every last bit of copper out.

What do you suppose the bore looks like after the first couple of shots.

It has been my experience that with cut rifled barrels, such as a Krieger, getting it down to nothing but bare metal is not only unneccessary, it is not desireable.........jackie
 
Jackie,

I mostly agree. But when you start out with a "dirty" barrel I have found the best solution is to go to detail clean for a starting point. After detail cleaning it will usually take two to five shots for the barrel to stabilize.
 
The Solvents:

There has been lots of discussion in the past on here about bore solvents. I have tried a number of them and had settled on Eliminator as it would show Blue after the others had stopped working.

In one of those discussions a fellow who makes KG2 chimed in that he sold the best copper removal solvent. Only problem was, it wasn't easy to buy a sample. He wanted to sell a lorge quantity and the handeling and freight was up there too, as I recall. I opted not to buy any.

A number of months goes by and I was in a big store; could have been a Cabelas but anyway I spotted a 4 oz bottle of the KG2. I bought it and it hung around in my gun room for a few more months.

I finaly have started to use it. While at the Nationals I visited with a well know Bullet Maker and noticed he was using the KG2. I asked him about it and he said he had been using it. He said he thought it was about like Remclean or JB or Iosso.

I have used mine some and find that it clings to the bore and is hard to wash out. I think it may suppose to cling by it's design. It does work like JB. Now, some are gonna cringe here but I have found the most effective way to use it so far is on a bronze brush. It WILL clean a barrel when applied with a Bronze brush.

The problem with carbon, and We know who has it, is that it gets lain down in fromt of the chamber and becomes exceedingly difficult to remove if one doesn't remove it on a frquent basis. Does it harm anything? I don't know but I hate seeing it when I look through my borescope into what I believed was a clean barrel. I have to believe that the carbon will, over time, build up to a harmful level, causing deteriation in accuracy. Often what looks like Firecracking is actually burned on carbon.

I think it is important to keep fouling to a managable level but knowing what that lever is becomes the quandry I have. Approaching 40 cents per 30 caliber bullet, it becomes an expensive proposition shooting a number of foulers because one has cleaned their barrel too much.

My advice is to stop using solvent expecting wonders and use the gritty type cleaners to remove both copper and carbon. Use the solvent as a washing agent to get the gritty stuff out. The kroil works well to wash the cleaner and dirt in general out of barrels.
 
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George,

Have you cleaned the chamber? Maybe you're dragging copper from there.

All that aside, was the barrel shooting acceptably before you started your crusade? Was the first clean barrel sighter in the group or predictable? If the answers are "yes", why bother?

John
 
Sweets

7.63 & a stiff bronze brush let it soak 15 minutes then repeat & patch it out
 
Thanks guys, I appreciate the time you all spent in answering my questions and the advice. I will take them to heart and see what happens.

I have a 2 day 1000 yard match this weekend and we will see what happens.

George
 
Patch Out W/Accelerator works for me. The only exceptions have been a savage factory barrel in .204 that tends to take more than one application, but it always comes clean, and a Cooper Tac 20 that I bought used. It took four applications before it came clean. The third pulled spirals of copper along with some chunks. After that first time, no problem. I noticed in T. Boyer's book, he uses the same.

YMMV,
Rick
 
With that number of rounds, it is possible that your barrel has started to "allagator" in the throat. This will strip copper off of a bullet like a file. Careful abrasive cleaning may be in order, as the degree of copper accumulation in a barrel in this condition makes solvent cleaning an excessively long process that is reversed on the first shot after cleaning. Different bore conditions may dictate radically different cleaning routines.
 
Greyfox said:
Patch Out W/Accelerator works for me. The only exceptions have been a savage factory barrel in .204 that tends to take more than one application, but it always comes clean, and a Cooper Tac 20 that I bought used. It took four applications before it came clean. The third pulled spirals of copper along with some chunks. After that first time, no problem. I noticed in T. Boyer's book, he uses the same.

YMMV,
Rick
Click to expand...

who sells the stuff?
gary
 
Most all the major distributors AFAIK. I get it locally, but I think I've bought it from both Midway and Sinclair.

Rick
BTW- Patch Out is the same stuff as Wipe Out, but it doesn't foam. It just goes in on a patch. It's a lot less messy than the foam cleaners.
 
+1 for Patch out.
I`ve been using it or Wipe Out for the last 5-6 years and will never go back to the old solvents. One caution, it doesn`t seem to work as well on carbon as the others so if you think you`re getting build up in the throat of your rifle you might want to sub JB or Rem clean every so often to keep it down.
 
Travelor said:
I have started trying to get one of my target rifles so clean that when I use a copper solvent soaked patch and then patch out after leaving the bore "wet" for 2-3 minutes , I get zero blue on a patch .
Ideas? Comments?
George
Click to expand...

You actually posted this on at least two shooting forums.

Sounds like you want a cleaning forum.

What's important is how a rifle shoots. You're obsessed with something else.
 
If you are using brass jags then good luck not getting "blue" on your patches anytime. Brass is part copper and zinc. Copper cleaning compounds may just make a patch turn blue from the copper in the jag.

John M. Carper
 
Just curious:

I have noticed over the years that more and more folks have forsaken brushes, especially bronze brushes. I am wondering why?

Thanks,

Pete
 
Carp said:
If you are using brass jags then good luck not getting "blue" on your patches anytime. Brass is part copper and zinc. Copper cleaning compounds may just make a patch turn blue from the copper in the jag.

John M. Carper
Click to expand...




Well I just never see this . I just wrapped a BBS soaked patch around a brass jag, let sit for several minutes and.......nadda ...no blue. And actually the BBS soaked patch and brass jag spend fleeting moments together in their solo trip down the tube. If it comes out blue it's either copper in the bore or residual blue from the bronze brush you just pushed through it. Now a bronze brush is another story, it will turn a solvent patch blue in an instant
 
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IF this does NOT get the copper out, buy a better barrel!........ Jan

Barrel Cleaning Formula


2 parts 34% ammonia
1 part Sunlight dish washing soap
1 part White Vinegar
1 part MEK
 
LHSmith,
Bronze brushes have a bit of copper in them also. Maybe the difference in brass and bronze (I'm no chemist) with these bore cleaners would react more with the brushes that are bronze. Sorry for just mentioning the jags.

John M. Carper


Well I just never see this . I just wrapped a BBS soaked patch around a brass jag, let sit for several minutes and.......nadda ...no blue. And actually the BBS soaked patch and brass jag spend fleeting moments together in their solo trip down the tube. If it comes out blue it's either copper in the bore or residual blue from the bronze brush you just pushed through it. Now a bronze brush is another story, it will turn a solvent patch blue in an instant
 
Take a NEW brass brush and place it on a piece of plastic and pour some Butche's on it.
Let it sit about 15 min.
It will turn blue,,,mine do.
same with a most jags.

Here is another example.
I was trying to get the carbon out.
Always got black on the patch with a particular cleaner.
Sooooooooo I rag cleaned the outside of the barrel with laq thinner, acetone and then alcohol.
Then I took the carbon cleaner on a patch and rubbed the outside of the barrel (stainless steel) and wow it turned black.
Sort of like using brasso on clean brass,,,, it still turns black.
 
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