A post from someone not Selling Copper Removal Products, the affects of ammonia

M

movalone

Guest
Ok, if you look in 2006, I bought a browning with a stainless barrel and made a post after cleaning it. Before I ever shot it, I ran Sweet's 7.62 in it and all I did was dry patch it out. So, I never put a coat of oil in the bore after only "dry patching." I have since shot about 200 rounds out of this gun. It has always shot fantastic groups and nothing has changed.

Funny thing is, I bought a gun after it and wouldn't dare put ammonia in it because of what I heard and it doesn't shoot near as good.

Here is the thing. Maybe it does have a microscopic pit, maybe it is "etched," but it shoots like a dream.

Frankly, I don't think the oil does anything but keep it from rusting after you use ammonia. I did coat the bore a day or two later. But over night and part of the next day at least, the bore was only dry patched to remove the Sweet's.

Here are my live results, I believe Ammonia won't hurt a thing. Rust will, and damage that was there before shows up, but the ammonia isn't the problem.

Oh, and if your barrel pits, does it really matter if it shoots great anyway. I have heard that the pits begin to fracture because of the ammonia. Well, I will let you know when mine starts, lol.
 
The problems stem from the use of aqueous ammonia, not really relevant.

Around here you won't find a heap of rednecks arguing about Sweets wrecking bores.

Now, posting that a Browning actually shoots good on the other hand doesn't give you any credibility points!!! ;)

LOL

al
 
What I've read of any problem of the bore becoming etched involved much stronger ammonia based solutions left standing in the bore, and the etched ring occurred only at the interface of the liquid level and air.
If a bore was filled, past the muzzle by using a length of tubing stretched over the muzzle, and no air allowed to contact the bore there was no etching effect.

I've plugged the chamber of a badly fouled old rifle and filled it less than a quarter full of Sweets or other copper solvents while leaving a rod with loosely fitted patch in the bore. I'd check it every so often and pull the patch slowly up to the muzzle to insure that the entire bore remained wetted by the solvent.
A bore that had looked clean would still have enough copper in it that after letting the solvent stand for a day it came out looking like used motor oil , thick and black as tar.

PS
Surface blemishes can in fact improve accuracy.
No bore, no matter how pretty it looks from either end, will be as mirror polished as it was before the first few rounds are fired.
Studies on fouling indicated that a highly polished bore actually gathered more copper fouling, though it was easier to clean that fouling out.
Bores with near microscopic pitting were found to hold tiny globules of lubricant that acted like ball bearing under pressure, letting the bullet slide over them without contacting the bore.

The effect is much like that of a engines cylinder. These are honed in a very fine crosshatched pattern to give motor oil a surface it can cling to. Once the surface of the cylinder wears smooth and shiny the oil can't find a purchase and no longer can remain on the cylinder wall long enough to lubricate the rings.

The "seasoning" effect of course is only beneficial so long at any surface pitting is near microscopic, any larger and the reverse is more often true.
 
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Just as many medicines are poisons which we can tolerate, some of these products and procedures are the same. Don't use them if you aren't sick. On the other hand, I once soaked a barrel in ammonia for hours, then rinsed it and soaked it in muratic acid. It was terminal, now it has some useful life. I wouldn't recommend it for a healthy barrel.
 
One thing I can say about ammonia is simply this. I have yet to have one of our top barrel makers tell me it's good in their barrels.

Maybe folks don't know this, but ammonia in the presents of air, eventually turns into and oil. I haven't been bitten by coating a barrel in oil to protect it from corrosion since I was a kid cleaning old military rifles coated with cosmoline.

I have long since followed the military and dry store. I have unpacked and re packed hundreds if not thousands of barrels, the ones that show corrosion were never the dry stored barrels, it's all ways been the barrels with oil or grease that had the damage.

Just my experience.:eek:
 
Big Al said:
One thing I can say about ammonia is simply this. I have yet to have one of our top barrel makers tell me it's good in their barrels.

Maybe folks don't know this, but ammonia in the presents of air, eventually turns into and oil. I haven't been bitten by coating a barrel in oil to protect it from corrosion since I was a kid cleaning old military rifles coated with cosmoline.

I have long since followed the military and dry store. I have unpacked and re packed hundreds if not thousands of barrels, the ones that show corrosion were never the dry stored barrels, it's all ways been the barrels with oil or grease that had the damage.

Just my experience.:eek:
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Far too much humidity down here to store without any protective coating.

It has been noted that cosmoline left in place for years will dry and shrink away from the surface and creat air spaces were moisture can collect. Rusting under cosmoline is an occasional problem with rifles left in storage long past the time when they were supposed to be cleaned and inspected then repacked.

In a dry climate clean steel might not be as subject to corrosion.

I've left a rifle packed away for over five years with only a thin wipe down of EZOX. Unfortunately no stores around here carry it these days, and my cat knocked over the bottle letting almost all of it seep out.

That seems to be a good product but thanks to that darned cat I haven't had a chance to give it much of a test.
Not entirely the cat's fault since the plastic bottle it came it developed a bulge in the bottom that made it easy to tip over anyway.
 
movalone said:
Ok, if you look in 2006, I bought a browning with a stainless barrel and made a post after cleaning it. Before I ever shot it, I ran Sweet's 7.62 in it and all I did was dry patch it out. So, I never put a coat of oil in the bore after only "dry patching." I have since shot about 200 rounds out of this gun. It has always shot fantastic groups and nothing has changed.

Funny thing is, I bought a gun after it and wouldn't dare put ammonia in it because of what I heard and it doesn't shoot near as good.

Here is the thing. Maybe it does have a microscopic pit, maybe it is "etched," but it shoots like a dream.

Frankly, I don't think the oil does anything but keep it from rusting after you use ammonia. I did coat the bore a day or two later. But over night and part of the next day at least, the bore was only dry patched to remove the Sweet's.

Here are my live results, I believe Ammonia won't hurt a thing. Rust will, and damage that was there before shows up, but the ammonia isn't the problem.

Oh, and if your barrel pits, does it really matter if it shoots great anyway. I have heard that the pits begin to fracture because of the ammonia. Well, I will let you know when mine starts, lol.
Click to expand...

Check this out from Speedy on how to make use of Sweets 7.62: http://www.varminthunters.com/tech/sgycleaning.html.
 
Anyone no how much ammonia is in Butch's. Sweet's is 5% and it works great! I know the ol browning isn't as impressive as your guns, but it shoots the same groups it always has and this is two years after the ammonia was left in, so all I was saying is no cracking blah blah blah.
 
Old Gunner said:
Far too much humidity down here to store without any protective coating.

It has been noted that cosmoline left in place for years will dry and shrink away from the surface and creat air spaces were moisture can collect. Rusting under cosmoline is an occasional problem with rifles left in storage long past the time when they were supposed to be cleaned and inspected then repacked.

In a dry climate clean steel might not be as subject to corrosion.

I've left a rifle packed away for over five years with only a thin wipe down of EZOX. Unfortunately no stores around here carry it these days, and my cat knocked over the bottle letting almost all of it seep out.

That seems to be a good product but thanks to that darned cat I haven't had a chance to give it much of a test.
Not entirely the cat's fault since the plastic bottle it came it developed a bulge in the bottom that made it easy to tip over anyway.
Click to expand...


It is what is known as the Vapor Phase that does you the dirt. The way to protect from the Vapor Phase is by dry packing. No known petroleum product protects against the Vapor Phase. This is why the military long ago moved away from any coatings for storage, instead switched over to dry absorption packaging. This is why you see silica packaging on so many products we buy today.

You can not stop metal from going through this vapor phase, all you can do is deal with it by absorption, or by raising the temperature in hopes of driving out the moisture.:D
 
This is why the military long ago moved away from any coatings for storage, instead switched over to dry absorption packaging.
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The military also went to chrome lined bores or stainless steel barrels at about that time frame.

I think I'll stick to balistol for now.
Besides the fact that it never stops working to dissolve residual fouling, its chemical nature bonds free oxygen into non oxidizing compounds. No oxygen can get past it to touch the metal.
Another great feature of Balistol is that it contains no know carcinogens. Its so safe they use it to clean meat cutting equipment in restaurants and recommend it as a field expediant wound cleanser and disinfectant for dogs and horses. Kills ticks too.
If half what they say about it is true its probably safer than 90% of the additives in the food we eat, which ain't saying much.

movalone said:
Anyone no how much ammonia is in Butch's. Sweet's is 5% and it works great! I know the ol browning isn't as impressive as your guns, but it shoots the same groups it always has and this is two years after the ammonia was left in, so all I was saying is no cracking blah blah blah.
Click to expand...

If you are speaking of fire cracking or crazecracking these , like the very similar "gator cracking" are not caused by solvents, they are a very common phenomena of any high powered propellant charge, usually present to a greater or lesser degree in any high powered rifle bore after the first few shots.
Copper and carbon gather in these tiny fissues and make them more visible to a bore scope.
Gator cracking in the grooves is one reason carbon can be so hard to remove.
It gives the carbon a microscopically roughened surface to cling to. Sort of like sand blasting gives primer and paint something to cling too when painting a car.

Sweets works great on fresh copper fouling, but not as great on some other types of fouling.
My ill fortune is to almost always get a rifle that some previous owner had fired much and cleaned little, if at all.
Its also been said that firing rounds loaded with differing propellants between cleaning can produce an aggregate of fouling residues that are many times more difficult to deal with than fouling of a single propellant source.

If open base FMJ bullets are used atomised lead is added to the mix, like pigment in a paint, toughening the mixture and preventing solvents from soaking through as effectively.
 
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"The military also went to chrome lined bores or stainless steel barrels at about that time frame.

I think I'll stick to balistol for now.
Besides the fact that it never stops working to dissolve residual fouling, its chemical nature bonds free oxygen into non oxidizing compounds. No oxygen can get past it to touch the metal.
Another great feature of Balistol is that it contains no know carcinogens. Its so safe they use it to clean meat cutting equipment in restaurants and recommend it as a field expediant wound cleanser and disinfectant for dogs and horses. Kills ticks too.
If half what they say about it is true its probably safer than 90% of the additives in the food we eat, which ain't saying much."

Where your thinking breaks down on this is the idea that the moisture comes from the outside of the metal! This is what the vapor phase is all about. It comes from the metal itself. The liners have nothing to do with this type of packing. All arsenal parts for ordnance are packed this way. Many military firearms have no liners in the barrels. Think about all the bolts and bolt carriers, tons of other parts, machine tools, it goes on forever. All dry packaged.

All due to this vapor phase. A tour of Aberdeen Proving Grounds, the packaging center for ordnance, will give you the information of what decades of research and testing has proven. They do all the services packaging after testing for all ordnance. The largest Naval guns and all artillery.

Just for fun, take a look at pages 264 and 265 of your Brownells catalog number 61. Read about the packaging for storage.:)
 
Where your thinking breaks down on this is the idea that the moisture comes from the outside of the metal! This is what the vapor phase is all about. It comes from the metal itself. The liners have nothing to do with this type of packing. All arsenal parts for ordnance are packed this way. Many military firearms have no liners in the barrels. Think about all the bolts and bolt carriers, tons of other parts, machine tools, it goes on forever. All dry packaged.

All due to this vapor phase. A tour of Aberdeen Proving Grounds, the packaging center for ordnance, will give you the information of what decades of research and testing has proven. They do all the services packaging after testing for all ordnance. The largest Naval guns and all artillery.

Just for fun, take a look at pages 264 and 265 of your Brownells catalog number 61. Read about the packaging for storage.:)
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Interesting.
I don't have a recent Brownells Catalog. Is there an online source I can examine.
I'd not heard of this before, and all the used military parts I've ever handled were packed in grease of some type.

There are dry lube protectorants used for artillery bores and EZOX is supposed to turn to a dry film. Perhaps it works as a one way vapor barrier letting any moisture trapped in the metal to push through but not the other way round.

I remember one dry film lube demonstrated for use with the .50 BMG barrels that was so efficient that you could up end the barrel then tap it with a mallet and all the fouling would just fall out of a bore without use of any cleansing agents.
Another similar product was used on an artillery piece which they left in the rain for months in a humid environment.

I've of course seen vapor phase inhibitor paper wrapped parts of various types from civilian sources, but those were new production that had not seen any service and would have been dry lubed or otherwise coated at the factory.
I've also opened boxes of auto parts, such as valve lifters, stored in this manner and found large patches of rust on polished surfaces.

Climate controlled storage, along with inspection regime, would be necessary I'd think.
Its much easier to inspect items which aren't coated with grease, and much easier to put them in order for rapid deployment.

PS
Found a site with a list of milspec dry film protectants for use with dry storage.
Also I remember that a friend once worked on the construction of a climate controled gun room for a local collector. It cost around $150,000 for that single room. The collection is worth several million, mostly ultra rare Flintlocks from what he said.
 
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Let your fingers do the walking and shop at home.

http://www.brownells.com/


While you are there, order a catalog on line. The catalog is a lot easier to find stuff than on-line. I think Brownells has the worst search engine of any but perhaps Sinclairs. Oh yeah, I forgot, they are the same company now.

They should fire their entire IT staff and send them back to the corn fields. :mad:
 
The problem with.......

petroleum as a preservative is the fact that it is an organic compound, which forms an acid, I believe, as a result of deterioration over time. Ballistol uses Banana acid IIRC, which is responsible for the copper removal, someone told me the acid will attack copper, but is too weak for steel?? Is this the right info?:)
 
brian roberts said:
petroleum as a preservative is the fact that it is an organic compound, which forms an acid, I believe, as a result of deterioration over time. Ballistol uses Banana acid IIRC, which is responsible for the copper removal, someone told me the acid will attack copper, but is too weak for steel?? Is this the right info?:)
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"Banana acid"? How about Banana "oil"? Same as old Hoppies #9. We all know how poor that works on copper.

As a young wild and crazy guy, I thought that by putting a little dab of number nine on, I could attract females with a love of firearms. It would repel liberal women and all gun haters. Banana oil is used more as and odorant, than for any actual benefit.

P.S My wife is a gun lover, and hates the smell of banana oil, go figure.
 
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