Nylon vs. Bronze

[virg]

Respectfully...completly...disagree...

Today's nylon brushes clean as well as bronze. Never use a bronze brush with bore solvent. You will find copper stain coming from the brush, not the bore.

In my 20yr benchrest experience...and observing other shooters at local, state, and national matches, bronze brushes are the preferred cleaning brush by over 95 percent. They do a much faster and better job than the nylon brushes.

When one has 30 minutes between matches to reload, clean, and BS, speed counts.

virg

 

[Nader]

Kind of off the track here, but as long as we are gonna talk about cleaning again and Veterans day is tomorrow,does anyone have a historical perspective on how our forefathers cleaned their rifles ? What type of rods patches,brushes, solvents etc were used ( and how often)during WW-2,Korea,Vietnam and in more recent military history ?
Thank you, to all of our Veterans for defending our freedom.
Joel

 

[tim]

Hey Joel I'm guessing by the fact that a lot of those Springfiends and Mausers got some fugly bores...once they got in the field...not much. Probably why so many guys shoot pristine vintage military guns from Sweeden, and/or anything surplus from France...never fired.
By the way you planning on trying to hit a few matches here over the winter? It's my understanding at least three Canastota matches count for the Betty Crocker baking trophy[hint].

 

[Nader]

Tim,
I currently workin' on some venison acquisition,the chili-cheese dip was a big hit last year.After I get stocked up on meat I'll turn my focus on baked goods.
Ok, good as time as any to tell my 6.5 Jap story---------------
So my dad gives me this war souvenier,an Arisaka with a bayonet,after jabbing the bayonet into all the old upholstery I could find I decided it was time to shoot this thing. So I read a few articles about having old military rifles "tested" by a "competent gunsmith" before fireing. So I go to a gun shop in L.A. that adverstised guns and gunsmithing. I ask the gunsmith if he could "test" the Jap rifle,assuming that a "competent gunsmith" would have some kind of pressure testing device ? or some way of determining the soundness of the action(the magazine article seemed to imply this). Anyway,the gunsmith looks left, right and over his shoulder and says to me "here's what ya do,take the rifle and an old tire out in the desert,stick the butt of the gun in the tire,tie a string to the trigger,get behind a big rock and yank the string,if the gun dosn't blow up you're all set".So out to the desert I go,gun goes boom,nothin blows up. Next chance I get I'm at the South Coast gun club( now long gone),in an orange grove south east of Anaheim for some serious target work,I shoot a round of some surplus Jap ? military ammo that I got at the gun shop and the hole in the target is a sideways rip about an in long ? couple more shots,more sideways rips,upon returning home,cleaning the gun and looking down the bore with a flashlight I realize that there is no rifling for the last 4" of barrel ! All I could figure was some Jap soldier cleaned this rifle on Saipan with a crooked coat hanger,but then where would a Jap soldier on Saipan in WW2 get a coat hanger from ?
We certainly have the luxury today of quality firearms and quality cleaning products.
Joel

 

[Pete Wass]

My perspective:

I have been not cleaning for the entire agg for a couple of years. I have been ambivilent about this practice during this time, I must say. A couple of years ago I got a bore scope. Since having the bore scope I have noticed that there is a layer of carbon lain down on the lands, thicker or perhaps harder the closer one gets to the chamber. In some barrels there will be one or two lands that will have the bulk of the carbon layer and in some, all of the lands will have the black streaks. The streaks extend quite far forward in some cases.

Once one starts to clean the carbon off, one can see that it has a definate thickness to it and it often comes off in various sized chunks; leaving irregular formations as one goes. Last week I decided to clean the barrel on my VFS rifle. It has a Lilja 1-16 barrel on it which has been set back a bit because it use to live on another rifle. It took me the better part of a week, to get all the carbon out of the barrel. I had shot around 200 rounds through the barrel over 4 days, cleaning after each day. I would clean until I got what appeared to be a clean patch; no bore scope to look with there.


Two questions I have are 1, Why do some barrels only carbon up one or two lands and 2. If this carbon is being lain down and not ever taken off, how does it's presence affect accuracy over time? Does it substitute for barrel wear or are we deceiving ourselves about the fact that is is there. Most of the last carbon deposit on the lands of the Lilja about 6" ahead of the chamber took 4 doses of Iosso after letting it sit in the barrel overnight. I took that to mean the carbon was baked on . One would never have seen this without a bore scope. Something else: What I have called Fierecracking on some barrels in the past ended up being the baked on carbon.

I have noticed barrels will start to copper foul more and more as time goes on them. Most of them would either not copper foul or foul very little when new but as time goes on, copper becomes more and more present. It will also lay in places that looks strange; patches here and there and ofen thin lines in the grooves. The surface of the barrel where these deposits appear seen through the scope seems no different than when they were new.

I will say I do not believe I see a loss in accuracy over a day's shooting but I can't be sure with any kind of certainty that there is no loss in accuracy. It is difficult to imagine that baking carbon on one's lands over time is a good thing, isn't it? I don't think it is and It will not remove itself .

All 30 cal rifles by the way and DanZak coated bullets.

P.S.

Several years ago, I bought a 788 on a whim and have not done anything with it until this year. I decided I wanted to hunt with it this year. After "cleaning" it, I ran the scope into it. I was disapointed, I must say. I saw what appeard to be rust pits both large and small throughout the bore. I decided to try to brush what rust scale I could out of it. I went at it with a brass brush and then patched. The color of the residue was not BROWN, it was BLACK. I kept at it and after awhile, some of the rust pits came clear of the bore. I was actually seeing carbon deposits which looked through the scope like pits when they were actually protrusions. There did end up being some pits but what appeard to be the worst of them disappeared with rigerous brushing, Iosso and patches galore. CARBON!!!!

 

[Old Gunner]

Kind of off the track here, but as long as we are gonna talk about cleaning again and Veterans day is tomorrow,does anyone have a historical perspective on how our forefathers cleaned their rifles ? What type of rods patches,brushes, solvents etc were used ( and how often)during WW-2,Korea,Vietnam and in more recent military history ?
Thank you, to all of our Veterans for defending our freedom.
Joel

The British used rolls of annealed mild steel wire mesh afixed to a pull through cord to try to remove built up hard baked carbon and Cupro-Nickel fouling. Another very dangerous practice resorted to due to carbon build up was to place lengths of iron wire in a loop and first push them into the bore so the sharp clipped edges were pointed back towards the breech then pull the wires back to cut into built up carbon and lead deposits. They also used mild abrasive pastes and Crocus Cloth if trying to salvage a lightly pitted bore.
In US service, at least before WW2, privates were not allowed to try to remove Cupro-Nickel fouling, if a bore was badly fouled the private turned his rifle in to his sergeant and the non com either cleaned the bore or sent it on to an armorer to be cleaned using a very toxic chemical solution left standing in the plugged bore.
I think bronze brushes were available before WW2 but they also used Bronze wire gauze on a jag to cut hard deposits, similar to the wire mesh used to clean revolver forcing cones.
Chambers were cleaned using a brush that had both wire and hairlike bristles.
The Garand chamber brush has a one way rotation collar so it can be turned at the open breech.
During our Civil war muskets were often cleaned using ashes from a campfire as a mild abrasive cleaner and to polish the outside of the barrels which were usually left in the white. Soap would be used when possible but plain water was easier to get, and muskets were sometimes simply laid in rush creeks and then dried and oiled after the water had washed away powder fouling.
Special musket balls with zinc washers were fired every so often to scrape away lead fouling.

For more info I suggest you Download "Farrow's manual of Military Training" and "Hatcher's Notebook". Free downloads of the first are found at the Internet Archive, and dowloads of Hatchers can be found at Scribnet.

Corrosive primers were the most common for military ammo through WW2 and later, with only M1 Carbine ammo given non corrosive primers when possible to preserve its tapet valve type short stroke piston.

According to info found on an Indian site too often Indian gun owners believe that water alone can clean a bore, due to its use in disolving corrosive salts. If not properly cleaned with solvents and then oiled these rifles become badly corroded in a short time.

PS
I'll try to post a collection of links to historical works on rifles, shooting, and cleaning.
There are a great many public domain gun books available at the Internet Archive and on Google Books.

 

[f d shuster]

carbon & borescope

Pete Wass: So much of your post is exactly what I've seen and learned with my "Hawkeye" that I bought 4 yrs. ago. Without it, I would still be stumbling around in the dark (ages?). Carbon I see in most of my barrels begins about 6" in front of the throat, sometimes covering the "tops" of the lands only, and other times seems to collect in the grooves. In most barrels the carbon layer extends for about 10" or 12", then is fairly free of carbon to the muzzle. Prior to getting the borescope, when the patches came out clean, I thought the barrel was clean, when of course, it was not. My most effective method for getting it out is JB applied directly to a bronze brush, 10 to 20 push strokes, chamber to muzzle, wash out with JB, dry, and with the borescope, all traces of carbon are gone. My Krieger,Hart & Shilen barrels get the "treatment" about every 100 to 150 rds. Can't speak for all barrels/cartridges, but with the 204 (gone now) the first 10 to 15 rds. fired from a truly clean barrel were very good, excellent groups. Then it would all go downhill, real fast. Would stop after 30 or so rounds, clean out powder fouling and the bore looked like a coal mine with extreme carbon buildup. Same problem no matter which of the most popular powders I used. Scrub out the carbon to a clean surface, fire 10 to 15 rds., and do it all over again. I also have seen what I thought was some serious firecracking, when it was the surface of the carbon layer(s) with the alligator skin appearance, and not the bare surface. I never stop learning with the aid of the "Hawkeye". Without it, you are guessing what is going on inside the barrel. (note) above "wash out with JB" should read "wash out with Hoppes".