Sea Foam for barrel cleaning

B

Brian

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Has anyone tried an engine cleaner called "Sea Foam" to clean barrels with? It's supposed to be simular to the old GM Top Engine Cleaner. I was talking to a guy at a match who said it was great for carbon fouling. Anyone out there know anything about it?
 
Francis you are a wealth of knowledge. Now where can this stuff be bought or is it strictly mail order?

Dan
 
OK FB I have tried it and it seems to work B U T here is what is really going on.
Your patches will always come out with a hint of black on them.
I did this over and over till it dawned on me that Sea Foam and stainless do like brasso and brass.
To prove the point i took and cleaned the outside of the barrel with acetone then I put seafoam on it and let it sit a sec then took a seafoam wet patch and rubbed the OUTSIDE OF the barrel and the patch turned black.

Just to comfirm I recleaned the outside with everything and followed up with alcohol.
Then redid the test with seafoam and same thing a slight amount black on the patch, from the OUTSIDE of the barrel.

But it does seem to work good on the inside and the carbon.
 
FB I guess in a shorter version of what I am saying is .....that even after the barrel is clean it will still react with the stainless steel and create black on the patch. As per the above post just like brasso and brass or butches and a brass brush.
 
Pete only 1 in 100 or maybe even higher, own a bore scope. Wish I had one to see what was going on.

While were at it Pete from another thread,,,,, have you ever seen the very fine scratches in a bore caused by a bore brush?
 
I have a bore scope, and the answer is no. --greg

Vern said:
Pete only 1 in 100 or maybe even higher, own a bore scope. Wish I had one to see what was going on.

While were at it Pete from another thread,,,,, have you ever seen the very fine scratches in a bore caused by a bore brush?
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Seafoam can also be bought in a spray can...for use as an upper engine cleaner. I trested it on several grades of stainless and carbon steel over a period of time and saw no adverse effects. I have been useing it for about 3 months now and I thought I was really on to something different. It does a good job with the bore in my opinion. I buy mine exclusively at Oreilly Auto Parts !
 
You know the layering effect and how carbon and copper are in Layers.
I would clean out all of the sea foam and flush really well before using another bore cleaner. I'm not sure what the
Chemical reaction would be if you mixed different types of solvents From what i have seen and read in the past you have to be careful on whats left in the bore. All aside it might be just the ticket for removing carbon. I would use a stiff. Iosso brush with it.
 
I would opine that unless one actually is able to see the inside of their barrel they don't know if it is clean or has baked on carbon in it. I know that To be true for me. Before I had a borescope I would clean until I had a clean patch. After the Borescope I learned that even after a white patch I still almost always had baked on carbon in the first 4 inches ahead of my chamber.

A reasonably simple way to make sure one does not have any carbon is to stroke a tight fitting patch and I mean tight, soaked with JB or Iosso 10 or 12 times through their barrel after every day's shooting. This should keep the carbon out. I learned this from a friend in Florida this past winter. There is no point in using a loose fitting jag and patch for any reason I can think of.

I am in agreement with GLP. I have never seen any evidence of brush marks in a barrel. What I have seen however is dings in crowns caused by either brushes or jags bumping them.What one sees in barrels is marks from lapping when they were made and of course, tool marks made by whatever made the grooves.



Not enough attention is paid to the making good fitting bore guides . Most of them allow rods to sag thus alowing jags to bump crowns and the too vigirous usage of brushes also dings crowns. One should not allow their brush to completely exit their barrel before they pull it back through and SLOWLY, pull their jag back making sure it does not touch the crown.
 
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I'm with Pete on the crown damage done by sloppy cleaning methods. I've watched some shooters over the years drive the rod and patch at warp speed down the barrel, pushing 8-10" of rod out the muzzle, and while it is still whipping from side to side, haul it back in. Man, one ding in the crown and you can become uncompetitive. Careful, slow and just enough brush, patch exit from the muzzle to reverse the brush or drop the patch off is my goal in cleaning, and I'm sticking with my story. --Greg
 
I have used Sea Foam injector cleaner in my barrels for a year now even though I have many cans of the old GM top engine cleaner. I have more problems with carbon in my long range comp. rifles than in brs and ppcs and it seems that the Sea Foam does a better job with that extra fouling I get. The spray form of the Sea Foam is called "Deep Creep" and does a good job but not as fast as the injection cleaner. If you are getting a lot of black out of the barrel when you clean it then you are still getting carbon out. If you get down to a slight barely noticeable grey then I think you are finished. I switched when I used the GM then followed with the S F and got more out. Been using the S F ever since. The SF may be less toxic to humans also. I follow up the S F with Bore Tech that I find is better on copper then even Sweets.
 
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Well, I bought a can of the Sea Foam today at Advance Auto Parts. It costs $10.00 a 16oz can. Thats more than the old GM TEC (around $7.00) but still not to bad. Now to try it out.
 
Brian said:
Well, I bought a can of the Sea Foam today at Advance Auto Parts. It costs $10.00 a 16oz can. Thats more than the old GM TEC (around $7.00) but still not to bad. Now to try it out.
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Hey Brian, I too bought a 16oz can of Sea Foam today at Advance Auto Parts for 7.99 you got ripped off up thar. I think I'll try it on the outside pf the barrel first to see how much if any black coomes off. You need to drive all the way down to Tennessee to get a special deal on that stuff.:D

Dan Honert
 
Brian ...

Brian said:
Has anyone tried an engine cleaner called "Sea Foam" to clean barrels with? It's supposed to be simular to the old GM Top Engine Cleaner. I was talking to a guy at a match who said it was great for carbon fouling. Anyone out there know anything about it?
Click to expand...

Use JB Bore Cleaning Compound for Carbon Fouling!

Comments on JB Paste by a well known source:

"I personally believe in the use of JB Bore Cleaner... I use it after every yardage. 3 to 5 tight fitting patches with JB will get the powder fouling out... I do a full cleaning before I use JB and also after I use JB, to make certain I've got all the JB out of the barrel. ... Tony Boyer"

Source: The Benchrest Shooting Primer, ON THE TOPIC OF BARRELS, by Tony Boyer, Page 349, upper left.
 

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